Cover art by Jim Aparo
The presidency of Ronald Reagan is heralded by Republicans as a victory by the conservative right over the liberal left that dominated the 1960s. Reagan not only won election and re-election in 1980 and 1984 but did so in landslide fashions that in effect rendered the Democratic opposition obsolete. While Ronald Reagan himself may have been popular, however, many of the policies he espoused as president were often met with disapproval, especially amongst minority communities, the poor, and the working middle class.
Within the DC Comics Universe, that displeasure was most personified by Oliver Queen and his superhero alter ego Green Arrow. Although not as well-known as the “Hard Traveling Heroes” era of the character or later narratives by writers Mike Grell and Benjamin Percy, the early-to-mid-1980s efforts of writer Joey Cavalieri were just as relevant to their times as those highly acclaimed works.
During most of the decade, Green Arrow was consigned to the back pages of Detective Comics, reduced to seven-page narratives following a main Batman storyline. Cavalieri used those pages prudently, portraying Oliver Queen as a newspaper columnist for the Daily Star and offering insights into the Reagan Era not so much as plot points but small tidbits randomly inserted into the mix instead.
As president, Ronald Reagan often categorized the United States as a “Shining City on a Hill” that served as a beacon of hope and inspiration for the rest of the world. He also referred to the 1980s as “Morning Again in America,” a new beginning for the country after years of upheaval and decline.
Such metaphors, however, did not reflect reality for many Americans. Minorities, the poor, and the working middle class were often left behind in a rising tide of despair, finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet despite the wealth and glamour of the times. The competing mantra to Reaganism thus became the “fairness issue” advocated by Democrats, who argued that while the rich were getting richer under Reagan’s presidency, the poor were getting poorer.
Joey Cavalieri spotlighted this growing division between the haves and have-nots within Detective Comics. In issue 537, for instance, Oliver Queen returns to his brownstone apartment to find his belongings removed from the building and tossed onto the sidewalk. The movers claim they’re evicting a deadbeat but another resident tells a different story.
“All of the tenants have been harassed and threatened with eviction,” she explains to Queen. “There’s been no heat. No hot water. No repairs. And no answers from the landlords, either. My guess is they would love for us to get fed up and move so they can turn the place into a condominium.”
Oliver Queen responds by organizing a tenants’ strike. “The landlords are cutting off our services in the hopes that we’ll clear out, but we won’t be intimidated,” he tells the media. “The outfit that owns this building owns a few others on this block as well. So if this one goes, they’ll probably follow suit. The residents can’t afford that. We want our landlords to know right away that we’re not going anywhere.”
After Green Arrow and partner Black Canary rescue a mother and her baby from a burning building in a later narrative, the chief of the fire department praises their efforts. Green Arrow, however, doesn’t want to hear it.
“These buildings have been abandoned so long that squatters have moved in and made ’em home,” he says. “But now some big real estate concern wantsa buy ’em, but the deal won’t go down while the squatters are still there. Nobody’ll move ’em. Not the real estate boys who don’t want bad press. Not the city welfare agencies who can’t house ’em. But it looks like the money boys are startin’ to get itchy. It doesn’t take an Einstein to see they’ve hired a torch to start scarin’ the squatters. An’ this whole town is so corrupt, it’s gonna sit back an’ let it happen so it can unload the property.”
In another issue of Detective Comics, it turns out that the local heroin trade is being funded by a real estate developer named Marty Costa. “He’s ticked that the city won’t let him build anything on his own land but housing because of the city’s zoning laws,” a drug dealer explains. “So he’s gonna make it a low-income project, let in a lot of poverty-stricken families, then import and let us sell ’em boatloads of skag. When the neighborhood crumbles, Costa’ll be in a position t’say ‘I toldja so’ and snow the city into doing things his way.”
In the 1987 film Wall Street, Gordon Gekko recites one of the decade’s most famous mantras – “Greed is good.” Tip O’Neill, the real-world Speaker of the House of Representatives, in turn offered a counter philosophy. “The Constitution begins with the words, ‘We, the people,’” he argued. “It does not begin, ‘I, the individual.’” Joey Cavalieri ended his run on Green Arrow with a seven-issue narrative that highlighted the “we” versus “I” philosophy of the 1980s.
While a fire rages in downtown Star City, a new superhero named Champion is spotted flying past the burning building. Instead of rescuing those trapped inside like Green Arrow, however, he recovers a stolen briefcase from a thief on a nearby sidewalk. When a reporter for the Daily Star – under the impression that Champion assisted with the fire – asks about his efforts, the superhero replies, “‘Rescue mission?’ I’m not on any ‘rescue mission.’ I was paid to recover this case, that’s all. The manufacturer’s insurance company posted a fortune to get this new invention prototype back.”
Green Arrow later stumbles upon a pair of young teens stuck inside a construction elevator that is about to come loose and crash to the ground. He fires two arrows equipped with zip-lines and rescues them in the nick of time. Champion then appears, telling Green Arrow he arrived too late as he has already retrieved the experimental antenna attached to the elevator. “Saved the insurance company a fortune, so they’ll be glad to pay me a chunk,” he adds. “Nice work if you can get it, hey?”
Green Arrow scolds Champion for not rescuing the two kids, but the other “superhero” just laughs. “What were they going to pay me with?” he rhetorically asks as he flies away. “Pocket change?”
The 1980s were also marked by corporate mergers and takeovers – many of them “hostile” – and the media and entertainment industries were no exception. Oliver Queen met one of the emerging media tycoons of the period, Rupert Murdock, in Detective Comics #539 when the Daily Star is put up for sale. The real-world Murdock was Australian and already owned the American supermarket tabloid Star when fictional Australian publisher Morris Burdick – owner of The National Penetrator – expresses interest in purchasing Star City’s major newspaper. During a visit to the newsroom, however, Burdick is met with jeers.
“There he is gang. Citizen Kane himself.”
“What’s your first move going to be, Burdick? Busting the unions or firing the editorial staff?”
“The paper’s next headline will read ‘Boy Locked In Bridge Eats Own Foot To Survive.’”
“No, no. ‘Aliens Raised My Rent.’”
Oliver Queen, meanwhile, recognizes the significance of Burdick’s presence. “Seems like all the news media keep getting bought up by bigger and bigger conglomerates,” he laments, to which another employee counters, “Cut it out, Ollie. Corporations – they’re the way of the world. Don’t be such a holdout.”
As for Morris Burdick, he has his own opinion. “This isn’t the first time I’ve received criticism, but it’s the first and last time I’ll bother to answer,” he tells everyone. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re the talent. You’ll write what you want, just get people reading. No matter how you stir up the public, all they’ll do is keep buying the paper. That’s the limit of activism these days.”
Activism still existed during the 1980s, although not as visibly as the protests that erupted during the 1960s. They were likewise often overshadowed by the towering persona of Ronald Reagan. The same held true for Green Arrow – he may have been regulated to the back pages of Detective Comics, but his activist streak remained intact under the guiding hand of Joey Cavalieri nonetheless, even if the main draw was Batman.
Anthony Letizia