THE TRAGEDY OF RED ARROW

there are characters in superhero comics who are just born to suffer Bruce Banner Bruce Wayne someone who isn't named Bruce but to me the one who suffers the most in the big tw's output is Roy Harper also known as Speedy Arsenal and of course red arrow I like many fans got into Roy through his adaptations in Batman the Brave and the Bold Teen Titans and of course Young Justice where he not only became a pivotal character in season 1's plot as a secret clone of the original Roy but also got to settle down raise a

dog and run a security business with his fellow Roy clones as B Hunter security always on point but in the comics it's a much different story adopted from a reservation for insert random Native American tribe name here after his parents died in a wildfire Roy was a moody teenager who came to live with billionaire neoliberal Oliver Queen after proving his archery skills firsthand however given Oliver's poor investment decisions and general last holer the two's relationship with Frey as Roy decided to join his fellow Sidekicks in the field as part of the original team Titans acting

as a lady killing Street kid with a chip or two on his shoulder Roy was the bad boy the team meant to help teens in need needed one this is where he'd get his first girlfriend in the form of Wonder girl who was new to man's world and to love and for a long time that's all Roy's character really amounted to the bad boy with a second rate Mentor that only stuck around due to Brand recognition but around the same time Roy was ping around with dick Wally and G changes were being made in the

greater comic book landscape first first writer Denny O'Neal was inspired by a redesign done by artist Neil Adams to take away most of Oliver's Fortune making Oliver a hero for the working class but still a huge [ __ ] then to help supplement the failing Green Lantern title at the time paired the two Emerald Avengers together hoping to not only boost sales but also start commenting on issues of their current day this was around the dawn of the 70s when censorship for comic books due to the comics code Authority was starting to WAN a bit

so after Marvel tackled the concept of addiction and Amazing Spider-Man through the character of har Osborne O'Neal and Adams were pushed to tell a socially relevant stor surrounding the growing heroin epidemic and for maximum emotional impact O'Neal decided the best way to tackle addiction is by having it surround someone you'd never expect Roy explained as Roy living on the streets as Oliver traveled the country with how Jordan His neglect from his mentor and the perfectionist nature of his superhero Pals drove Roy into a dark place when Oliver returned and figured out that he was dependent

on a street dealer he kicked Roy out ashamed that his Ward would be a junkie how was much kinder to Roy bringing him to Oliver's new girlfriend Black Canary's place to deal with this withdrawal as they stopped the street dealer for good and as Roy crumples into Dina's arms saying how worthless he truly feels one of the kids he would get high with dies from an overdose at his friend's funeral Roy has gone clean and Oliver offers him a place by his side once again and though the original plans for the ending of the story

had him doing so returning things to a simple status quo the decision was made to not keep Roy as Ali's Ward saying he's better off on his own hammering home the consequences of his own decisions while O'Neal somewhat regretted the way he left Roy's story DC Comics ran with this characterization feeding back into his relationship with the Titans after their first breakup as he comes off colder and more prone to fighting this would be made worse with a rejection from Donna and taking things to the next level given Wonder Girl was told of Prophecy that

if she married a redhead they would die tragically so after yet another Titan breakup Roy decides to become an advocate for drug safety working as the drummer for rock band called great frog Roy would Mentor Youth about the dangers of drug usage and how easily a kid can become addicted to illicit substances olver even runs into him during the band's tour stopping his increasingly corrupt manager while honoring his former Ward's Independence hoping he'd gone clean which sadly he didn't in truth Roy had relapsed due to his bandmate Corey another heroin addict who would sadly overdose

during one of their regular sessions with the death of another friend because of the drugs he swore off and the band he helped found being torn away from him Roy decided that simply speaking on drug usage wasn't enough so he joined the DEA working his way from organization to organization as part of several anti-drug task forces even involving the new Teen Titans which you guess starred in for an anti-drug PSA to take down several compounds across New York City and deep into South America once again acting as a youth counselor when in a Speedy costume

Mark Wolfman not only canonized Roy's addiction as a core part of his backstory but also left the door open for more to be done with his Redemption how the boy who slipped through through the cracks became the one who picked people back up told them life was worth living even with a disease as bad as addiction now this was a great change for Roy but this is superhero comics given the nature of the big two and maintaining interest something needed to happen to Roy to keep him relevant given he was already positioned as an addiction

spokesperson having him relapse again seemed almost cruel despite the realism behind it some people just quit drugs and stay off them after all so writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Perez took Roy in an interesting Direction one that built off his status as a government agent in their ongoing plans for both the Teen Titans and the state of the DCU around this time Dick had officially made the transition from Robin to Nightwing with Jason Todd officially taking on the prior role under Batman W had changed roles from Kid Flash to just the flash after Barry

Allen died during crisis on infinite Earths and Roy went from a womanizing secret agent into a single father after meeting the ruthless assassin and Drug runner chesher on one of his undercover missions Roy spread his Speedy seed and just as quickly left before his lover could figure out he was a superhero when she did chesher or just Jade as I'll call her was pissed enough to keep their daughter a secret something she couldn't keep from Roy forever especially when he's called back to the Titans by Donna to stop her and her goons from messing with

the meeting with Soviet ambassadors after the Wonder Girl LED Titan fail on an international scale Roy sought out Jade and was finally introduced to his infant daughter Leanne seeing in her a second chance for himself Roy decides to give co-parenting with a woman he only knew for a week a shot and it goes poorly I don't know what you expected resorting to lying to dick in order to take his daughter back Roy would begin a pattern revolving around his Newfound daughter he would have her and raise her she would get kidnapped by Jade or someone

who hates Jade because she nuked a third world country once you what he enlists dick or one time Batman in order to get her back and he then reconciles that he never truly loved Jade to begin with even though he still clearly has a thing for her all the while his ex-girlfriend Donna Troy gets married to Marv Wolfman self-insert character Terry long and has her own redheaded child in the form of Robert they die horribly this is foreshadowing as Roy juggled being a single dad with commitment issues in the 80s and 90s he would still

be a regular player in the Titans and it several spin-offs even leading the team at one point due to his latest employers at Checkmate not trusting the Titans to operate without a government supervisor changing his name to Arsenal this Natural Evolution of an underdog into the top dog of a team he was only really a guest star in further cemented how far Roy had come since the days he was using heroin and how far he still had to go when the team disbanded something that didn't happen because of him per se and more an issue

surrounding the AOL line of comics and a general issue with ongoing big two stories poor sales no matter how good a story is if it ain't selling it ain't lasting and lucky for Roy he always manages to bounce back working best as a side character in Ensemble works like Dan Jurgens Teen Titans a book where he joined half halfway through got a new costume and became a mentor figure for this new generation of teenagers hoping none of them end up like he did then when that team's run ended dick starts up a whole new team

of Titans with Roy at the Forefront during this time he would start dating Donna again who reveals later on that she only really started dating him because she wanted to feel less perfect that's rough buddy while this stings Roy decides to be the bigger person and let bygones be bygones after all he has a pretty sweet gig he works with his friends for a living helps troubl super team occasionally does work for the government and his daughter Leanne is still there not kidnapped or worse things seem pretty all right for Roy then Donna dies because

of a robot not that robot which was sent from the future to kill her this robot which looks like Superman so in the wake of this temporary superhero tragedy because death is always temporary Roy starts his own superhero team a revamp of The Outsiders led by him and dick a team dick says he doesn't want to get attached to given how messy all their prior teams and breakups ended up being but given this is a found family type of team it's bound to happen anyway this includes the robot he reprogrammed in the midst of battle

who is given a second chance at life as Indigo getting into a cute but short-lived romance with metamorpho who isn't really metamorpho but just a small chunk of him that gained independence either way she dies so there goes that Redemption that on top of getting shot several times Leanne getting kidnapped by a sex trafficking organization a fight with dick that ends with him being called an addict again and Donna's inevitable Resurrection Roy reconsiders being a leader of what he planned to be a covert off super team he steps back to take a more Hands-On approach

to racing Leanne not just relying on a sitter but moving to Star City with a now six-year-old girl to have a proper Suburban life but he's a superhero so when Hal and Dina reach out to him instead of Oliver about a mission involving Dr Taro and the robot Amazo how could he say no olver even gives him his Blessing is the combined efforts of Roy Squad the Trinity black lightning and the voluptuous Vixen result in a new Justice League foring one with Roy at the Forefront as red arrow to me this is Peak character development

for any superhero joining the league not just because you're skilled but because despite everything you've been through the disease you carry they trust you it makes me miss this era of the DCU the idea that Sidekicks can truly become the next generation of Heroes not just taking up their mentor's identity but carving their own as a worthy wielder of the Mask but say it with me now this is superhero comics and according to Marvel's senior vice president Tom briard outrage sells not stability while I love Roy in which his story just ended here editorials plans

for the direction of the Justice League changed things drastically this included chopping Roy's arm off in the infamous story Cry For Justice a story that saw Oliver Queen quitting the league due to a difference of ideals hunting down the villain Prometheus as he sends his goon the electrocutioner to destroy Oliver's home of Star City this results in probably one of the worst decisions DC has ever made one they have made up for in the present but is also the reason why I'm making this video they killed Leanne oh this sends Roy over the edge hallucinating

his dead friend Cory and a rotting Leanne as he relapses using his newly made mechanical arm to kill the electrocutioner but not before proving once and for all that he's the better fighter to Oliver the story was written by JT croll who was also writing Titans at the time his plan was to have this fall from grace Redeemed by Roy denying a chance from Deathstroke of all people to revive his daughter betraying him in a desperate chesher as he starts a new team of Titans alongside Titan turn villain Jericho while this to me is again

good character development in the long term in the short term people hated it they hated edgy Roy they hated his relapse they hated the idea that he can't be happy so instead of building toward that happy future where he's at peace with his horrible decision-making DC decided to reboot in the new 52 Roy is now the tech expert for Oliver Queen's operation the one who invented the trick arrows and was thrown out for abusing Oliver's trust not to mention the heroin usage well Oliver kept the tech Roy would team up with the Jason Todd of

this reboot to form Red Hood in the Outlaws acting as his Tech Tech Guy while he deals with his addiction issues and failing memory and while this era of Roy gives him a starring role getting to [ __ ] Starfire and even changing the books name to Red Hood and Arsenal for several issues this wasn't the Roy that people wanted to see they wanted to see the Titan who overcame it all the man who fought against people's perceived Notions about him and became a pillar for the superhero community so DC brought back the Titans in

this continuity saying every member was forced to forget the time they were ever Titans because of a mixture of Mr Twister the team's first ever villain and Dr Manhattan who uh I still don't get why he's here this is where things start to feel more familiar Roy flirts with Donna acts as the team's voice of reason amids Dick's deceptions he relapses against his will after meeting Jade again and this time he sent to a rehab facility one meant for superheroes called sanctuary I'm not happy that he relapsed but hey it happens you can't fault a

person for something like that especially if you know they're working on it it's just that DC didn't want to tell a story about addiction with Roy this time around oh no they wanted to kill him and they did during Heroes and crisis a divisive event comic whose events have ultimately been undone with the Revival and Redemption of everyone involved this included Wally West who was initially depicted as a mass murderer driven to Insanity due to a poor representation of exposure therapy while Roy would come back at first as a zombie during dark Knight's death metal

before officially returning to Life as a temporary Black Lantern in the present something happened between these two story lines everyone and I mean every everyone as a result of the newly formed Multiverse have remembered the events of post crisis the memories of those events showed back into their heads alongside their current New 52 memories this included Leanne who through multiversal mumbo jumbo was returned to Life as a Teenage Thief named chesher cat she's reunited with Roy the eternally separated father and daughter together again part of a big family where she can honor both her father

and her mother despite their poor job at raising her to some this is a great decision Roy gets to be happy again and every bad thing that happened to him is still Canon he can be at peace despite all the [ __ ] he's been through he can be a father again but to me this is almost a tragedy waiting to happen given the nature of change in DC Comics and the need for sales when things get too stable Roy's happy ending isn't an ending just a stop Gap his status as a single dad of

a high schooler can be ripped away from him at any time because what else are they going to do with the character by Design he is driven by suffering by going through horrible [ __ ] coming out on top again and if he's on top right now it's only a matter of time before his luck runs out before editorial changes again forcing him to relapse or go Rogue or die again because there isn't anything else they can think of these characters can't simply retire or walk off into the sunset they need to keep growing and

changing because the industry keeps growing and changing you keep growing and changing so while Roy is happy again now his suffering is not a question of if but when when will the other shoe drop when will the silver needle strike again when will Roy lose his arm again I want to leave this video on a positive note so here's my pitch for Roy so fans can have him be happy without dumbing him down or pairing him with Jason family sitcom Roy's the dad who has wild stories from his past but is very protective of his

teenage daughter in the present a daughter who keeps him on his toes with the occasional tit end member her own mother entering the picture just like Wall-E and Jeremy Adams Flash run people want to see these characters grow up want to see them develop their own families and personal Dynamics why not let Roy have that again and just stick with it the tragedy of red arrow was that he wasn't even red arrow that long and that because of the reboot he won't be again for a long long time especially since oliv's sister took the mantle

what the [ __ ] thank you for watching