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Option38.com > Comics > Modern : You Is HERE
When performing my roughly-three-times-a-decade re-organization of the Option38 Comic Vaults, I'll take a few old comics and glance at the covers while moving them around. Usually, I can remember the storyline or era by simply glancing at the cover. Sometimes, I can even remember where or when I bought a certain book. Most of my current "pull list" titles I just picked up at the local comic crack house and I have at least a rough recollection of what the story was about. Yet even crappy bargain back issues (of which I am an addict) bring back memories. Like, "ah, I remember picking this up when I ditched a sculpture class during my sophmore year of college" or "oh yeah, I got this book at a crappy collector's fair up at the Stock Show Complex". But I picked up this book....and nothing. How the hell did this get here? I'm a loser...errr, GUY.. who can remember picking up "Alpha Flight #52" for a quarter in 1989, but this sucker was completely foreign to me. I had a few stints of following Green Arrow on a monthly basis around the Mike Grell years in 1988 (roughly issues 1-30), then again in late 1994 when Connor Hawke came along (roughly issue 95-120). But even during those stints as an "Arrowhead", hunting for back issues of Green Arrow was never a hobby of mine. So I was completely stumped where this came from. I had heard my calling. I stopped what I was doing; decided I needed to take a shit; and strolled down to the bathroom to read this enigmatic periodical. Like most comics published in the mid-90's, in this book Green Arrow is going through CHANGES. Some guys were replaced (Batman, Green Lantern or Wonder Woman), killed (Superman and Captain America) or even given...gasp... Long Hair (Hawkman and, later, Superman). To alert us to all these CHANGES, the book is in the midst of an ongoing saga called "CrossRoads". No relation to the Eric Clapton song, old Blues tunes, or the 1987 Ralph Macchio movie. Which means there's no devil trying to duel Oliver Queen for his soul. That might've been an improvement, as a yarn about Green Arrow fighting a demon for something like a Bow of Gold would've been humorous, at least. Nope, instead Ollie is wandering through San Francisco and staying at the house of an old high school friend named Andrea Zercher. Sure, she's a female, but for once Ollie doesn't bag her. She has two kids who take to calling Ollie "Uncle Arrow" as he playfully plays William Tell with them. It's almost like a comic book version of "Full House" for a few pages, until Andrea's friend Honore barges in; direct from the Abused Woman Steroetype School. Honore's wife-beating husband, Nathan Cavenaugh, is hot on her trail. Since it's a comic book, Cavenaugh is a trained Yakuza assassain who can give GA a run for his money. He even tells GA "you are not of the bow", snaps his bow and runs away.
Ollie then calls up his old high-school coach to find out about Cavenaugh. Luckily, Coach has kept a file on Cavenaugh and informs Ollie and the readers of his history. Cavenaugh has even taken to calling himself "Rival" and become something of a violent vigilante arons San Francisco. He was also apparently driven to fashion himself a costume, consisting of one shoulder-pad, a purple top, plus that beacon of 90's Comic Book Fashion: a HEADBAND!
Oh, and before you begin crying... no, Santa Claus is not being shot in that picture. It's just Christmas time in this story. Because what could be more heartwarming than a Christmas story about spousal abuse? Anyways, Ollie's bow is still broken. So he quickly learns how to use a compound bow with Coach's help. Green Arrow then runs out to seek a re-match with Rival and is victorious this time. He finally subdues Rival by shooting an arrow into his right arm....along with an all-important Lesson in Morality.
Things seems to be winding down, but in the final page we find out that Rival had returned to Honore and her kids. But this time, Rival didn't beat his wife...he beat the kids. So Honore up and shot him, dead. Thus ending the career of perhaps comicdom's only Wife-Beating Child Abusing Yakuza Pink-shirt n' Headband-Wearing SuperVillain. So why the name "Rival"? With his background in weaponery and that name, it seemed like they were setting him up to be Green Arrow's opposite number. Y'know, basically an Evil Archer. The recurring theme about being "of the bow" is touched upon, as it turns out Rival may actually be a superior archer to Green Arrow. But instead he's killed off in one issue, never to be seen again. I guess we shouldn't complain, since he had a goofy costume and was quickly forgotten-- just like all the other 90's comic characters who actually lived. No big loss. And hey, if modern fans really wanna' jizz their pants over an Evil Archer, they've got that dork Merlyn to pine over. Simple, self-contained story. It's now back in the Vaults and, were it not for me typing this article, it would've been wiped from my memory once again. At least next time I re-organize my crap, I can think: "ahh..I think I scanned some images from this thing and wrote about it. Geez, what a turdburger".
Summary: The life and times of comics' Wife-Beating Child Abusing Yakuza Purple-shirt n' Headband-Wearing SuperVillain
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COMICS-Green Arrow #82 (January 1994)
