SPOILERS ahead for Dark Crisis: Worlds Without a Justice League – Green Arrow!Despite his reputation as a bad knockoff of Batman, Green Arrow has proven he’s actually the Iron Man of the DC Universe. Dark Crisis: Worlds Without a Justice League – Green Arrow shows that if Oliver Queen is biting anyone’s style, it’s Tony Stark’s.
Green Arrow may have carved out a name for himself fighting crime with a bow and a quiver full of trick arrows, but he’s also known for one scurrilous accusation. Many of Oliver Queen’s gimmicks, crime-fighting styles and thematic elements have earned him the unfortunate label of being a Batman ripoff. To be fair, Green Arrow and Batman’s similarities are quite apparent to the casual eye. Bruce Wayne is a billionaire that fights crime, so is Oliver Queen. Batman has a series of sidekicks with the same name, as does Green Arrow. Even the archer’s maligned ‘Arrowcave’ is a pretty obvious riff of Batman’s Batcave.
However, even though the evidence is strong that Green Arrow is a copycat of Batman, he’s finally shown which hero he’s much more similar to. In Dark Crisis: Worlds Without a Justice League – Green Arrow, the story “Till Death Do Us Part” by Dennis Culver and Nik Virella presents Green Arrow and Black Canary’s prison planets the evil Pariah has created. Pariah has trapped both heroes on separate worlds, though the two always manage to find their way back to one another. On Oliver’s world, he’s still the superhero Green Arrow, but he’s a much more tech-oriented hero, complete with his own armor suit. With dreams of Black Canary plaguing his mind, Oliver builds simulations to track her down and even creates a rocket capable of penetrating the barriers of the universe in a desperate attempt to find her.
How is Green Arrow like Iron Man and Not Batman?
Granted the entire world is a fabrication meant to keep the Justice League busy while Pariah works to see his plans through. However, these worlds allow for different aspects of DC’s heroes to be explored. On Oliver’s world, he’s still the face of a large company, and he still gets to show off his creativity when it comes to weapon design (though to a much more advanced degree). By stripping away Oliver of his traditional Green Arrow veneer, the man is a lot less like Batman and a lot more like Iron Man.
Yes, Batman is also the face of a company and has a penchant for creating new weapons, but unlike Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne is a much more reserved person who distinctly keeps both halves of himself separate. Green Arrow’s idealized self is one that embraces all facets of himself: hero, weapon designer, and sarcastic smartass. Sure, at his worst, Green Arrow was not as original as he could have been and probably took a bit of inspiration from Batman. But Oliver is so much less restrained than Bruce, to the point where both his personality and tech-mindedness makes Green Arrow much more like the DCU’s Iron Man than its Batman.
