The Arrow by Roland Mann

The Arrow Reviews

• 
  Geraldine

  Honestly, I am going to be very surprised if I find anymore information of this book that isn't in a Wikipedia page. I searched everywhere for this comic when I looked it up. I learned a few things like Marvel Comics paying off Malibu Comics and integrating with them, then a cold end from the story from there. From what I've gathered, that implied that Marvel since then, threw the Protectors series down the drain. I even looked up the Protectors, and well, it ended on a rather bad note, then it was cancelled.
  
  I remember getting this book as a kid in some small, dinky shop off the shore of a lake. Was like two dollars when I gotten it. I looked up the price now and, well, it didn't really change, if any. I tried to find a lead on 'The Ferret'. Nothing came up. All I saw with a paragraph or two on Malibu Comics, but nothing on 'The Ferret'. I'm writing this story on the comic because when I went to look it up, Goodreads didn't even have the book in the database. The Protectors volumes went up to 20 before it ended.
  
  And here, we have The Arrow, a one-shot comic on possibly the first American superhero that uses archery as his primary weapon. I guess it didn't look that cool at the time, because then you get the Green Arrow and Hawkseye and they appear to be more popular. Must be because they used other gadgets with their bows than Arrow did. He shot arrows and for some reason, villains with actual superpowers just took it. Just dang, he even killed a kid with his arrow, even though it was by accident.
  
  Okay, for the review of the whole comic. I never read the Protectors, so I have no idea on what's going on there. But from the comic itself, well, it did its typical service of cheesy punchlines and fighting words like "I got an arrow for you too, pal!" right on its cover page. The lining and inking was well done. Honestly, I don't really care for his costume though? While simple = easy, even then, he didn't really have anything that stand out to me.
  
  He was just your typical blond, blue eyed man. Yes, in the mist of all these dark haired heroes with brooding personalities, he had a different look, but still had that brooding personality too. He wasn't really interesting in knowing about. He decided in the one-shot to become an anti-hero. There was anti-heroes already swindling about such the Punisher and Batman, possibly taking a good amount of spotlight off of the Arrow.
  
  Anyway, the story was okay for the time. Involved scenes of what made the Arrow who he is and him choosing officially his methods of destroying crime from then on, learning after killing a kid to remain calm and focused. They somehow did it with a guy who only uses arrows and nothing else against actual superheroes, but he did it.
  
  That's really all there is to this.
  
  Not the worst, but not the greatest. Had a okay set up on its own, making it easy to understand without needing to read other comics to do so. It was obvious that Marvel at the time didn't want competition barking up on its tree, so it paid out the Malibu Comics and made the whole thing disappear off the face of the Earth, no pun intended for the ending of the Protectors.