Perspective Shifts With The Starting Line

This is over a week old by now but that's never stopped me before.

Ann Nocenti's going to be writing Green Arrow in a few months. Now me, I liked Nocenti's work on Daredevil. There were times it was a little hard to read, but by and large, I thought she did some interesting work with the character. So I'm curious to see what she does with Ollie. Yes, curious enough to contemplate buying the book, which is not something I've said about Green Arrow in, oh, a long time. I bought some of the Kevin Smith stuff, however long ago that came out, but it was more a matter of opportunity than me putting it on my pull list.

I did find the discussion over her admission she wasn't familiar with the character interesting. I don't know whether I consider being well-versed in a character's history absolutely essential. A writer can know a character backwards and forwards and still not be able to write them well. And considering DC just rebooted/restarted/revamped their line, I'm not sure how necessary it is to follow past history. I imagine how much it matters relies on how invested one is in the character to begin with. I'm not a huge GA fan, so whether Nocenti's precisely follows what's come before isn't the concern for me it may be with others.

The argument about her assessment (based on Ollie's Wiki page) of GA as a 'thrill-seeking activist' leads me to another point. That sounded about half-right to me. maybe more. Certainly, Oliver Queen as an activist seemed accurate, or at least as someone who talks a lot about activism. Does being a vigilante count as activism? It's working to improve one's community, albeit outside the law, and in a manner determined primarily by one's one code of ethics. 'Thrill-seeking' I was less sure of, but it really doesn't strike me as a stretch to see Oliver as someone who enjoys the danger and action of being Green Arrow.

But depending on where you draw the line, those aren't Ollie's defining qualities. As Scipio pointed out, the Golden Age Green Arrow wasn't really either of those guys. I think we could debate whether that version of the character is superior, but if you start his history from there, then 'thrill-seeking activist' doesn't really fit.

I will confess this happens to me frequently. Part of the reason I was annoyed (putting it mildly) about wiping out the Peter/Mary Jane marriage was because for my experience, that was part of the deal. They weren't married right from the start, but soon after, and so that seemed perfectly part of the character. For someone who'd been reading the characetr going back further, probably it wasn't as big a deal. I think that shift five or so years ago, where it seemed every Marvel writer started insisting Gwen Stacy was Peter's true love was much the same thing. Depending on where one started from, how important she is may vary. There are other things like that. Magneto being trusted and respected enough by Xavier to be placed in charge of the school, and actually trying hard to be a good guy, Cyclops not being part of the X-Men. Looking at the entirety of the X-Men's history, I can see how those might seem odd decisions, but there were in place when I came in, and so seemed perfectly natural to me. Which was why Magneto going huge, murderous super-villain in Morrison's X-Men seemed off to me, but was in fact, consistent with at least some of his past history. Just not necessarily the past history I was familiar with/fond of.