Batman/Green Arrow/The Question: Arcadia Review

In the last decade or so, there has been a noticeable leaning towards the nostalgia of the nineteen-eighties in much of our pop culture. Kids on bikes, big-haired rock stars, puffy pants, the need for masked men bringing down corrupt corporate schemes through investigative journalism and physical violence, scrunchies, etc. You know, things we all miss so much that we brought most of them back. Especially the corporate greed and corruption, that is huge right now if you did not know. And it is with that last one writer/artist Gabriel Hardman, colorist Romulo Fajardo Jr., and letterer Simon Bowland brought us DC Comics’ newest Black Label project, Batman/Green Arrow/The Question: Arcadia, a four-issue miniseries centering around the often loner titular heroes as their paths cross on a noir-laced adventure around the globe to investigate a company with a supposed remedy to climate crisis.

Spoilers to follow!

With an already diverse body of work in the comics world and storyboarding, Hardman’s script and art flow together well to emulate, but not imitate, that inspiring era of Denny O’Neil , Mike Grell, and Denys Cowan that still resonates so strongly with readers today. In an announcement interview with DC, Hardman states that despite being heavily inspired by these creators and their runs on the respective characters featured in Arcadia, it is a contemporary story. Something he not only works well into his evolution of the trio of vigilantes, but into the plot overall. When a company tied to the formerly independent Queen Industries is responsible for the death of a protestor in Hub City, The Question goes undercover to investigate their labor practices after alerting Green Arrow that he may be interested in whatever his family’s company is up to. All the while, Batman conducts his own investigation, under the guise of Bruce Wayne, to meet with the CEO and discuss possibly in investing in their crown jewel: a floating city being built in the arctic meant to bypass the coming climate crisis and rising sea levels called, Arcadia.

Hardman’s pencils remain the main draw to this story outside of his script. Known for his gritty and down-to-earth feeling illustrations, he is right at home in the noir/crime genre. Especially when he uses characters known for their “street-level” antics. His own additional work as a storyboard artist shines through in each issue, visiting locale after locale, and showing off more of the versatility comic artists are known for being great at drawing anything imaginable. A personal favorite of mine are his settings: a run-down Hub City, home to only the rats, the barren and cold wastelands of Greenland, and the bowels of floating city’s super structure just to name a few. When you add these places to the already vast wilds of space he’s drawn in things like Green Lantern: Earth One and Star Wars: Legacy, there seems little left for him to conquer on the page. But that is where he surprises you in the best way. Hardman in this story draws people going through the worst of their lives, showing it easily in those very dark and dingy hidden spaces on the floating city, but also showing the hope they wear in their acts of resistance. Their emoting and motion feels natural, and when paired with the colors of Fajardo Jr., they come to life fully and make readers feel as if you are reading a noir epic from Hitchcock or any of the other pillars of classic Hollywood. The captions of Bowland to highlight The Question’s internal monologue are the icing on the cake to finalize the noir genre with its heavily social issues-focused plot.

Prior to this series, the three heroes have only teamed up in one other situation. That being the Fables crossover told across the annuals of each character by Denny O’Neil. Just as that series centered around all of them coming out of it as new men, the stage is set in Arcadia to accomplish the same. The Question is last left who still cares about Hub City and its dead industries, and it is not until he is directly responsible for the death of a resistance group member targeting the private militia that essentially tortured her and her friends for months in indentured servitude, that he realizes a larger story is out there and sets off to crack it. For Green Arrow, he’s on a downward spiral without Black Canary to pick him back up since he once again messed that up. It takes The Question bringing up the fact the woman he got killed had a run-in with Queen Industries in the courts that eventually led her to bombing a private military contractor to shake Ollie to his senses and remind him that he used to care about things like this, especially when his family’s name was tied to them. For Batman, the busting of some threatening college-age graffiti artists leads him to reevaluate his process and analyze if there truly is more he can be doing to help the world as Bruce Wayne. All three find themselves as very self-reflective crossroads, unaware how soon they are about to clash on their way to the same goal.

This is an angry book. You can feel it not only in every punch thrown or arrow fired, but in the faces Hardman puts on the page belonging to the many non-superheroes the main cast encounter in their investigation. Ones full of vitriol and desperation looking to survive in a world where they are treated as disposable to those employing them. Hardman portrays this working-class struggle on the verge of united revolution well. So well, I’d say, that it can be taken as a direct critique of the world we find ourselves in today. People grow tired of waiting for things to get better out of the sheer kindness of their billionaire boss’ hearts and just accept their fate. No one is coming to save them. And the so-called heroes who could solve things with a snap of their fingers or putting their many millions behind a worthy cause? They would rather reminisce about when the bad guys were not looking back at them in the mirror or protecting the property of the very people poisoning the world they patrol. And to be fair to Batman (someone who definitely needs me defending the idea of him), that encounter with the vandals shakes him. He becomes mad at himself and the secluded, opaque bubble he has built around Gotham. It is a more nuanced take on the popular internet argument that Bruce Wayne could do more than dressing as a bat and beating on the mentally ill. Hardman uses it as a solid base to build this change in Batman and make it believable and something we would love to see happen to the real world’s richest people without needing three ghosts to kickstart it. It is a hard stance to take and support, but Hardman writes the Batman he wants to see in the world and uses not only what makes him such a great hero, but also his vital flaws. 

Oliver cannot stand the idea of his family’s company working with such violent people and abusing the basic rights he championed for years. There is a self-hatred and pitiful mindset he wears for most of the first issue I think would resonate with many people: having the ability to do something worthy but standing by as others hopefully pick up the slack. When he finally wakes up, he has this energy that matches his exertion from running around frozen Greenland with his bow and arrow.

You can tell how he writes them, that Hardman loves all three of these heroes. It is a lot to balance, and I think there is sometimes a noticeable struggle for all three to get the airtime they need to justify their developments. But it is in the shorthand of these catalytic moments for each that Hardman works with what he has and smooths those wrinkles as they come up. Of the three though, The Question seems to be his favorite and goes through what I think in the most important journey. Probably best described as the “lowest class” of the heroes here since he is the only one not rich out of his mind, Vic Sage is someone who puts himself on the front lines to try and help in the way he thinks serves the world best: investigative journalism. He is someone I think we see more these days because he is someone I think most of us identify the closest with as someone who may get involved, but not in a way that is needed by those he chooses to help. Now, this could be said again about all three of these vigilantes, but The Question does something else no one likes to admit they are guilty of: causing harm to at-risk people with careless intervention. The before-mentioned death he was responsible for during the Hub City bombing? He held that woman as she tried to escape and gave the police the time to shoot her dead. This extreme example does not directly translate to sharing a post or link doing the same type of damage, but there is a fine line walked of ignorance in most people that think the bare minimum was enough for their conscience. For Vic, if he can figure out why this woman wanted to blow up a helicopter and tell the world, that would bring about the change needed to prevent future violence. And when he finally gets to tell the person who sent that bomber why he was there in the first place, they cannot even stand to look at him, calling him selfish and bringing that anger to the surface of what he should have done from the outset.  

Once that anger is presented in full, what follows is a globe-spanning mystery on three fronts. Driven by his guilt and curiosity, The Question embeds himself as an indentured worker for Arcadia to find the truth behind what would drive someone to such destruction. What he finds is a workforce trafficked from around the world and punished with violence for the slightest slip up or retaliation by an abusive security force hired by Queen Industries. As Question crawls below the radar, Batman strides up top where he is quickly recruited by the new Queen Industries CEO to flush out what he claims is a violent resistance group threatening the very mission of Arcadia and securing a future for the world at large. Shaken, but not entirely deterred by the CEO’s glaring comments about Gotham or lower-class individuals, Bruce uses the cowl to aid the Arcadia project despite how limited his vision quickly becomes. Finally, with Green Arrow taking the direct approach to figure out what happened with his family’s company, he finds himself in direct contrast with Batman and the two come to blows in the physical and ideological sense regarding the future, how they wear or not wear their masks to help people, and legacies. But it is with the attempt on the QI CEO’s life that things finally boil over as the security force militarizes fully to wipe out all workers standing up to their brutal tactics and the CEO reveals his plans for a better future were only ever about his bottom line.

It is in this reveal I believe Hardman comes full circle on the overall theme of the book, centering a belief in social change on the grand scale being achievable comes from direct action of the oppressed with the support like-minded benefactors/ruling class who witness the class disparity firsthand. The three heroes may lead the book in title, but their stagnant nature until they reach Arcadia contributes to their ignorance and encounter the catalyst environment of the island: The Question smells a story he thinks can bring about change if he just reports on it, until he’s on the front lines swinging a wrench into the face of a guard about to execute an immigrant worker; Green Arrow believes he can throw his weight around as a hero and former CEO of QI to enact change, when the reality is if he was more involved while still in the company’s graces, he could have prevented their contract with the security group; and Batman believes that if he can find the right guy at the top to partner in his mission, he may finally be able to stop and rest. Until that very CEO is executed before his unmasked face by an angry worker right after claiming he and Bruce were the same.

This book being a Black Label title affords it some consideration in the acts of violence carried out on page compared to what you might see in other mainline DC books. But the publishing safety of it being essentially an “elseworlds title,” does not diminish the message of workers’ rights in an ever-shrinking world where something like five companies own everything you see. Powerful corporate leaders believe they can treat people however they want in today’s world with no repercussions because they believe the average person is too weak-willed to push back. The same people who retreated in fear when one of their own was gunned down on the streets of New York, refused to listen to their security consultants regarding investing in their people to prevent similar acts of violence from occurring to them in the future. They were reported as saying the people will happily work for them in an extreme end of the world scenario, just because they are powerful and have the resources. But that just reflects their ignorance. People capable of critical thinking, like Hardman here in Arcadia, knows what will happen with a small minority population in control of the violence: they are always outnumbered and always run out of bullets before targets.

Batman/Green Arrow/The Question: Arcadia ends on a more positive note. Green Arrow recovers in the hospital, The Question can finally take his mask off, the workers are freed by a UN peacekeeping force, and Batman reveals his identity to the world when presented the chance as he hopes to better align his mission to the wellness of the world as a whole. I do not know if this ending falls in line as neatly as DC hoped for, or if it was purposeful to drive more criticism of the people who claim to be leaders in the world. Batman’s reveal reads as him taking a righteous stand as the good billionaire after coming to blows with “the bad one,” and seeing what happened to him and trying to avoid that fate. Though, the more literal read on the page and likely intended message is the limited way in which the masked crime fighting actually helps those in direct need of mutual aid. In a way, perhaps it’s the logical ending to this version of Batman’s career as a masked vigilante and evolution into a humanist with an eye towards the future intent on equity among all.