Green Arrow



An Archer Superhero, dressed in a manner similar to Robin Hood, who fights crime with specialized Trick Arrows.

Green Arrow was originally created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp, and first appeared in More Fun Comics #73 (November, 1941). Along with his sidekick Speedy, Green Arrow was essentially treated as a more light-hearted version of Batman. Idle millionaire Oliver Queen found himself stranded on a desert island, and taught himself archery to survive. Eventually, criminals came to the island. He used his archery skills to defeat them, and decided to keep fighting crime as a hobby. Shortly after beginning his career, Green Arrow met Roy Harper, an orphan who'd been raised by a Native American mentor on an isolated mesa. The boy was even faster with the bow than GA, and picked up the name "Speedy."

While never a major hit in The Golden Age of Comic Books, Green Arrow and Speedy sold decently, and were members of the Seven Soldiers of Victory, DC Comics' second superhero team. After World War II, the pair was moved to Adventure Comics along with Aquaman. As pet characters of editor Mort Weisinger, they were published continuously as backups to the Superboy feature all the way from 1946 to 1960. GA and Speedy then jumped to World's Finest until 1964. During this time period, Green Arrow changed very little, sticking to short, fun stories in which he used trick arrows to thwart criminals and save lives. Perhaps the best remembered stories are the short run in 1958 by Jack Kirby. Green Arrow also became a a member of the JLA during this period, whilst Speedy went and joined the Teen Titans.

In 1969, however, artist Neal Adams gave Ollie a new costume and his now-trademark forked beard. Inspired by this striking new look, writer Dennis O'Neil followed this up with a storyline in which Oliver Queen lost his money. A few nights on the street, dealing with the social services net from the bottom, radically altered Green Arrow's politics. From (at best) a "limousine liberal", Green Arrow became an outspoken champion of the poor and oppressed, advocating progressive social policies as a cross between Robin Hood and Abbie Hoffman. Also around this time, Green Arrow became romantically linked to Black Canary, at that time an immigrant from Earth-Two.

Green Arrow was then teamed up with Green Lantern Hal Jordan in a series of socially relevant stories in which the "by-the-book" Hal and "plays by his own rules" Ollie deal with issues like racism, political corruption, pollution and overpopulation. Speedy had not been seen adventuring with his mentor in some time and this was made a plot point when it was revealed that Green Arrow's neglect had caused Roy to turn to heroin. Roy later recovered from his addiction with help from Black Canary, becoming a federal agent for some time. He later adopted the superhero codename of Arsenal, rejoined the Titans (where he led the team for a time) and fathered a daughter, Lian, with the supervillain assassin Cheshire - making him one of the few single-father superheroes in comics history.

After some years of being teamed with Green Lantern or appearing in back-up stories, in 1983 Green Arrow got his own mini-series for the first time. It sold decently, but was not followed up until 1987. As part of its new "mature readers" line, DC gave writer/artist Mike Grell the chance to reinvent Green Arrow again in The Longbow Hunters mini-series, followed by an ongoing series. Some radical changes were made, moving GA from the fictional Star City to Seattle, discarding the trick arrows for the most part, removing Black Canary's sonic scream and generally avoiding the more comic-booky elements of The DCU. This series also became notorious for the scene in which the assassin Shado rapes Oliver Queen, though it was mistakenly referred to as an affair by other writers in the years to follow.

After Grell left the series, it was reintegrated with the rest of the DCU just before Zero Hour. After Oliver Queen was forced to kill his best friend Hal Jordan as a part of that crisis, Oliver retreated once more to the Buddhist ashram where he went once before after accidentally killing someone.

It was here that a new character was introduced - an idealistic young monk and Green Arrow fanboy named Connor Hawke. Connor was later revealed to be Ollie's child by a previous relationship. Shortly after learning of their relationship, Oliver Queen died in a plane explosion. He gave his life to save the city of Metropolis and Connor became the new Green Arrow. Connor joined the Justice League for a time but eventually sought the peace of the ashram once more. While there, he had visions which told him that his father was still alive.

In 2000, writer Kevin Smith (yeah, that one) brought Oliver Queen back to life in a new Green Arrow ongoing series, which also returned the action to Star City. By the end of the first storyline, Oliver had become a millionaire again. The trick arrows were back too and Ollie began to rekindle his relationship with Black Canary (who in the meantime had recovered her own powers) and began to build a relationship with his son, Connor. He also picked up a new sidekick - teen prostitute Mia Dearden - who eventually took over the name of Speedy.

Throughout most of the 2000s, Green Arrow was written by Judd Winick, who tried to tackle social issues like Dennis O'Neil before him. Perhaps his most famous storyline from this time was a Very Special Episode where Mia Dearden was diagnosed with HIV.

Toward the end of Winick's run, Green Arrow and Black Canary reconciled and got married. Roy Harper, who had also reconciled with his old mentor during this time, changed his hero name to "Red Arrow" and joined the Justice League with Ollie's blessing.

The Green Arrow book was rebooted, and became Green Arrow / Black Canary for a time. Judd Winick wrote this book for a little over a year, at which point it was taken over by television writer Andrew Kreisberg. Most of his run dealt with the antics of a new villain - a battered woman that Green Arrow saved, who became an obsessive, murderous groupie called Cupid.

Things changed for the worst for the entire Arrow Family in the wake of the JLA: Cry for Justice storyline. Star City suffered massive casualties in the wake of an attack by the super villain Prometheus. Roy Harper lost his right arm in a fight with the villain and his daughter, Lian, was killed in the bombing of Star City. In response, Oliver hunted down and killed Prometheus - an action which led to his arrest, public unmasking and Black Canary returning her wedding ring due to his lying to her about the murder. At his trial, Oliver was found 'Not Guilty' of murder but this did not stop a corrupt judge from exiling Ollie from his home city.

Shortly afterward, Green Arrow briefly starred in a third volume of his solo series, which was one of several new DC Comics tying into the Brightest Day storyline. Following the events of Cry For Justice, a seemingly enchanted forest grew up in the middle of the Star City. Oliver Queen has moved into the forest, continuing to fight the various powers trying to take advantage of the recent disaster - corrupt cops, local politicians who are more interested in building a new Entertainment District in the wreckage than helping all the people left homeless by the recent disaster and a Corrupt Corporate Executive who has taken over Queen Enterprises.

A fourth volume of Green Arrow began publication in September 2011 as part of the New 52 relaunch. The new book is set in Year One of the new DC Universe and has taken Oliver Queen back to his roots as a Rich Idiot With No Day Job, traveling the world and going wherever a hero is needed. Thus far, little has been said about this version's motivations for becoming a hero, save that he is trying to make amends for an unspecified incident where he saw people he could have helped die.

The most familiar version of Green Arrow to television viewers is probably the Smallville version, where he was brought in instead of the Exiled From Continuity Batman, already operating as a superhero in a non-skintight costume. Black Canary and Mia Dearden also made appearances.

Alternately, Green Arrow was a major, if secondary, character in the Justice League Unlimited animated series, where in his first appearance, he defeated a giant, radioactive robot that cleaned the clock of Green Lantern, Captain Atom, and Supergirl. He remained as 'the conscience of the Justice League' echoing the politically relevant series from the 1970s.

He also showed up several times in The Batman and Batman the Brave And The Bold. He appears as a minor supporting character in Young Justice, voiced by Alan Tudyk of Firefly fame. His sidekicks, Red Arrow and Artemis, play far more prominent roles. He also stars in a fifteen minute feature, DC Showcase: Green Arrow (co-starring Black Canary), that appears as part of the Superman/Shazam: Return of Black Adam DVD, along with The Spectre and Jonah Hex.

In 2008, a Green Arrow live-action film titled Green Arrow: Escape From Super Max was announced. Penned by David S. Goyer (writer for The Dark Knight Saga) and Justin Marks (writer for Street Fighter the Legend of Chun Li), the film would involve Green Arrow being sent to an high security prison for a crime he didn't commit, forcing him to team up with supervillains in order to escape. No other news had been made since then.

In early 2012, it was announced that The CW would be producing a pilot for a TV series called Arrow, to be based on the Green Arrow characters.


 * Action Girl: Mia.
 * Annoying Arrows: Sometimes played straight and sometimes averted.
 * There was a reason he used boxing glove arrows - it annoyed the villains far more than all of the other ways he could incapacitate them.
 * Applied Phlebotinum: Some of the more dubious trick arrows.
 * The Archer: Goes without saying, really.
 * Awesome Backpack: The various Arrow Family quivers. The most famous is his large rucksack one, which carries around 50 arrows of all varieties.
 * Badass Beard: Well, the beard IS awesome.
 * Badass Grandpa: Though well preserved thanks to his rebirth, he technically is one through his adoption of Roy Harper to Roy's biological daughter Lian.
 * He looks old enough to truly play the part in Kingdom Come and Dark Knight Returns.
 * Badass Normal: The Green Arrows, the Speedys, Black Canary when she doesn't have her powers.
 * Battle Couple: Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance.
 * Blasting It Out of Their Hands: A favored Arrow Family technique.
 * Bottomless Magazines: The quivers never run out of arrows unless it's a plot point.
 * Calling the Old Man Out: Roy to Oliver in the pages of Hard Traveling Heroes.
 * More recently, during The Fall of Green Arrow, Connor told Ollie off for everything that had happened to him as a result of trying to uphold Ollie's legacy.
 * Canon Discontinuity: Numerous examples.
 * After having his secret identity being revealed to the world before his death proved to be a major plot-point in Quiver, Oliver Queen suddenly had a secret identity again in Brad Meltzer's Archer's Quest for no apparent reason other than Brad Meltzer wanted Green Arrow to have a secret identity again.
 * The revelation that Oliver Queen was aware of Connor Hawke's birth before Parallax/Hal Jordan told him that Connor Hawke was his son (as revealed at the end of Archer's Quest) requires you to believe that Oliver Queen is so gifted a liar that he could bluff an omnipotent being with the power of all but one of The Guardians Of The Universe.
 * Heading Into The Light by Judd Winick was meant to be a lead-in into Infinite Crisis. It proved to be so out-of-synch with what Geoff Johns had planned that it was retroactively declared to have taken place AFTER Infinite Crisis, in order to explain why Oliver Queen was active in Infinite Crisis but was incapacitated for months by the end of Heading Into The Light.
 * Charles Atlas Superpower: Get stranded on a desert island for a while, and you too can develop near-superhuman archery skills.
 * Chickification: Black Canary's powers and competence being lost or nerfed to ensure that Green Arrow remains the main hero of the story. We know it's his series, but still...
 * This mostly happened in the Green Arrow / Black Canary stories written by Judd Winick and Andrew Kreisberg. Other writers during the same period (Gail Simone and Grant Morrison come to mind) have written both characters as competent professionals.
 * Chick Magnet: Oliver Queen since the end of the Grell series.
 * Roy Harper and Connor Hawke have also drawn more than their share of female attention, though the latter didn't take advantage of it.
 * City of Adventure: Star City and Seattle.
 * Clark Kenting: Ollie's beard style is not quite unique, but rare enough so that anyone who cared could make the connection.
 * Indeed, Mia began working with him by going to him in his civilian identity and pointing out that he was obviously Green Arrow.
 * It caused some amusing misunderstandings when Travis Morgan happened to show up.
 * It's worth noting that - by the current timeline, at least - Travis is several years older than Oliver. Almost old enough to be his dad. But very well preserved.
 * Color Character: Green Arrow, Black Canary, Red Arrow.
 * Comic Book Time: There's no telling what Oliver's actual physical age is at this point or how long he's been Green Arrow. Between a Retcon which set Connor Hawke's birth as being just after Ollie became Green Arrow (Connor had previous been the result of a relationship Ollie had in college), Ollie's being reborn into a younger body in Quiver and his latest origin story seeming to abandon Ollie's hippie background, it's impossible to get a fix.
 * The Ollie we see in Green Arrow: Year One has something of a Grunge-Look to him, which may fit in a couple of years, but makes it hard for him to have a son in his early-twenties now.
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Queen, who has taken over Ollie's company post-Rise and Fall.
 * Crimefighting with Cash: One of the earliest and greatest examples. Oliver Queen is one of the few superheroes whose original motivations for fighting crime basically came down to "Because I'm Bored and Because I Can". He later found more noble motivations, though. And in the most recent retellings of his origins, he always had a noble heart and a desire to help people.
 * Dark-Skinned Blond: Connor, when the art team remembers.
 * Deadpan Snarker
 * Depending on the Artist: Hat or hood?
 * Depending on the Writer: Black Canary's level of competence, Ollie's level of horndog.
 * Disappeared Dad: His "relationship" with his son Connor.
 * Domino Mask: The preferred method of identity concealment on Team Arrow.
 * Dragon Lady: Shado. Literally, as she has a dragon tattoo going down one arm.
 * Egomaniac Hunter: Big Game
 * Mr. Fanservice: Connor, hands down.
 * Evil Counterpart: Merlyn the Archer
 * Exiled From Continuity: The Golden Age Green Arrow and Speedy "never existed" in the new Earth history post-Crisis on Infinite Earths. This has caused some problems for the Seven Soldiers continuity when it's referenced.
 * Faux Action Girl: Black Canary at her lowest points.
 * Fingerless Gloves: Green Arrow's costumes have featured these at some points, albeit with some variation as to which fingers.
 * Follow the Leader: The Arrowcar, Arrowsignal, Arrowcave...it's no wonder Batman asks, "Did you ever have an original idea?"
 * Gloriously lampshaded in a story in which another character discovers the abandoned Arrowcave under the former Queen mansion, and realizes that Oliver Queen must secretly be...Batman! Ultimately results in Ollie fighting the bad guys of the story in a Batman costume, complete with very visible beard.
 * Taken to new lows in one Judd Winick issue of Green Arrow / Black Canary, where it is basically said that the only reason Oliver Queen adopted Roy Harper was to "keep up with the Joneses" after Bruce Wayne took in Dick Grayson.
 * Forest Ranger: post-Cry For Justice
 * The Gimmick: Bows and Arrows and Robin Hood comparisons.
 * Grand Theft Me: Attempted in the "Quiver" arc.
 * Gun Kata: Arsenal.
 * Guns Akimbo: Arsenal, again.
 * Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Inverted with him and Black Canary.
 * Halfbreed: Connor Hawke, who is multiracial, considering that his mom is half Korean and half African-American whereas his father, Ollie Queen, is white. Connor had trouble fitting in and this drove him to try and find peace in Buddhism and monkhood.
 * Handicapped Badass: Oliver Queen's appearance in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns story--he may be old, and without an arm, but he can still shoot arrows just fine.
 * Arsenal, after Cry For Justice.
 * Hands-Off Parenting: Ollie in "Hard-Traveling Heroes".
 * Handsome Lech
 * Heroic Bastard: Connor Hawke.
 * Hollywood Law: After and admitting his own guilt, a jury finds Oliver Queen 'not guilty'. The judge, stating that he wants to overrule the jury but cannot issue a prison sentence in a case with a 'not guilty' verdict, exiles Oliver Queen from Star City telling him that if he ever enters the city again he will be put away for as long as the judge can arrange it. To say that this violates every basic rule of law in the United States regarding sentencing in a jury trial is an understatement.
 * Honest Corporate Executive: Oliver started out this way before he evolved beyond being a Batman expy.
 * Hyperspace Arsenal: Those quivers sure hold a lot of arrows.
 * And where do the characters keep their bows and arrows until they're needed?
 * Identical Stranger: Travis Morgan, The Warlord. It's mostly the beard.
 * Ollie was also once mistaken for Deathstroke, during a period when he had to wear an eye-patch due to an eye injury.
 * Identity Impersonator: Several times over the years, but most recently with the shape-shifter Everyman.
 * Idiot of the Week: Usually Ollie in any story written by Judd Winick.
 * Implausible Deniability: That beard really should be a dead giveaway.
 * If the beard isn't, the attitude should be.
 * In the Mike Grell run, the CIA is able to figure out who he is because of this. Shado and The Seattle Police Department did not even realize he was attempting to hide his identity.
 * Amusingly Ollie gave up on even bothering to wear his domino mask for quite some time because of this.
 * Improbable Aiming Skills: Goes without saying, doesn't it?
 * In the Hood: The Grell costume, and several variations thereafter.
 * Jerkass: Ollie has had his moments, from being a self-important moralist, to a morally ambiguous Anti-Hero to an outright douchebag through his career.
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite his snarky attitude and general smugness, few would dispute that Oliver Queen's heart is in the right place regardless of where his head might be stuck.
 * Judd Winick: One of the writers on the most recent run, and considered a prime example of Writer on Board.
 * Just Like Robin Hood: Goes without saying, doesn't it?
 * Katanas Are Just Better: Used as part of a training upgrade to (temporarily) defeat Deathstroke.
 * Rejected by many fans, who could accept a Just Like Robin Hood hero using a sword... just not a Katana.
 * Kid Sidekick: The Speedys.
 * Knife Outline: Or Arrow Outline in this case.
 * Lamarck Was Right: Averted, in that while Connor is a competent enough archer after years of training with monks as a boy, he is nowhere near the savant Oliver Queen is with a bow. He is a great martial artist, though.
 * Lampshade Hanging: Grant Morrison did this in one issue of JLA, by having the Justice League be berated by a loud-mouthed blond guy with a goatee in Star City over their failure to save lives at the expense of preventing property damage. This occurred at a time when Oliver Queen was dead. Morrison later admitted that he was having fun with the idea that Star City has a larger-than-average number of mouthy blond guys with goatees, explaining indirectly just how Ollie was able to maintain a secret identity for so long.
 * Legacy Character: Connor Hawke, Green Arrow II. Mia, Speedy II. Black Canary was turned into one of these by a Retcon, rather than face Oliver Queen dating a woman technically old enough to be his mother.
 * Lethal Chef: "Ollie's Stupendous Chili Recipe" is too spicy for even Superman.
 * On the bright side, The Flash was able to adapt it into a weapon for fighting Captain Cold.
 * Life or Limb Decision: Ollie chose to lose his life rather than a limb when he saved Metropolis.
 * Lotus Eater Machine: The Black Mercy in one Green Lantern story, in which Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen became trapped in Hal's idea of a perfect world. Ollie was the first to put two and two together, since his perfect world had him set up with Connor's birth mother and a parcel of other kids - the type of family life Hal had and Ollie was always envious of but with none of the baggage or disappointment Ollie equated to his relationships with Roy Harper and Dinah Lance.
 * Luke, You Are My Father: Connor to Ollie.
 * Master of Disguise: Nix.
 * Millionaire Playboy: Oliver Queen, for much of his history.
 * Multishot: Of course he can do this.
 * Murder.Com: The first storyline in the 2011 relaunch has Rush stream his gang hunting a captured Green Arrow live onto the internet.
 * New Old Flame: Used to justify Connor Hawke's birth, originally giving Oliver Queen an ex-girlfriend in college who got pregnant and never told him about the child.
 * Retcon-ned to turn Moonday into a one-night-stand who did tell Ollie about his son.
 * No Arc in Archery: Sometimes averted, when the artist or writer remembers.
 * Noble Shoplifter: In City Walls, although the city is without power and looting is rampant, Green Arrow insists that his people leave payment whenever they take food or weapons from a store.
 * Not Wearing Tights: The Grell run.
 * Now That's Using Your Teeth: Green Arrow sometimes uses his teeth to draw back his bowstring.
 * Official Couple: Green Arrow and Black Canary.
 * Papa Wolf: Oliver Queen. The man walked out of Paradise to save his son's life.
 * Parental Abandonment: Oliver's done this twice - first by walking out on Connor Hawke and his mother. Later, by leaving Roy Harper to fend for himself, indirectly leading him to become a heroin addict.
 * Flashbacks in the Third Volume of Ollie's book implied that Ollie and his mother were similarly ignored by his father, despite being taken care of financially.
 * Pinball Projectile: Green Arrow can accurately ricochet arrows.
 * Rape Is Ok When It Is Female On Male: The Shado incident, which was only just recently acknowledged as being rape recently and was treated by many writers (particularly Judd Winick) as having been an example of Oliver Queen cheating on Dinah Lance.
 * Rich Idiot With No Day Job: Oliver Queen up until he lost his money.
 * Rocket Punch: The infamous boxing glove arrows.
 * Rogues Gallery: Much has been made about Ollie's lack of a cohesive Rogues Gallery, though writers keep trying to bring one together, bless their hearts. Notable recurring villains include rival archers Shado and Merlyn; martial artist Drakon; stone-skinned mob boss Brick; masked lunatics Count Vertigo, Onomatopoeia, and the Clock King.
 * Ruthless Modern Pirates: These feature prominently in some versions of Green Arrow's origin.
 * Secret Identity: Oliver Queen has gone back and forth on whether or not he has one or doesn't have one.
 * Originally, he had one until about mid-way through the Mike Grell run, when he was outed by the United States government after being framed for espionage. After sacrificing himself to save the city of Metropolis, he was given a full-page obituary on the front page of The Daily Planet, which identified Oliver Queen as Green Arrow. This was used as proof of Oliver's death in Quiver, when Batman was trying to prove to the clone Ollie that he was/had been dead.
 * After Judd Winick took over the series post-Quiver, Oliver Queen suddenly had a secret identity again. No explanation was given for why Oliver Queen suddenly showed up in Star City again at the same time the original Green Arrow returned and nobody - except for Mia Dearden - made the connection.
 * Oliver's secret identity was outed AGAIN, following Cry For Justice, just before he was put on trial for the murder of Prometheus.
 * As of September 2011, he has a secret identity. AGAIN.
 * Shoot the Builder: Cupid offed off her hairdresser after she got a perfect haircut, so that way no one else can have such good looking hair.
 * Sidekick Graduations Stick: Roy Harper, after recovering from his heroin addiction, has never gone back to being Green Arrow's sidekick although he has teamed up with his old mentor a few times. He eventually went on to take up his name - well, sort of - as Red Arrow.
 * Stalker with a Crush: Cupid
 * The Straight and Arrow Path
 * Strawman Political: During their joint series, Hal Jordan often portrayed the opposite end of the spectrum--or at least a naive moderate--while having a big Idiot Ball glued to his face so Ollie had somebody to preach at.
 * Some of the enemies Ollie goes up against are right-wing strawmen. For instance, the Duke of Oil (originally a villain for The Outsiders but adopted into Ollie's Rogues Gallery, such as it is) is a grotesque representation of oil magnates who looks more than a little like an eight-foot-tall George W. Bush.
 * Stuffed Into the Fridge:
 * Lian's death in JLA: Cry For Justice is a textbook case of this, done solely to make Roy more "interesting" and send Ollie off on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
 * Mia Dearden was scheduled to die too, but James Robinson was able to convince DC Editorial that would be a mistake.
 * In The Longbow Hunters, Black Canary is captured and tortured (losing the ability to bear children) solely for the purpose of giving Green Arrow a story-arc where he angsts over killing the men who were torturing her.
 * In fairness to Grell, he did depict both Ollie and Dinah going through therapy regarding the incident afterward - an unusually realistic step in comics at the time. And Dinah was far from a helpless damsel in his later Green Arrow stories, saving Ollie's life several times over the course of the series.
 * Suddenly Sexuality: Connor Hawke spent his adolescence in a monastery and most of the time shows minimal interest in sex...except when Chuck Dixon feels the need to make it clear that he's not gay. The squickiest example involves Shado, the woman who raped his father.
 * Even squicker when you consider that at the same time, Judd Winick was laboring under the delusion that Shado was Connor Hawke's mother and was making plans to bring Shado back into the Green Arrow book as a romantic interest for Ollie.
 * "So Connor's been making out with his mother in the pages of Dragon's Blood?"
 * Superhero Trophy Shelf: In the Arrowcave.
 * Thememobile: The Arrowcar.
 * Thicker Than Water: In the original storyline where Connor Hawke was revealed to be Oliver Queen's long-lost son, Oliver didn't take the news well since Connor had concealed the fact from him and the only reason Ollie found out was that a Parallax-possessed Hal Jordan accidentally mentioned the fact. Granting that Ollie's paranoia was somewhat-justified (he was a wanted man at the time), Ollie's desire to abandon his son was treated like a grievous flaw.
 * Trademark Favorite Food: Ollie really, really likes chili.
 * Trick Arrow: The Trope Maker. The miniseries Green Arrow: Year One actually shows how he came up with the boxing glove or "stun" arrow. He had to incapacitate a guard without killing him so he simply took the head off of a regular arrow (this doesn't actually work, but it's a comic book).
 * Twang! "Hello.": A frequent method of greeting for Oliver Queen.
 * Twofer Token Minority: Connor Hawke, whose father is Anglo-Saxon and whose mother is half-Korean/half-African American.
 * Very Special Episode: Many of the "Hard Traveling Heroes" storylines, most notably "Snowbirds Can't Fly" (the one where Speedy is a junkie). Also, the "Mia has HIV" issue written by Judd Winick.
 * Vitriolic Best Buds: With Green Lantern Hal Jordan.
 * Sometimes with Barry Allen, The Flash.
 * Wedding Smashers: Naturally, villains attacked the Black Canary-Green Arrow festivities.
 * We Would Have Told You But: Ollie fakes the death of Sin, Black Canary's adoptive daughter, and has her shipped off to a monastery, without telling Dinah so that her reactions will look natural. Never mind that Dinah's been established to be a better actor than he is.
 * It also didn't help that Dinah - granting that she was under a good deal of stress - was portrayed as being irrational to the point of attacking her comrades when they suggested she needed to hold still for a moment and help them come up with a plan of attack. Ollie's plan wasn't a great one but he never got a chance to run it by Dinah before hand.
 * Wide-Eyed Idealist: Connor Hawke.
 * Writer on Board: Many, many examples.
 * Writer on Board: Many, many examples.