Justice League: The Rise of Arsenal
By J.T. Krul, Geraldo Borges, Kevin Sharpe and Marlo Alquiza

Man I really need to take a shower and I’m pretty sure I’m starting to develop an unhealthy obsession with this Arsenal thing but anyways let’s see what’s gonna happen!!! Aww it looks like Roy is walking down the street with his adorable daughter Lian and they’re going to the toy store but turn the page and oh crap the city is falling apart run away Roy and Lian run away but you can’t run away fast enough and they fell but Roy has Lian by the arm, but uh-oh…

This sequence is also available in movie version as a deleted scene from 2012. Anyways his arm totally falls off and Lian falls down a giant hole but don’t worry it was all just a dream. Oh wait this is one of those times that it was all just a dream doesn’t really help because all that horrible stuff already happened. And Roy is not handling it well he’s sleeping on the floor next to a perfectly good couch and those pills don’t really seem to be helping him. I guess there’s only one thing to really do in this situation because it was the first thing that Roy did last issue too:

Man if I had my druthers this book would totally be called “Justice League: One-Armed Man Throws Monitors” but anyways Roy was really pissed because Green Arrow killed the guy who killed his daughter and took his arm so he goes and pays a visit to Mr. Green Arrow because I guess anyone can visit the disgraced public figure who’s in jail for cold-blooded murder. And Ollie is all like “poor me I killed a guy and how I’m in jail” and Roy is all like “you totes killed the guy that I wanted to kill and anyways YOU’RE NOT MY FATHER!!!” So I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as a DC superhero without some serious father issues and maybe that’s why I read them because I totally have those too I should call my dad you know what maybe he could pick up the phone and call me for once YOU HEAR THAT DAD?

Turn the page and it’s time to go to S.T.A.R. Labs to get his new arm in the grand tradition of Cable, Bucky, Live Wire and what seemed like half of the superheroes in the 1990′s whatever happened to all of them it makes me think that what would have made this comic really awesome was a special cover where Roy’s new arm was like holographic or gold foil or something like that…sometimes I miss the 90′s. It’s not gonna be easy because Roy has an infected stump so his new arm is gonna hurt a whole lot but he goes through with it anyways and then Cyborg the guy whose body is mostly made out of robot parts says this which is pretty hilarious:

But there’s no time for ham-fisted irony Dr. Jones there’s a funeral to attend along with an obligatory two-page spread of everyone in costume looking sad. What I don’t get about these things is that here’s Roy and everyone else is standing like 10 feet behind him so basically in a social world where there’s a tragic death about every 6 weeks no one has the slightest idea how to comfort each other but they all seem to know a lot about the best way to arrange themselves for maximum dramatic impact. Weird. And then everyone is real smart because they make sure to roll up to Roy and say the wrong thing over and over and he gets pissed real pissed like it’s a drug intervention except that’s probably coming in issue 3 or 4 in “A Very Special Episode of Justice League: The Rise of Arsenal” anyways he starts yelling at that Speedy girl and he totally blames her for Lian’s death because she was supposed to be taking care of her but went out to fight crime instead and that’s pretty funny since thats exactly what he did. And then Roy is all like “LEAVE ME ALONE!!!” so he goes home to practice arrowing with his new arm but that’s totally not working out so instead he’s just going to take some pills and OH CRAP LIAN’S CRAZY MOM IS BACK AND SHE IS PISSED.

Me-OW.

What have we learned? Well, I think Mark Twain was the guy who said “humor is tragedy plus time.” I’m pretty sure that DC has a new rule which is “humor is tragedy plus Roy.”

Also, not too long ago I suggested this as a potential solution to Roy’s arm situation.