By all rights, Green Arrow shouldn't work since its plot shamelessly repeats the plot from last issue. Big Bad attacks Oliver Queen at Queen Industries, but several touches give this issue steam.
Midas Touching.
First, the Big Bad is Rose's love Midas. The mythical Midas gained a touch to turn all to gold. This Midas shambles in the steps of Swamp Thing and Muck Man. His origin even echoes that of the Protector of the Green. Midas possesses a toxic, burning touch, and he's out to avenge Rose. This leads to the second flourish. The target changes from Oliver Queen to Green Arrow.
Run Away!
Oliver's scamper preserves his identity by creating a false sense of cowardice. When Oliver returns as Green Arrow to save his personal assistant Adrien, he goes Smallville. The addition of the hood and the glowing eyes really does help establish a different persona. We'll assume he also changes his voice. It's harder to hide from somebody you know. Adrien knows Oliver Queen, but given the entire presentation, I can buy this.
Baby Come Back
The battle is a good one with Green Arrow using practically every arrow in his quiver to fight Midas, and although Dan Jurgens merely contributes the layouts to the illustration, Ray McCarthy and the Horries follow through with artistic, action filled aplomb. Mind you, Jurgens co-plots with Giffen, and their entire tale is filled with witty dialogue from the cast.
Clueless
The way in which he ultimately defeats Midas exhibits intellect from the writers and attitude from Green Arrow. Nevertheless, the Emerald Archer ends up right where he started from at the end of the story. He has absolutely no idea who Blood Rose happens to be, and that goes double for Midas. I look forward to the answers.
Ray Tate's first online work appeared in 1994 for Knotted. He has had a short story, "Spider Without a Web," published in 1995 for the magazine evernight and earned a degree in Biology from the University of Pittsburgh. Since 1995, Ray self-published The Pick of the Brown Bag on various usenet groups, where he reviewed comic books, Doctor Who novels, movies and occasionally music. Circa 2000, he contributed his reviews to Silver Bullet Comic Books (later Comics Bulletin) and became its senior reviewer. Ray Tate would like to think that he's young at heart. Of course, we all know better.