Poor Roy Harper. He’s been swirling around the filthy toilet bowl of life for so long you have to wonder if he’ll ever be washed clean. The dude certainly does have a lot going for him: he’s young, he’s handsome, he’s ripped, and he’s probably the biggest man-whore in the entirety of the DC Universe. So why is it for the past 40 years or so he’s had such a tough time catching a break?

My theory is that Roy is his own worst enemy. And that’s saying a lot, considering the number of bloodthirsty sleaze-buckets that have gunned for him throughout his career. He always seems to be depicted as totally driven by his emotions, which often leads to rash decisions and regrettable actions. Why else would a member of the clean-cut Teen Titans have allowed himself to be seduced by one of the deadliest assassins on the planet?

Roy started out pretty level-headed. Orphaned at a young age, he was raised by a Navajo chief who taught him how to use a bow—real well. After the chief died, leaving the lad once more without a father figure, he was taken under the wing of Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow. And this was the point where Roy began his downward spiral.

Not to say that Ollie has been a bad influence on his adopted “ward.” But anyone who knows anything about Green Arrow knows how hotheaded and opinionated he can be. Some of that surely had to rub off on his young protégé, right?

After a couple years doing the sidekick thing, Roy branched out on his own and hooked up with the Titans, where he became a long-lasting and upstanding member. However, neither his surrogate father nor teammates were aware of the dark side Roy harbored…until Ollie walked in on him, alone in his room with the lights off and holding a hypodermic needle in his hand.

Yes, it turned out clean-cut, upstanding Roy Harper was a heroin addict. Somehow he managed to keep it a secret for such a long time without it affecting his performance as a superhero (at least not that anyone could tell). With help from Ollie and his Titans friends, Roy managed to overcome his addiction and reclaim the greatness he had achieved as the amazing archer, Speedy. At least for a while.

Maybe it’s because he had such a hard time with drugs that Roy resorted to other self-destructive behaviors and has gone through a major identity crisis ever since. In an attempt to break out of Green Arrow’s shadow, he abandoned the bow and the Speedy persona and turned himself into a one-man arsenal. That’s what he called himself, too—Arsenal, a codename he kept for most of the 1990s and early 2000s. But Roy then came full circle when he was invited to join the Justice League. Striving to prove himself worthy of the honor, he took on a new attitude and a new name, Red Arrow.

Of course, the prestige couldn’t last long. Almost as soon as he set up shop in the Hall of Justice, Roy started scamming on any and all available females he could find. He ended up sinking his claws into Kendra Saunders, aka Hawkgirl, and the two shared a torrid physical affair for quite some time. But Roy, being the womanizer he is, couldn’t maintain the relationship for very long, and it didn’t take much for Kendra to see right through him and dump his cute little playboy behind.

All this brings us to the current sad state of Roy Harper. His stint with the Justice League didn’t end well at all. During the Cry for Justice limited series, Red Arrow gave his right arm to help the League defeat one of its deadliest enemies—literally. The villain Prometheus infiltrated the Hall of Justice and ambushed poor Roy, cutting off his arm in the process. To make matters worse, Prometheus then had the gall to destroy Star City, the town where Roy lived with Lian, his five-year-old daughter by Cheshire. Lian is killed in the destruction, which becomes the catalyst for Roy’s raging leap over the edge.

Now, in normal circumstances, all of this chaos would make for an incredibly compelling look at how a hero deals with personal tragedy. The Rise of Arsenal was intended to do just that, but so far the story’s execution has been far from compelling. The third issue just came out, and for me it was an extremely painful read. Not because of the dark emotions one would think would come from a parent dealing with the death of their child but because of how jaw-droppingly BAD the whole story has been.

The issue opens with Roy confronting Cheshire. For the first few pages, the two engage in a vicious brawl that culminates with them giving in to their passion. Unfortunately, Roy can’t seem to get his arrow out of the quiver, so instead he leaves Cheshire behind in order to release his frustration by gong all kick-ass on some petty street thugs. It’s still not enough, so after taking time to shoot his one good arm full of horse (which is followed by a hallucinatory visit from his dead daughter), he loads up on all sorts of lethal weapons and goes back out on the prowl.

His overly violent actions are noticed by a certain Dark Knight fill-in, so Roy turns the focus of his anger on one of his best friends, Dick Grayson. The two tussle for a while until Dick knocks Roy out. He then takes him to a high-security rehab center for drugged-out supervillains, where he’s visited by his surrogate stepmother, Dinah Lance, the Black Canary. Dinah tries to convince Roy to get the help he needs, but it seems to go in one ear and out the other.

The Rise of Arsenal #3 plays out like a bad afterschool special. A really, REALLY bad afterschool special merged with a poorly scripted soap opera. We can all agree that Roy has gone through a lot, but did we really need to go down the addict road again? For that matter, did Krul even bother to do any sort of research about the effects of addiction? What he gives us here is just a sort of two-dimensional “guesstimate” of what it’s like when a person loses their inhibition to narcotics. Hallucinations do accompany the trip, yeah, but they’re usually not so melodramatic and, well, puerile.

All in all, The Rise of Arsenal series has turned into an extended episode of Intervention, with no one seemingly able to get through to Roy Harper. Since this is comic books, we know there’s probably a positive outcome to all of this mess. And it’s nice to see such a time-honored character advancing to the next level of his life. I just wish the journey to that next level could have been more compelling.

Edward Beekman-Myers is the author of several short stories and two novels, all of which contain a heaping helping of sci-fi/fantasy and a smidgen of ironic wit. He currently lives in Springfield, IL, where he is finishing his Master's degree in English, but his ultimate master plan is to move to New York City and take over DC Comics (a plan which is proving quite difficult to achieve, despite numerous attempts at proffering various forms of sexual gratification to the DC editorial staff). Check out his novel, The Totally Gnarly Adventures of the Galactically Bitchin' Comet Sweat!, on sale now.

Article copyright Edward Beekman-Myers. Characters and images copyright DC Comics

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