Review by Ian Keogh

The Midas Touch is a 2011 reboot for Green Arrow, his new design seen on the cover. It’s largely cosmetic, though, distilling to a haircut, a beard reduced to stubble, some new goggles and a sturdier, tighter costume. This follows his last outing in his old form in Salvation, but we don’t need to concern ourselves with that as this is ‘the new 52’, DC’s heroes rebooted for a new era. In practice it means a chance to wipe the slate clean and restore what might have been discarded, so Oliver Queen is once again involved with Queen Industries, although not in control, and his dual life is known to board members. The one innovation is a back-up team with a wall of monitors in constant contact.

Dan Jurgens and J. T. Krul are responsible for the poisoned chalice of a new direction that can’t stray too far from the old because the folk at DC know the Arrow TV show is on the way. They introduce a whole gang of new supervillains who’re generic cannon fodder, and the idea behind them is that in an era of global streaming their criminal activities have made them celebrities, a status Green Arrow takes issue with. In 2011 it may well have been ultra-modern that Green Arrow is lured into a livestream battle, but the lustre has long vanished in time.

Jurgens also provides the layouts for George Pérez to pencil (sample art). Pérez is known for more detailed art, and the layouts tie him in to something different, but the question is why? It’s like hiring Elton John for a gig and telling him he’s on trumpet. We then move through Pérez and Ray McCarthy sharing the pages, McCarthy alone and then McCarthy inking Ignacio Calero.

In between all that Keith Giffen replaces Krul as co-plotter, which given Giffen’s inventiveness would ordinarily be good news, but isn’t here. Giffen fails to lift the quality. His villains are more interesting, but their vendetta is never adequately explained, and when Ann Nocenti takes over the series with Triple Threat she has no interest in providing one.

Everything about The Midas Touch defies the title, barely heading toward adequate, never mind gold.