Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

It seems strange in a way to read a graphic novel that is based on a highly rated television programme that in itself is based upon one of D.C Comics greatest publications and whose central character turned up from time to time in the American programme about Superman’s early life, Smallville. Go back far enough with this idea and the chicken-egg scenario will admit defeat and leave the comedy circuit and go back to the poultry farm to relative ignominy.

For those that can get Arrow on whatever form of overpriced subscription based service they place their trust in, the appeal is all too easy to see, even reading the tenuous link to the Green Arrow stories of the past is absorbing but there is something amiss when it comes to the tie in graphic novel of Arrow, something that just reeks of merchandise potential. There is no doubting the quality of the art work that comes through each untold story, there is no questioning the dedication to the hero’s back story or life which is captured in great detail. It just feels as though the makers of the programme thought there was something missing so let’s piece together enough lines to make the television series more acceptable and easier to follow.

This kind of tie-in where the programme, which if you go back far enough came second, or even third if you go back in time to where the chicken and egg were both fighting it out for supremacy, drives the elder statesman is not always agreeable. Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer may have had a series of comic tie-in but the programme/film came first into the conscious so it seemed acceptable to fans to have character’s back stories closer examined through the medium of the graphic novel, it doesn’t feel this way with Arrow.   

Again there is no doubting the beauty in which the stories are captured but they seem random, too concerned with catching up with the episodes on the screen to really become a big blockbuster of a graphic novel. As with the novelisation of great original films such as Ghostbusters, the effect it has on the way you see things can be tainted.        

Arrow, the graphic novels volumes is no Aquaman, no Justice League and certainly no Batman but as a way to while a few hours away between episodes of Arrow, the television series, it’s as good as you could ask for.

Arrow: Volume One is available from Worlds Apart, Liverpool.

Ian D. Hall