In this review of Absolute Green Arrow #1, Oliver Queen is dead but someone calling themselves Green Arrow is on a violent revenge mission against the rich and powerful. Down on her luck bodyguard Dinah Lance is out to unmask the killer, but her efforts might cost her everything she has left.
ABSOLUTE GREEN ARROW #1
Written by PORNSAK PICHETSHOTE
Art and Main Cover: RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE
Variant Covers: GERALD PAREL, GUILLEM MARCH, TULA LOTAY, REIKO MURAKAMI, RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: 5/20/26
This review contains spoilers
Absolute Green Arrow #1 begins in Star City where billionaire Jubal Slade is murdered in his home by a masked killer called the Green Arrow. The next day Slade’s killing is the top story, especially with Slade’s connection to the recently murdered Oliver Queen.
Meanwhile, former cop and MMA fighter Dinah Lance works as a bodyguard to the rich and shameless, but her attitude gets her repeatedly in trouble. Dinah remotely consults her therapist, who broaches the touchy topic of her parents. Dinah admits she cannot stand her clients but needs the money for her father’s care. Later on, Malcolm Merlyn interviews Dinah for a security gig to protect Reese Tyler and Hector Hammond.
Merlyn presses Dinah on her past connection to Oliver Queen, and she recounts their romantic relationship from years ago, during the time when he was working with Slade on a new financial app. Dinah broke it off with Oliver before he and Slade struck it rich. Ollie forced Slade out, not out of greed but for misconduct allegations.
A few months ago, Oliver was found mysteriously murdered. In the present, Tyler and Hammond arrive at Merlyn’s office, and Dinah turns down the job because of her father’s health. Enraged, Hammond remotely erases her dad’s insurance, forcing Dinah into indentured servitude.
Days later, Dinah accompanies Hammond, Tyler and numerous armed guards to Oliver’s secret lair where they are ambushed by the Green Arrow. The masked killer takes out Tyler first and then literally hacks through the entire security team, finally setting their sights on Hammond.
Wounded in the attack, Dinah realizes that Hammond might have information about Oliver’s murder and opens fire on the Green Arrow to save him. The killer escapes, warning Hammond that they are not finished.
Absolute Green Arrow #1 ends as Dinah and the injured Hammond discover a secret room in Oliver’s lair, with a dead body inside.
Analysis
Absolute Green Arrow #1 pulls out all the stops as the story moves fast, hits hard and still has time to explore the reimagined history of these well-known characters. Absolute Green Arrow #1 is a slightly distorted reflection of our current reality, (which is also the mission statement of the Absolute DC Universe).
Absolute Batman writer Scott Snyder made the deliberate decision to have Bruce Wayne not be a billionaire, not only keeping him from familiar resources, but because they are largely viewed negatively. Remarkably, writer Pornsak Pichetshote (The Good Asian) has no such concerns as Ollie eventually reaps the windfall from his app (not that it protects from being murdered).
Pichetshote mixes in elements from our own troubling times into the Absolute DC Universe, grounding it but also framing the story as a real place that just happens to have a few costumed people running around. Oliver Queen’s Green Arrow was always the left-wing activist, despite his status, and Pichetshote takes that to new extremes (seriously the violence in this book could easily be Black Label).
But Pichetshote also adds depth to Ollie as more than a flawed good guy. The mystery of the person behind the mask will most likely be revealed in time but this Green Arrow isn’t a silent killing machine, they have an axe to grind and are willing to bury it in the right people. Whatever is motivating this vigilante beyond
Ollie is remembered by Dinah Lance as basically a “good guy” who unfortunately couldn’t keep it in his pants. Could his infidelity be a motive for his murder, or perhaps his attempts to play fair in his business dealings?
Meanwhile protagonist Dinah Lance herself is a far cry (heh) from her Earth-1 counterpart. Former police officer, former MMA fighter with a hair trigger and unresolved family issues. She comes off as quite sympathetic and vulnerable especially during her remote therapy session. How will her role evolve during this series? At the moment Hammond forced her hand and helping her ailing father is the driving force, but will she find herself allying with the killer? That’s the beauty of the Absolute DC titles.
Artist Rafael Albuquerque (American Vampire) moves from Superman Unlimited to the grounded Absolute Green Arrow #1 where the artist’s talents are well-suited to this mix of street level storytelling and urban horror. Albuquerque’s sketchy art style enhances the gritty look and feel of this section of the Absolute universe. The subtle use of shadow, extreme camera angles and graphic violence truly sells the stakes of this story.
The extremely bloody and imaginative kills are memorable and shocking, while Dinah Lance’s vulnerability and rage are visible for all to see. Albuquerque’s knack for facial expressions and body language sell the emotional core of the story: from happiness to loneliness, from rage to horror, it all shows on the page (along with Marcelo Mailolo’s gorgeous color palette).
Comic books have been described as primarily “adolescent male power fantasies”, targeting readers who seek a catharsis in fantasy while the real world holds them down. Perhaps they once were, but the medium has expanded since then and in times global chaos, many of us feel disenfranchised while bearing witness to cruelty and injustice with no apparent remedy.
Living vicariously through Green Arrow’s violent assault on the uber wealthy might give one a vicarious thrill, but that doesn’t solve our problems in the real world, (it does however shed a light on it). One might assume that Luigi Mangione’s murder of a healthcare CEO is a potential impetus for this story, taking Green Arrow’s heroic activism to new and dangerous depths.
Will there be a cult following of this costumed killer’s methods and targets (as in Mangione’s case) in Absolute Green Arrow? It certainly seems possible. This is in no way excusing Green Arrow’s brutal methods (or Mangione’s for that matter), but with Absolute Green Arrow #1 we must understand why the disenfranchised would champion someone who commits murder of a reviled individual. Remember how many people applauded Bernie Goetz’s vigilante actions in the early 1980s?
Final Thoughts
Absolute Green Arrow #1 introduces a decidedly darker costumed vigilante to the Absolute Universe, with a flawed but likable protagonist as a counterbalance. The characters and art ground the story that mixes equal parts crime noir and paranoid horror.
