Justice League of America #66 (1968)
1960s
The decade in which Green Arrow hit the big time. During the 1960s, he joined the Justice League in their fourth issue, becoming an official member shortly afterwards. When a young writer named Denny O’Neil took over Justice League of America, Green Arrow went from background noise to a hero with a voice. As the conscience of the League, he often stood up for the little guy, and was on his way to becoming the “liberal loudmouth” he was famous for being later in his career. In the late 1960s, Neal Adams redesigned his costume to resemble a swashbuckling and athletic modern archer, and it was the catalyst that redefined him for the next forty years. It also gave birth to Ollie’s trademark Van Dyke beard!
Recommended Reading: BRAVE AND THE BOLD #85 is reprinted in a number of places, so if you can get your hands on any edition, ‘The Senator’s Been Shot’ storyline introduces a new-look Green Arrow. Prior to that, there’s a handful of Justice League issues that have become available in JLA archival reprints, including the “Doom of the Star Diamond” and “Divided — They Fall!”
Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76 (1970)
1970s
The single era that defined Green Arrow more than any other. He’s a little older now, so he ditches Speedy – or maybe the kid ditches him – gets hip new clothes, facial hair, and becomes angry with the system, travelling across the country as part of his belated ‘gap year’ with his good friend and colleague Hal ‘Green Lantern’ Jordan in O’Neil and Adams’ award-winning Green Lantern/Green Arrow stories. He finds a country that’s stricken by a “hideous moral cancer” and the abandoned Speedy is a heroin junkie. It was part of DC’s experimentation with “relevant” comics, ripping stories from the headlines and tackling issues like poverty, race inequality, and population overload instead of capes and aliens. Throughout the rest of the decade, Green Arrow kind of languished again in other people’s books again, but developed a relationship with the other great partner in his life: Black Canary.
Recommended Reading: Without a doubt, the quintessential reading of the 1970s (and perhaps of Green Arrow’s history) is GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW: HARD TRAVELLING HEROES.
