Posted by Neil at 209.245.186.135 on November 28, 2000 at 15:21:47:
I wanted to call out this quote from Fandom.com:
"That’s what I always liked about the older stuff – here’s a guy who had his fortune leveraged out from under him. Hell of a hero, not a great businessman. He’s also a womanizer. He’s a guy who has a roving eye – we’ve seen him cheat on Dinah Lance. He’s got foibles and therefore, he’s believable. He’s not a paragon of virtue. He’s a guy with flaws, and I think that’s why people can identify with him so easily, and I think that’s why the character of Oliver Queen has lasted for so long. He isn’t one of those big guns, but we’re working on rectifying that."
Now, up until that point, I’d been with you on the reasoning behind Ollie being a cool character, and sure that you’d be writing a book that followed up on the characterization left by O’Neil and Grell with respect and truth.
And even then, I agree with the part about his business acumen and how that affects who he is and why he’s a compelling character.
However, Ollie didn’t cheat on Dinah. He just didn’t. Shado conceived with him while he was unconscious. That’s not just the way Shado herself tells it, but the clear way MikeGrell intended the story to go. We saw him fight the temptation and then saw him surprised by the revelation.
He then was tempted by Marianne, but only kissed her. The truth is, were Dinah and Ollie’s relationship not already in an awkward position, they probably would have moved past that situation. However, their relationship was in trouble, based on the long arc that Grell had been developing for over a year.
The fact of the matter is, the notion of Ollie as a womanizer wasn’t even brought into play until later writers misplayed the events here and exaggerated his existing playboy image from his youth and turned it into something much different than his character had been. Now, this misconception has been built into continuity enough that it would be hard to get around, but I, among many of the Green Arrow faithful, will be terribly disappointed if you (or any other creator) make canon this lie about Ollie’s character.
My question is, how are you going to end up playing this. Are you going to play him as someone who only casually teamed up with Black Canary, or as someone who was deeply in love with Dinah Lance from the beginning of the Hard Traveling Heroes stories through years of partnership and teamwork or as someone who had some kind of fling with and mistreated callously?
Thanks.