As I’ve stated in previous posts, I love Green Arrow and Black Canary as a couple. They have a lot of history and are so freaking cute besides. This volume compiles various stories of Ollie and Dinah starting from the Silver Age. Some of my favorites were:

  • “In Each Man There is a Demon” by Denny O’Neil, Dick Dillin, and Joe Giella. One of the first GO/BC stories, in which various members of the Justice League have to battle their evil selves!
  • “Zatanna’s Double-Identity” by  Elliot S! Maggin, Dick Dillin, and Frank McLaughlin. Zatanna casts a spell that accidentally gives her the Black Canary’s personality – and she tries to get between Dinah and Ollie as a result!
  • “The Hunters” by Mike Grell, Lurine Haines, Julia Lacquement, and Steve Haynie. Ollie reminisces on the old days of crime fighting before proposing to Dinah. Her answer will change the course of their relationship. The art in this story was by far my favorite, and I want to pick up “Longbow Hunters” (the GO comic it’s from) as a result!
  • “Feast and Fowl” by Kevin Smith, Phil Hester, Ande Parks, Jaims Sinclair, and Sean Konot. Contains Ollie and Dinah’s reunion after Oliver’s death, which is just the sweetest and most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever read.

As with any compilation, the art and writing styles varied considerably throughout. There was only one I absolutely hated, but it’s one of the short ones so that was good! I really wish they would have put cover pages at the start of each individual story like they do in the Greatest Stories Ever Told. They did kind of at the end, where all the stories were connected – but they only wrote what was missing between them. This might not bother some, as it does make it a little more cohesive, but it’s something I didn’t know I appreciated until it was gone!

… For some strange reason, I felt some weird deja-vu as I read the first few stories especially. I felt as if I’d read them before. When I texted my boyfriend what I was reading, he said he’d bought that one and I must have flipped through it at some point. Great minds think alike =P

– Kathleen

Various. Green Arrow/Black Canary: For Better or For Worse. 2007.