Chris Condon makes a splash with his first ongoing DC Comics series. In Green Arrow Vol. 4: Fresh Water Kills, Condon delivers an Oliver Queen story that ought make Mike Grell fans happy, all street level and detective work and practical effects. Deviating, perhaps nicely, from what we’d usually expect from a new series writer’s first story, there are no grand conspiracies that I could discern, no overarching villain on the prowl, just Green Arrow, a new police sidekick, and a predictable but affecting mystery to solve.
Notably, the “Fresh Water Kills” storyline spans seven issues but never feels long. Really it’s over by the sixth, but Condon takes an entire final issue for epilogue. Even again when it seems like “Fresh Water Kills” is mostly self-contained, Condon spends four full pages in the last chapter checking in with the culprit before Ollie ever makes the scene. That is to say, Fresh Water Kills is methodical, it’s meticulous, and it reads like a cross between DC’s 1980s mature readers titles and a TV cop drama, helped in no small part by artist Montos.
