In this review of Absolute Green Arrow #3, Dinah Lance has had a busy week between tracking the Green Arrow Killer to learning more about Oliver Queen’s past. Is it possible that Oliver is somehow still alive? Roy Harper sure thought so.
ABSOLUTE GREEN ARROW #3
Written by PORNSAK PICHETSHOTE
Art and Main Cover: RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE
Variant Covers: GERALD PAREL, DAN PANOSIAN, KYUYONG EOM, BECKY CLOONAN
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: 7/15/26
This review contains spoilers
Absolute Green Arrow #3 kicks off with a brief and brutal flashback as we learn how Dinah Lance earned the nickname “Black Canary”. Back in the present, Dinah gets help identifying the dead runaway found in Oliver Queen’s secret lab. Dinah lets a secret slip to her police contact Jack, and Dinah realizes how much her boss Hector Hammond is controlling the narrative on this case.
Dinah and Jack briefly discuss her father and mother before she flashes back to the trap she recently set for the Green Arrow Killer. Dinah and Hammond’s security continually get the drop on the killer, but time and again the vigilante escapes the brutal gauntlet with more kills. Back in the present Dinah confronts fugitive millionaire Roy Harper.
Harper admits to digging up Oliver Queen’s grave, but only to prove Oliver is alive. Dinah forces Harper to spill his past connection to Oliver, including their shared interest in archery. The pair arrive at another secret lab underneath a private airport, and Harper continues. It turns out that Oliver’s former partner Jubal was obsessed with anti-aging.
Absolute Green Arrow #3 ends as Harper leads Dinah to the underground lab, complete with the latest abandoned test subject still alive on the examining table. Within moments, the mysterious creature is revealed to be an enraged Solomon Grundy.
Analysis
Absolute Green Arrow #3 moves the narrative forward in unexpected and intriguing directions. Beyond a small focus on Dinah Lance’s past, to the major revelations of the secret connection between Roy Harper and Oliver Queen (over archery and wealth). Harper has more dastardly persona than his Earth 1 counterpart, but the bond with Oliver Queen remains the same, despite some of the ickier side effects from the anti-aging experiments.
Writer Pornsak Pichetshote pours on the classic DC references including mentions of Oliver’s sister Emiko, Dinah’s Black Canary moniker and Miraclo. Pichetshote also uses the story as commentary on the various social ills of modern society. The surprising (but not shocking) sequence where the wounded Green Arrow Killer is rushed to safety by a pair of bystanders amid a hail of gunfire illustrates the new status quo.
How could a demoralized generation find a hero in someone who targets their oppressors? Stranger things have happened and despite the gruesome methods, the Killer is racking up a massive following along with their body count. Pichetshote concocts a thrilling and unsettling peek behind the curtain of the rich and shameless where money and power can control almost everything.
The Killer proves themselves remarkably resourceful and determined, nearly dispatching an entire kill squad (and Dinah Lance) on their own. Dinah continues to be the linchpin of the story as a flawed, tragic and sympathetic character. Amid the darkness, corruption and violence of Star City, Dinah’s tarnished heart of gold shines brightest.
Is Oliver Queen alive as Roy Harper claims? Not from faking his own death, but by possibly having been reanimated by the secret experiments that introduced the creepy Absolute Solomon Grundy?
Rafael Albuquerque and Marcelo Maiolo expand the stunning and visceral world of Absolute Green Arrow, full of horrifying imagery, dark shadows, brilliant bursts of color and kinetic linework. The shifts in palette clarify the flashback sequences (including that brutal roundhouse kick from the opening page).
Final Thoughts
Absolute Green Arrow #3 is a riveting masterpiece of dystopian horror, chock full of thrilling action, unsettling revelations, complicated characters and energetic artwork.
