World's Finest Comics #187 - The Green Arrow's First Case

This issue reprints the revamped origin of Green Arrow that Kirby did in ADVENTURE COMICS #256 (1959), during his brief 11-story run on the character. It's a good functional origin about a man who gets washed up on an island, learns archery to survive, finds his rescue ship being hijacked and using his arrows to fight the hijackers. All of this in a framing sequence where he has to return to the island to protect his secret identity.



I have to say, GA did become delightfully compulsive when it came to arrows on his stay on the island. "I quickly realized ingenious arrows could be used for almost any purpose", he thinks, as he decides that would be the best way to get coconuts off a tree would be to use an arrow. Goes a long way to explaining why he'd eventually put a boxing glove on the end of an arrow. I was disappointed he didn't come up with some sort of arrow-centric way to chisel his journal into the cave wall.

Kirby's GA stories are pretty fun, although they leave you wondering what he would have done if he had a freer hand with them than DC was willing to allow.

This story was apparently inked by Kirby, with the help of his wife Roz, one of the last times he would do a substantial amount of inking of his own work.

Published 1969