- Written by Benjamin Percy
- Art & Cover by Juan Ferreyra
“MURDER ON THE EMPIRE EXPRESS” part one! Queen Industries’ new Trans-Pacific Railway is an undersea vehicle that symbolizes world peace-which makes its maiden voyage the perfect place for the Ninth Circle to stage a high-profile assassination. Luckily, Green Arrow, Black Canary and John Diggle are on board as outlaw stowaways!
Pickup your copy of ‘Green Arrow’ #10 at Comixology now!
Time for a dramatic shift in the look of ‘Green Arrow’ with this issue as Juan Ferreyra takes over from Otto Schmidt. I’ve been praising the last few issues of ‘Green Arrow’ for looking pretty stellar. This issue the style changes from a hyper stylised cartoon to something more akin with a classical painting.
The cover sets the scene for the issue perfectly. The action prominently features Black Canary and to a lesser extent Arrow himself. Diggle as rightly placed on the cover is also featured but to an even lesser extent than Green Arrow.
Ferreyra is a very interesting artist. His work is very smooth and colours are a lot more washed out that Schmidt so with this issue the series takes on a very green/blue tint. Characters are less consistent throughout which as you know is always an issue for me but the story more than distracts from it for even the most critical of eyes.
As for the story itself ‘Green Arrow’ #10 picks up right from the events of the previous issue (reviewed here) with the gang jumping on the high speed train from Shanghai to Seattle. All of the action takes place on the train as the heroes are caught up in a murder plot. It’s not quite ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ but the mystery is still there.
It’s lacking a little in intrigue but it makes up for it in action. Considering the constrained space and underwater setting it’s still a bigger story in scope than expected. After two issues of heavy characterisation this is a breather to spend time on more of the action.
This isn’t a story which can run much longer than the train journey so I imagine it will wrap itself up relatively quickly and the action will move back on land.
Verdict
‘Green Arrow’ #10 is a respite from the heavy character development and a chance to focus more on an action set piece. It’s got some good art and strong writing. If you’re on the fence about reading ‘Green Arrow’ this is a fairly good place to try it.
