Comic Book Questions With Xenojay – ISSUE 1

I love comics.

I don’t covet them in the sense that I’m a Gollum-like creature gently petting my issue of ‘Superman #123’ in a cave, nor have I created some sort of cocoon out of back issues akin to one Adam Strange.

I just enjoy them.

And I can talk about them.

And I wiki them.

And I may or may not have 4 (…5…) boxes stacked with issues (both read and unread) along with a plethora of trades and graphic novels for that ‘BIG BLAST’ reading adventure.

So when the ‘Cake Oven’ team said “HEY XENOJAY. YOU SHOULD DO COMIC STUFF” (upper-case used for hyperbolic effect) I thought “HELL YEAH, COMICS BRUH.”
Once that passed though, I thought “Holy heck, what do I actually write about? There’s so much I could cover off here. I could go into label wars or discussions about favourite characters or what’s good to read!”

So like any smart writer, I went out into the Twitter-sphere and said “Guys, Tell me stuff you want to know!” and thus…

COMIC BOOK QUESTIONS WITH XENOJAY WAS BORN!

Issue 1 comes from the lovely @littlebiancakay with:

IS OLIVER QUEEN ALIVE

— Inigo Montoya (@littlebiancakay)

This question is more in regards to the TV show ‘Arrow’ but HEY! That’s still a property based on a comic, so let’s do this!

 

SPOILERS. YOU FOOLS.

 

Is Oliver Queen alive? Definitely.

Why? Well the show is called ‘Arrow’!

But why is he alive and why is he probably dead for now? The ‘dead’ part is easy; This allows the show to develop the other characters and start working on potential spin-offs (Don’t be surprised if ‘The Atom’ and ‘Arsenal’ are announced in the near-future) and also gives Stephen Amell a bit of a break from work.

This is good for the actor because dude is like 90% of the show and that can get a bit tiring for any one! So it’s exciting to see how they use this time to work on everyone else.

The ‘alive’ part? Well, if you know the comics then you know Ra’s Al Ghul is a man who doesn’t like staying dead. He’s also pretty youthful for his age! (The show acknowledges this when he comments on Oli being his first challenge in 68 years)

How does Ra’s do this?

Well you see, he has a funny little thing called the ‘Lazarus Pit’ (Not a club competing with Oli’s but damn, that would be a great club name).

These pits, which can vary in amount existing and where they may be located, have the ability to not only heal grievous bodily wounds, but pretty much bring people from the dead. This is always great because if a person is brought back from the dead, they actually go mad and well madness is always an interesting tale.

With this we have multiple storylines that could come about due to this particular plot device. I mean, Mad Oli would be great!

But you say “HEY! Those pits sound mighty magical for ‘Arrow’! A show trying to keep it real!”.
It’s true. The pits make it magical. While ‘Arrow’ did start off as ‘Arrow Begins’ (Honestly, the amount it has in common with Nolan’s ‘Batman Begins’ is great! Of course, that’s based mostly off the great Batman yarn ‘Batman: Year One’, which you should read), the reason ‘The Flash’ has come along is to introduce Meta’s (an actual DC Comics term) into the continuity.

But this also allows ‘Arrow’ to expand it’s own universe, allowing crazier stuff to go down (Because other expert archers and crazed mercenaries isn’t enough).

With all these crazy Meta’s now existing, there’s no real issue in having a glowing, green liquid bring Oli back to life.

Is Oliver Queen alive?

Yes. But when he’ll be back is anyone’s guess!