Not The Dog's Bollocks

I decided to forgo a Cocktail post this week, despite the large number of candidates: Justice Society Of America #14 would easily have won out if only for the best next issue box ever ("Next: Someone gets beat up. Bad."); Booster Gold #8 saw not only the return of Wild Dog and Pantha but promised the return of Justice League International as well; having missed The Punisher #55 last month, I got that and #56 this week; Green Lantern Corps #23 put the pieces in place for what's shaping up to be a really good story; and even Countdown To Final Crisis #3 provided me with a laugh (see the previous post).

Green Arrow And Black Canary #7, however, is what I want to talk about, and not necessarily in a good way.

Judd Winick's writing has been critiqued all over the net this week, primarily because of Titans #1 which I didn't bother picking up. I'm not a huge fan of Winick's but I've tended to cut him some slack over the years. I knew next to nothing by him when he took over Green Lantern back in 2000 but by the time he swapped over on to Green Arrow in 2003 he hadn't exactly endeared me to him. However, I stuck with him primarily for the characters - these are comics I've been reading for God knows how many years - even through the interminable Trials Of Shazam which finally ended a week or two ago with the most obvious reveal of where Zeus had been hiding all along.

Though it may seem like sacrilege to some, I was never into the Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans and despite picking up the Titans East Special a couple of months back, thought this was the perfect time not to pick up another Judd Winick comic. Having read several reviews of Titans #1, particularly Newsarama's, I'm kinda glad.

As I've mentioned before, the glorious artwork of Cliff Chiang is one of the main reasons I'm still reading Green Arrow And Black Canary and with the negative reviews of Titans ringing in my ears and Mike Norton taking over on art, it was with some trepidation that I opened #7 (though if that is Norton's work he's doing a damn fine impression of Chiang.) I was pleasantly surprised, then, to read the first five or six pages with Green Lantern gently taking the mick out of Green Arrow just like the long time friends they are. This was banter and dialogue worth reading and I found myself thinking that Winick's not bad every once in a while and that maybe I should have picked up Titans after all.

And then the story moved to London and yet another American take on English dialogue.

Mia's exuberance and cry of "Pip, pip! Cheerio! Bob's your uncle!" are perfectly understandable as is her demand for "fish and chips and whatever the hell bangers and mash are," (for the record, they're sausages and mashed potatoes, usually served in our house with baked beans but they can be dished up with gravy and another vegetable) so I've no problem with that.

No, it's the "Cor blimey, guv'nor!" words coming from the charming villain of the piece, Dodger, that set my teeth on edge.

To Mia: "Geez, luv, isn't it a bit early for a bird like you to be bellying up?" What? Who refers to a woman as "a bird like you" direct to the woman's face? "Bellying up?" What the hell does that mean?

"Lemme buy ya a round." Close, but no cigar. You don't buy an individual person "a round" you buy "a round" of drinks for several people. If there's a bunch of friends in a pub, the general rule is that each person takes it in turn to buy a round for everyone else rather than everyone buying their own drinks.

"Watchin' like they're gonna nick your coat off the rack." It's completely redundant to say "off the rack." I don't think I've ever been in a pub which has a coat rack, and certainly not one in London - neither have I been in a pub in London that had so few customers, either. The place is the capital city of England and is packed with people but team Arrow appears to have found the only country pub in the city.

"Keep your gob shut or it'll be six inches lower." Judd, trust me - no-one has used the term "gob" for "mouth" since about 1988.

Oh and it goes on, as well, more than I can stand.

I really wanted to enjoy the rest of this issue after the excellent first few pages, but it just headed downhill once more. I like the characters and I want to know what happens to Connor but I can't help wishing someone other than Winick would take over as writer.