Warning: The following contains mentions of violence and sexual assault.
Summary
- Green Arrow's reputation as a womanizer is exaggerated; he is actually loyal and possessive of Black Canary, though history has unjustly remembered him as a player.
- The relationship between Green Arrow and Black Canary is extremely complicated, involving retcons and convoluted storylines.
- Green Arrow's character has been significantly changed in later stories, portraying him as an unrepentant womanizer, but newer series are reconciling these conflicting histories and allowing for a fresh start.
The reports of Green Arrow constantly cheating on long-time love interest Black Canary are greatly exaggerated. While Oliver Queen was once the sort of womanizer that Bruce Wayne only played at being, he was a changed man after becoming Green Arrow and utterly loyal — to the point of possessiveness — to his "pretty bird." Unfortunately, history has unjustly remembered Green Arrow as an unrepentant player.
To say the relationship between Black Canary and Green Arrow is complicated would be an understatement. The two originally started dating shortly after Dinah Drake Lance was widowed and decided to leave the Justice Society of America to move to Earth-1 for a fresh start. A retcon later revealed that this Black Canary was actually Dinah Laurel Lance, the daughter of the original Black Canary, who had been given her mother's memories and secretly replaced her after her death. While this story was later retconned as well, it is typical of how convoluted Ollie and Dinah's romance would become.
Pre-Crisis Green Arrow Was Too Loyal
For all the grief Oliver Queen gets for being a womanizer in the modern age, his greatest sin used to be jealousy. Many Green Arrow-focused comics of the 1970s and '80s found Green Arrow and Black Canary arguing about Ollie's possessive attitude. In time, Oliver changed, realizing that Dinah could take care of herself and didn't need a white knight. Dinah also grew to respect that Oliver's attitude was not a reflection of a belief that she was incapable of defending herself, but instead his inherent chivalric instinct to defend everyone and everything he cared about.
Post-Crisis Green Arrow Was A Victim of Sexual Assault
Green Arrow and Black Canary moved in together at the start of writer Mike Grell's Green Arrow run, but their happy home life was complicated by the arrival of Shado. A Yakuza-trained assassin who favored the bow, Shado and Green Arrow first encountered each other during The Longbow Hunters miniseries, in which Green Arrow is blamed for the murders Shado executed. Green Arrow was later blackmailed into tracking Shado by a corrupt CIA agent and was wounded when Shado attacked him. Shado nursed Olliver Queen back to health and helped him bring the CIA agent to justice. Years later, after Shado had a son, it was revealed that she had sexually assaulted Green Arrow while he was delirious and drugged, dreaming he was with Black Canary.
When Black Canary saw Shado's son, she immediately recognized that he had Green Arrow's eyes, and concluded that he had been cheating on her. Shado was quick to correct Black Canary, explaining that Oliver didn't know what happened. Shado further defended her actions to Black Canary, claiming she wanted to give Green Arrow the son that Black Canary wouldn't, as she knew the two heroes had agreed not to have children because Dinah feared leaving behind orphans. While Dinah accepted Shado's explanation, the child's existence drove a wedge between Green Arrow and Black Canary.
How Marianne Sunk The Ollie/Dinah Ship
Black Canary and Green Arrow's relationship was further complicated by the presence of Marianne, an idealistic young woman and aspiring writer who was living on the streets of Seattle. Marianne helped Green Arrow when he was a fugitive from justice and framed for treason. In return for her aid, Ollie sent Marianne to Black Canary, who offered the young woman a place to stay and a job working at her florist shop while Oliver was on the run. Marianne stayed on after Oliver's name was cleared, and helped him build a band of Merry Men from Seattle's transient population.
It was clear to everyone but Ollie that Marianne had fallen in love with Green Arrow, but he did nothing to encourage her. Marianne finally pressed the issue at a New Year's Eve costume party in Green Arrow #75 by Mike Grell, Rick Hoberg, Julia Lacquement, and Steve Haynie. She kisses Green Arrow while declaring her love, stating that she knew he liked her. Unfortunately, the kiss came just as Dinah was walking into the room. Seeing Green Arrow kissing a woman who resembled a younger version of her was the final straw for Black Canary. She dumped Oliver, stating that "I can't share you with so many others...and I won't just wait around while you make up your mind." Oliver later had a one-night-stand with Marianne, but immediately regretted it.
Later Stories Significantly Changed Green Arrow's Character
Later Green Arrow stories primarily focused on how Oliver Queen had a child with Shado and that he had slept with Marianne. Even in flashbacks, Oliver Queen became an unrepentant womanizer, and the introduction of Connor Hawke (whose mother, Sandra Hawke, was one of Oliver Queen's girlfriends in college) led many to erroneously believe that Connor was the son of Shado. Eventually, Oliver Queen matured and was ready to propose to Black Canary; he relented only after she said she wasn't ready to rush back into dating him, much less into marriage.
Still, Green Arrow-as-playboy became the character's primary characterization in the early 2000s — including in Birds of Prey #109 by Tony Bedard, Nicola Scott, Doug Hazlewood, Hi-Fi, and Travis Lanham, where Barbara Gordon outlined every time Green Arrow had cheated on Black Canary. Originally this issue repeated the mistake that Connor Hawke was Shado's son. DC Comics later corrected the lines in digital reprints and collected editions.
Will Dawn of DC Redeem Green Arrow?
DC's New 52 era gave the Green Arrow and Black Canary romance a fresh start, separating the two characters until the 2016 Green Arrow Rebirth series. The New 52 also gave Shado a new background, establishing her as the lover of Oliver Queen's father, Robert, and the mother of the new Red Arrow, Emiko Queen. This also helped to end the confusion regarding Shado being Connor Hawke's mother, as he was not reintroduced into the new timeline until much later.
The new Dawn of DC Green Arrow series is still reconciling the conflicting histories of all the Arrow family members. It has reintroduced forgotten characters like Lian Harper into the fold and the cover of the first issue suggests that other neglected heroes — like the second Speedy, Mia Dearden, and Arrowette Cissie King-Jones — could be next. It has taken several decades, but Green Arrow finally seems to be building the big family he dreamed of, with Black Canary by his side and his erroneous record as a serial philander firmly forgotten and maybe even retconned away.