Arrow Season 2.5 by Marc Guggenheim, Keto Shimizu, Brian Ford Sullivan and Joe Bennett

Personally I always find tv and movies more fun when you can tell the creators, actors, and crew are having a lot of fun with it. One of the reasons why Marvel fan culture has been more interesting to me.

This book is loads of fun. They took great care to tie it into the show cannon (even stating in the introduction that this IS cannon), and using the show writers to write the comic script. This volume hits on all the past fun points—Brother Blood, Slade, Arsenal gets his costume, Malcolm Merlyn plots some stuff, and there’s a side plot with Diggle and the Suicide Squad.

The tones are spot on as well. Oliver struggles with letting others help him when Arsenal gets shot busting a drug ring. Diggle leads the Suicide Squad on a covert mission to save young girls. And most importantly Felicity awkwardly charms her way right into Oliver’s heart.

Arrow is past third season, but this is still a fun fleshy read, worth seeking out and adding to a collection. The writing is great, the art is wonderful, and it offers a little bit of a patch for those off season withdrawls.