![]() Hal and the Black Canary eventually reached out to Roy and helped him quit heroin cold turkey – which might qualify as a crowning moment of awesome for Roy, since detoxing like that is not only extremely hard but a good way to wind up dead due to the withdrawal symptoms. Luckily, Roy had some friends in his life that weren’t total douches. Depending on the writing, this trait can be a good thing about the character, in that it shows a realistic jerk with a heart of gold, or a bad thing, in that he kicked his own surrogate son out of his home for doing drugs – after spending a lot of time reaming Hal Jordan out for ignoring real-world problems, no less. Yeah, lesson one in the DC Universe: the Green Arrow is an asshole. He had spent issue after issue ragging on Hal Jordan for ignoring the little man, and now he had a chance to lend support to his drug-addicted ward. Its place in comic book history aside, the issue was a really nice chance for the Green Arrow to put his money where his mouth was. Even if it was mentioned, it would never, ever be a major character who was the junkie. Never before had drug addiction been dealt with head-on by a comic book. For the time period, this was a ground-breaking issue and was one of the stories that marked the beginning of the Bronze Age of comics. During that time, Roy had fallen into drugs and become addicted to heroin. ![]() In Green Lantern, volume 2, #85, Ollie wound up revisiting the kid he had basically abandoned so he could run across America on his male bonding trip. In what is probably the most iconic issue of this period, Roy got involved with his surrogate dad’s storyline. This helped separate the Green Arrow from Batman, as Ollie took on more of a social conscience beyond just beating up criminals. In the early 1970s, Oliver Queen lost his fortune and wound up traveling America with buddy Hal Jordan, fighting for the little guy. Insert obligatory “Speedy is on speed” joke here. But despite making some progress, he didn’t really have his own niche in the DC Universe – a problem that would follow him for decades. He wound up on the Teen Titans, where he had a brief relationship with Donna Troy, aka Wonder Girl. While he began as a Robin ripoff, Speedy did turn into a fairly interesting character on his own soon enough. Ollie eventually took Roy in as his ward and acted as the boy’s surrogate father. Whatever the origin, he would eventually get paired with Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow, who nicknames him Speedy because his speed with a bow exceeds even Ollie’s. In both versions, his mother is a non-character who has been out of his life almost since birth. Post- Crisis on Infinite Earths, this origin would get a revisit and it would be established that Roy’s father was a friend to a Navajo tribe and that Roy was raised by the Navajo following his father’s death. Roy’s father died in the crash, but Quoag and Roy managed to survive and lived well on the island thanks to Roy’s excellent archery skills. Here we see the typical nuanced and clever portrayal of Native Americans in Golden Age comics.Īnyway, Roy Harper wound up in a plane crash on an isolated island along with his father and their Indian servant Quaog. The Green Arrow and Speedy used bow gimmicks instead of bat gimmicks. But the Green Arrow and Speedy totally weren’t ripoffs of Batman and Robin, we swear! There are marked differences…well, one marked difference. The Green Arrow had an Arrowmobile, and Arrow Cave, he was a wealthy playboy by day with a child ward who fought crime by night, and so on. At the time, he was just a Robin analogue for the Green Arrow, who himself was a Batman analogue. Roy Harper was introduced as Speedy, sidekick to the Green Arrow, in that duo’s debut in More Fun Comics #73 back in 1941. What I have to offer here is a history of “Roy Classic.” So let’s dive in, shall we? When DC rebooted its universe, he joined up with his buddies Jason Todd and Starfire in Red Hood and the Outlaws, but I’ve read very little of that series or anything else involving Roy since. My knowledge of Roy Harper extends from his early days up until about 2010 or so. Looking at Roy Harper’s history is like watching a train wreck, then watching the sole survivor emerge from the blazing inferno, take six steps forward, then get hit by a speeding car. ![]() He’s one of the first comic book characters to really be involved in some heavy topical issues, but bad creative decisions have turned him into a parody of those very same issues. He’s been a drug addict, a single father, and an amputee. ![]() He’s also been the Red Arrow and Arsenal. He began as Speedy, the Green Arrow’s sidekick. Who is Roy Harper? Well, he’s been lots of different things. ![]() But we all still fight….Everything we need – it’s all within us. ![]()
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