On September 25, 1941, Green Arrow – the superhero identity of the wealthy Oliver Queen – made his publication debut. A cross between Batman and Robin Hood, Green Arrow battled such real-world foes as an embezzler intent on covering his transgressions through murder, a “Crime College” that educated potential bank robbers and counterfeiters, and a killer sentenced to death intent on extracting vengeance on those who convicted him.
This rogues’ gallery of everyday criminals was representative of the times. Starting with the first appearance of Superman in 1938, the initial batch of superheroes fought against corrupt politicians, abusive husbands and anyone else who stood opposed to “Truth, Justice and the American Way.” Although the advent of supervillains would later change the medium, comic book villains were originally more villain than super, and superheroes more social justice vigilantes than the protectors of Earth from mad scientists and alien invasions.
In the early 1970s, writer Denny O’Neil and artist Neal Adams returned Green Arrow to his “social justice” roots with their “Hard Travelin’ Heroes” narrative arc. Oliver Queen had by now lost his fortune and become an outspoken leftist who looked out for the downtrodden of society. Teamed with the more conservative Hal Jordan (aka Green Lantern), the duo embarked on a cross-country journey in search of an America ripped apart by the Vietnam War, civil unrest, and the social changes of the 1960s.
The initial issue in the series, Green Lantern #76, took place in the New York stand-in Star City, where Green Lantern witnesses a “punk” attacking a well-dressed businessman. Swooping in to save the day, Green Lantern is met with derision from the watching crowd, which go so far as to pelt him with garbage. Before he can counter strike with his fists, however, Green Lantern is confronted by Green Arrow, who descends from a fire escape and stands alongside the “punks” that Green Lantern had taken for the aggressors.
Although the businessman that Green Lantern rescued may have appeared the victim and the so-called “punk” had been breaking the law, Green Arrow explains that things aren’t always what they appear. The businessman in question owns an apartment building, a run-down edifice whose tenants barely make ends meet, and is now intent on evicting those tenants in order to erect a parking lot – thus the reason for the altercation that Green Lantern witnessed.
While Green Lantern admits that the fate of the apartment dwellers is indeed unfortunate, the physical confrontation he disrupted was still against the law. At that point, an elderly African American decides to speak up and question the superhero. “I been readin’ about you,” he tells Green Lantern. “How you work for the blue skins, and how on a planet someplace you helped out the orange skins. And you done considerable for the purple skins. Only there’s skins you never bothered with – the black skins! I want to know how come? Answer me that, Mr. Green Lantern.”
Green Arrow and Green Lantern are able to work together by the end of the issue, combining Oliver Queen’s need for social justice with Hal Jordan’s respect for the law by tricking the businessman into admitting that he had sent his goons to kill Green Arrow. As Queen points out, however, it is a small victory as there are others across the nation in need of similar help. He thus suggests that the two of them – accompanied by a Galactic Immortal from Oa and the occasional appearance by Dinah Lance (aka Black Canary) – embark on a cross-country journey to find America.
The Vietnam War and resulting civil unrest had taken its toll by the early 1970s, dividing the nation and bringing various social issues to the forefront. The goal of Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams wasn’t to offer solutions to those problems – superheroes, after all, don’t exist in the real world – but merely to give them their proper due and add to the ongoing conversation within the country.
Oliver Queen and Hal Jordan thus find themselves deep in the Appalachian Mountains where local miners work hard for small wages while the owner not only controls the mines but the town itself; confront a cult of white supremist whose leader brainwashes his followers into committing murder; get caught in the middle of a land dispute between a timber company and a tribe of Native Americans; and stumble upon an airplane manufacturer whose new jet engineer has the potential to wreak havoc on the environment.
In each issue of the Green Lantern/Green Arrow comic book, the pair of superheroes inevitably argue about the best course of action, with Oliver Queen’s moral outrage and need for immediate action balanced by Hal Jordan’s more conservative approach of looking at the bigger picture and finding a legal solution to any dilemma.
In “Ulysses Star Is Still Alive,” for instance, Hal Jordan attempts to locate the last remaining copy of a deed that would prove Native American ownership of the land that a timber company wants to exploit for financial gain. Oliver Queen, meanwhile, visits the local reservation and witnesses firsthand the retched living conditions – both literally and psychologically – and concludes that a more emotional response is necessary to not only save the trees but the Native Americans themselves.
“They need those things, certainly,” Black Canary tells Green Arrow in regards to food and medicine. “And more. They need something no one can give them. They’ve been under the white man’s heel for so long they’ve lost faith in themselves. They no longer believe in themselves as a tribe, a society, or even as human beings.” Oliver Queen therefore decides to masquerade as the ghost of a long-gone tribal leader, both to intimidate the employees of the timber company and to inspire the Native Americans to take action on their own.
Being a comic book, the bad guys of the series are often “cartoonish” and eliminate any grey area between good and evil. Slapper Soames, the mine owner in “Journey to Desolation,” is also the sheriff of the isolated town and thinks nothing of issuing death sentences against anyone who stands in his way. His villainy even extends to using former World War II Nazis – who refer to him as “Führer” – as henchmen.
Yet within these fictional narrative extremes are small nuggets of truth as well. Just as Black Canary offered an honest assessment on the lives of Native Americans, the same holds true for the miners under the thumb of Slapper Soames. “We all work in Slapper’s mines,” one of them tells Green Arrow and Green Lantern. “Mostly ’cause we don’t know any other kind ’a work, an’ even if we did, there ain’t none around.” The town itself is named “Desolation” and is described as “a place where poverty is the norm, and tears are more plentiful than bread.”
In “The Fate of an Archer,” meanwhile, the sister of the aforementioned white supremist calls her own followers to action with words that too accurately reflect the ongoing hatred towards immigrants that still exists to this day. “Listen to me, all you Americans,” she begins. “You’ve seen the foreigners come into your neighborhood, you’ve heard them babble, seen how they live. You don’t have to put up with it! This country belongs to us! We’ve tried scaring them off, but we’ve failed thus far. We can’t afford to go on failing! The only solution is… force them out!”
At the end of Green Lantern #76, Oliver Queen tells Hal Jordan, “Forget about chasing around the galaxy and remember America. It’s a good country – beautiful, fertile and terribly sick! There are children dying, honest people cowering in fear, disillusioned kids ripping up campuses.” Queen then alludes to the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. “On the streets of Memphis, a good black man died,” he continues. “And in Los Angeles, a good white man fell. Something is wrong! Something is killing us all! Some hideous cancer is rotting our very souls!”
The 1960s may be long gone and the civil unrest that rocked the decade subsided, but the divisions that split the country then still remain today. People continue to struggle to make ends meet, environmental decay still exists, hate crimes continue to rise, and desperation still lingers in the air for far too many.
Green Arrow and Green Lantern may not have solved America’s problems during their time as “hard traveling heroes,” but they shed a light on those issues just the same – a light that continues to serve as a beacon decades later.
Anthony Letizia