YMMV / Green Arrow

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • According to this, he was a Stealth Parody of Batman during the Silver Age.
  • Roy Harper's conflicted emotions about Cheshire following her nuking Qurac. While struggling with the fact he still loves Jade despite what she's done, are Roy's emotions stemming from his own lack of a mother and not wanting Lian to grow up with a mom rotting away in prison? Or does Roy blame himself for what Jade did because if he'd arrested her like he was originally supposed to, would she've been unable to destroy Qurac?
• Arc Fatigue: In Green Arrow (2011), whatever caused the falling out between Ollie and Roy. It's alluded to numerous times, and talked about without adding any detail. And just when you think they'll elaborate... they don't. It finally was explained in Green Arrow (Rebirth), nearly six years after it was first alluded to! And even then, the falling out we're shown doesn't actually apply to what was hinted at in the 2011 volume as the past history shown is exclusive to the Rebirth era.
• Audience-Alienating Era: See the DCU-specific page.
• Broken Base: While fans were happy about the Rebirth series finally addressing what happened between Ollie and Roy, some of those fans were also not happy that Roy's backstory was made oddly similar to Jason Todd's backstory; homeless before he tried to steal from Ollie. Likewise, they weren't happy that Roy was now raised on a Spokane Indian reservation instead of a Navajo reservation, as though the tribes are interchangeable. Even the most critically panned stories from the New 52 series were at least consistent with mentioning that Roy was raised on a Navajo reservation. While you could argue that this change was made to keep Roy closer to Oliver's home of Seattle, as the Spokane reside in Washington while the Navajo live in the southwest, it still is a controversial change nonetheless. There were also those who disliked the retcon on why Roy left the reservation. Originally, his adopted father sent him to live with Ollie because he was dying of liver cancer, while here, Roy was framed for his adopted father's death and kicked out of the reservation because he was too drunk to remember if he did it or not. He didn't. Fans felt this added unnecessary drama to Roy's backstory and didn't like that he was now already an alcoholic before he met Ollie.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Contested Sequel:
  • Brad Meltzer's The Archer's Quest. While it is generally agreed that Brad Meltzer had a good grasp on the characters involved, many fans disliked the revelation that Oliver Queen had been aware of Connor Hawke's existence prior to the two meeting in an ashram and walked out on Connor and his mother when he was born. This was partly due to it flying in the face of Oliver's previous characterization as an lonely orphan who wanted nothing more than a traditional family life with a loving woman and lots of kids and partly due to it requiring Oliver to have been capable of lying to his best friend, Hal Jordan who, at the time, possessed the cosmic knowledge of all of The Guardians Of The Universe minus one and informed Oliver that he had a son with the understanding he was ignorant of that fact.
  • Andrew Kreisberg and Ben Sokolowski's Kingdom. Even before it started it drew ire simply for following Jeff Lemire's run, which was thought by many to have saved the series from the slump Green Arrow was stuck in after the New 52 reboot. It didn't help that both writers - while experienced comic-book creators - were also writers for Arrow, which has a divisive relationship with the comic book fanbase. The main fear was that they'd turn the comic into a carbon copy of Arrow - a worry that was seemingly confirmed when Kreisberg and Sokolowski dropped most of the book's supporting cast except for John Diggle (a character originally introduced on the show) and introduced Felicity Smoak in the first issue, establishing the Power Trio featured on the show. However, they also attempted to reintroduce several elements of the classic series that had been missing since the New 52 reboot, including Oliver's friendship with Hal Jordan, the character of Mia Dearden and Oliver's mouthy 'man of the people' characterization.
• Creator's Pet:
  • Felicity Smoak's introduction in the above mentioned Kingdom arc was not well-received. This was, in large part, because she was introduced at the same time all of the old supporting cast - which already included two computer experts - were completely dropped from the series. This, combined with the creators gushing about bringing her in, resulted in her quickly being labelled a Creator's Pet by those not fond of Arrow in general or elements unique to the show being introduced into the comics in specific.
  • To a lesser degree, the villain Cupid, who was created by Andrew Kreisberg during his run on Green Arrow/Black Canary and was also introduced in the Kingdom arc for no reason other than Kreisberg wanted her in there.
  • Eddie Fyers for Chuck Dixon; though he was a reoccurring character in Grell's run, Dixon's run promoted him to being Connor's father figure and the two more-or-less shared the lead role. What sells him as an example of this, however, is how, after the series was cancelled, Dixon got a brief run on Batgirl, which had the titular character get knocked out by Fyers in embarrassing ease so that him and Connor can lead the adventure, even though there should be no way Fyers could have hit Cass as well as he did.
• Die for Our Ship: There's a surprisingly large number of Black Canary fans who hate Oliver and want to see him killed off, allowing her to hook up with various members of the Birds of Prey - usually Oracle.
• Don't Shoot the Message: "What Goes Up..." from volume five carries a genuinely sweet message regarding the struggles of transgender people, showing that it's important to let other people live in the way that they believe they should live and the importance of not forcing societal norms on other people. All of this is undone by the fact that out of all the metaphors they could have possibly used, they chose to use people who believe themselves to actually be robots, which circles everything the comic has to say straight back around into offensive territory.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Lian Harper's been a fan favorite for Arrow and Titans fans for years, both for what she brought to Roy and as a character in her own right. She's an adorably precocious and energetic kid with a knack for keeping up with superhero name changes, shows great insight into her dad's personality, and overall had one of the best parent-child relationships in the entire DC Universe. Her death in Justice League: Cry for Justice and how it was used to turn Roy into a psychotic anti-hero had many fans seething in rage. While those fans were happy when she was brought back in Convergence, they're also still angry DC hasn't properly reintroduced Lian. And when DC finally did bring her back, her fans were outraged that it was done covertly by aging her up and stripping her of her memories and personality as homeless teenager "Shoes".
  • Professor Million is a C-List Fodder villain who hasn't been seen since the Golden Age era, but he has a modest, enthusiastic fanbase for his strategic plans and Just Like Robin Hood motives.
• Fandom Rivalry: Fans of Green Arrow the comics tend to not be fans of Arrow, for its bastardisation of the material and In Name Only depictions of many characters (though the negativity is much more prominent between Arrow's fanbase and Black Canary's). For their part, many Arrow defenders, even those who are comic fans, are rarely fans of Green Arrow and Black Canary, so they're unbothered by the changes; and if they are fans of any Green Arrow comics, it tends to just be Judd Winnick's or Mike Grell's runs due to their perceived status as inspiration for Arrow. Then, in more extreme cases, there's Arrow fans who have genuine contempt for the source material, writing it all off based solely on the late 2000s Winnick-onward stuff to insist Arrow is an improvement, and mock comic fans who play Canon Discontinuity regarding the worse runs...despite Arrow having it's own severe Seasonal Rot.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: Making Roy Navajo by blood descent is a fairly popular idea among his fans who prefer it when DC focuses on his upbringing in Arizona, usually executed by taking advantage of how there is absolutely no established information about his mother in the canon setting.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • Roy Harper fans would prefer to pretend that his time in the Outlaws never happened due to how wildly out-of-character he was written by Scott Lobdell to justify him having any reason to take orders from Red Hood. The clincher is usually the Questionable Consent around his sleeping with Starfire.
  • Lian Harper did not lose her memories and she was not abandoned by her mother in Gotham City while everyone believed she was dead. Nor is she Catwoman's lackey/protégé and she does not call herself "Shoes."
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • James Robinson infamously claimed he was told to kill off Lian and Mia in Cry For Justice but fought to have Mia spared. Aside from making her culpable for Lian's death, Mia was still Demoted to Extra after spending most of the 2000s as a prominent supporting character among the Arrow Family. Her last appearances before Flashpoint were a minor role in Supergirl (2005) and the last Teen Titans arc. After that, she was erased altogether in the New 52 and didn't reappear until The Kingdom arc of Green Arrow (2011), only to then vanish again. All things considered, Robinson getting Mia spared proved pointless when her role in the DCU grinded to a complete stop.
  • One of Roy's worst fears aside from Lian dying is the idea that he wouldn't be there for her as she grew up, and that she would either end up repeating his mistakes or she would grow up to be like her mother. Thanks to Doctor Manhattan and DC Infinite Frontier, the latter ended up happening, as being torn away from Roy under the false idea that was she dead and forced to live on her own led to Lian taking on "Cheshire Cat," an identity modeled after Jade. Granted she's a heroic individual, but one that came about as a result of not having either parent in her life.
• Ho Yay: Connor had chemistry with Ollie's ex-CIA hate-friend Eddie Fyers, with whom he traveled and lived with for nearly the entirety of his run.
• Magnificent Bastard: See here.
• My Real Daddy:
  • Dennis O'Neil was the writer who really defined Green Arrow as a character by giving him his signature liberal political stance and his relationship with Black Canary even though he wasn't the one to initially create the character.
  • Other fans consider Mike Grell to be this, and while he built from Dennis O'Neil's legacy, he was also the one that made Green Arrow Darker and Edgier, starting with Longbow Hunters.
  • Devin Grayson, and to a lesser extent Jay Faerber, are considered the only writers in the last couple of decades to have any real clue as to what they were doing with Roy and Lian Harper. Devin was capable of referencing Roy's past addiction both for some drama but also some levity, and had redefined his Arsenal persona beyond a stereotypical edgy 90s hero. Jay tried to move past Roy's toxic relationship with Cheshire and had Roy address how Cheshire was never going to change (although Faerber's portrayal of Cheshire has been re-assessed in recent times as being racial stereotyping). Both authors properly portrayed Roy's father/daughter relationship with Lian with depth and were responsible for giving Lian a genuine personality beyond being a cute plot device. The quality of every writer who handled Roy after that has either been uneven (Judd Winnick, Brad Meltzer, Dan Abnett), or just God awful (Scott Lobdell, J.T. Krul, Eric Wallace, Benjamin Percy). It's telling that Grayson's short story "Green-Man and Autumn Son" in the 80th Anniversary Special collection was far better received by the fandom than just about every single story done with Roy in the past decade.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Roy Harper's two-issue struggle with drug addiction has pretty much defined the character ever since. Most animated adaptions however, can't look past his beginnings as a Robin Expy.
  • The Shado rape incident, which was treated as though Ollie had cheated on Dinah. This one is so infamous that since then, writers have gone out of their way to label it rape in protest of how it was handled.
  • Ollie's reaction when he found out about Roy's heroin addiction is considered one the most awful things Ollie did and a big reason many fans dislike him.
• Not Badass Enough for Fans: Oliver and Roy frequently suffer from the same stigma as being "just a guy with a bow and arrow" as Hawkeye. It doesn't help that Oliver and Roy have been compared to Batman and Nightwing both in- and out-of-universe and have been found lacking in some areas. Oliver is not a skilled detective, Science Hero and tactician, and overall lacks Bruce's mystique and intimidating factor instead being known as an insufferable, self-righteous jackass who often puts his foot in his mouth. Meanwhile, Roy is clearly not the natural and charismatic leader that Nightwing is and his history with drug addiction is often used against him by fans and writers.
• Strangled by the Red String:
  • Green Arrow and Black Canary's marriage felt very forced to many fans.
  • While he never got married, many fans believe Connor Hawke's few romantic relationships were forced as well, due to the fears of certain writers that the asexual monk might be viewed as being gay.
  • Ollie and Tarantula in the New 52 series, who Ollie starts commenting on how he's falling in love with her in-spite of their on-panel interaction at that point had basically no romantic element, not even any flirting. She disappears as soon as the arc is done though, which combined with other odd things (like Ollie brutally killing some of the Skeletons, at least before they were revealed to be zombies), makes the whole arc a giant Bizarro Episode.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Ollie himself following the Kevin Smith run; Smith established Ollie understood the mistakes he had made prior to his death, be it with Dinah, Roy and so on, and featured him resolving to be a better man and there for his son; cue the next writer and Ollie has cheated on Dinah with Black Lightning's niece, inadvertently caused her death, and the character was generally perceived to be unappealing and a bit of a mess from there on, culminating in the one-two-three punch of Ollie's role in Identity Crisis, the botched approach to the wedding, and Cry For Justice.
  • Tommy Blake Jr., Cheshire's infant son by Catman and Lian Harper's baby brother, was never featured in any stories involving the Arrow Family or the Harpers. It would've been interesting to explore how Lian would react to learning she was a big sister, plus what the reveal of Tommy's existence might mean for Roy and Cheshire. Considering Cheshire deliberately conceived Tommy as Lian's replacement in act that meant forsaking Lian's life, chances are Roy learning of such callousness would've redefined their relationship and completely changed their dynamic. There were also the possibilities of seeing Roy raising a child he wasn't biologically related to, much the same way his foster father Brave Bow and Ollie raised him. And considering Tommy's biological dad is Catman, it would've been interesting to see how Ollie would react to gaining a grandchild born from a man he detests.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Mia's role in Lian's death during Cry for Justice may have been indirect, but when she has the actual gall to try and seek Roy's forgiveness at his daughter's funeral of all places, the resulting outburst reads as less like Roy angrily lashing out at her for no reason and more like Mia choosing the worst possible time to apologize for her actions.
• Values Dissonance: Roy's handling in Rise of Arsenal was already loathed by the fandom when the story was being published due to DC's decision to kill Lian off so she wouldn't "drag him down" anymore. At the time, the story was meant to showcase Roy's descent into self-harm and villainy due to him lashing out at his loved ones when they tried to help him. Not even factoring in that Roy's friends and family genuinely do little to help him, and in fact make the situation worse, the creative team tried to justify this by stating Roy is naturally prone to self sabotage. Pointing to his past as a heroin addict, editorial tried to paint Roy as a character who is defined by failing almost as if he brought Lian's death and the events of Rise on himself. Due to Roy's history as a recovered addict, DC tried to say he's defined by failure and all his attempts at bettering himself have been for naught because he sabotages himself by nature. This not only ignored key aspects of Roy's growth and acted as vain justification for turning him into a psychotic antihero, but has been addressed in recent years as extremely ableist and demonizing towards people who struggle as recovered substance abuse addicts in real life. Instead of acknowledging the growth Roy went through to overcome his issues, DC tried to say the fact he had those issues at all made him a failure.