Synopsis: Roy Harper is interviewing a baby-sitter for his daughter, Lian. He conducts a very tough interview, and does very thorough background checks. Elsewhere, Vandal Savage confronts a daughter of his, Dr. Babette Doubel, a scientist working on a cloning project to mass-produce body organs for Vandal. He warns her that if she's not successful, he'll harvest her organs for his use. Dinah Lance aka Black Canary stops by to check out Roy's new apartment. She scolds Roy about leaving guns lying around for Lian to play with. Roy tells her to drop the "mother" bit, that Ollie's gone and she doesn't have to pretend to be Roy's mom anymore. Dinah says she's not ready to talk about Ollie's death yet, and the two share an intimate discussion about the loss of Oliver Queen. Roy shows off his new "Red Arrow" costume, and Lian climbs out of her playpen, falls, and hurts her arm. Just then, a bunch of kung-fu nurses with massive boobs kick in the door. Roy and Dinah tear through them, then Roy grabs Lian and heads to the hospital to get the "owie" on her arm checked out. Back at the clandestine labs, Vandal rants some, saying he sent the kung-fu nurses to capture Lian, who is a distant descendant of his (through Roy or Cheshire? It's Roy we shortly find out). Roy gets Lian checked into the ER (her owie doesn't seem too severe) cripples an arrogant wife-beater and hooks up again with Canary in the waiting room. Roy talks about the problems he has being a single parent. Dinah points out that he's doing a better job raising Lian than Cheshire would do. Then there's a flashback to Roy's heroin withdrawl years before (see the classic 1970s Green Lantern/Green Arrow series), when Dinah helped him through the worst of the pain. A doctor arrives and tells Roy that Lian's arm is fine, but that she's suffering from a rare blood disorder that promotes clotting and will likely need a kidney transplant. Roy's blood type is different from Lian's so the transplant wouldn't work, and Cheshire is not an option. Canary pulls out a list of names she got from one of the kung-fu nurses. On it are Dr. Babette Doubel (who Canary and Oracle were investigating the kidnapping of) along with Roy and Lian and a bunch of other names. Dinah thinks the reappearance of Vandal Savage is related to the list. Dinah explains that Savage needs blood relatives to harvest organs to perpetuate his 50,000-year lifespan, and both Roy and Lian are potential donors. Roy takes off after Savage, leaving Dinah to babysit. Dinah wryly observes that Roy takes after Ollie in the parenting department.

Yeah, But Is It Good? A whole lot of fun. The art is a bit "cartoonish" for me -- I've never been a big fan of the Manga style, but it becomes invisible after a while. Lots of fun and slam-bang action with a light tone, reading this comic is a lot like watching a Jackie Chan movie. I particularly like the attention paid to continuity and the individual characters' past histories and relationships. Dinah and Roy have a very well-defined relationship here. The one problem I have here is Grayson's apparent decision that Vandal Savage isn't truly immortal, that he needs organ transplants in order to survive over the centuries and recover from injuries. Well, that's a crock. It's just plain wrong. The first heart transplant wasn't accomplished until the 1960s, which means that Vandal had to get by for 49,960 years without organ transplants. I don't think even Aristotle or Socrates were talented enough to successfully turn the trick back in the pre-industrial era, which is a really annoying flaw in Grayson's premise. Plus, if Savage were critically wounded, say in a fire or nuclear blast where he was vaporized, he couldn't survive because he'd be dead before he could get a transplant. No, the only way to justify this and make it jibe with continuity is to assume that Vandal has inherent regeneration abilities that bring him back from any injury, but it's a slow, painful process. By harvesting organs he can recover much more quickly and get back to his nefarious schemes. Sounds good to me, but I really hate having to fill in the blanks for the writer.

Synopsis: Book two opens with a repeat of the babysitter interrogation, only this time it's Dinah who's grilling the prospective sitter. Meanwhile, Vandal Savage is smacking around his kung-fu nurses for not capturing Roy and Lian. Roy visits the CBI to try and get a lead on Vandal, and there's a flashback to his brief, unhappy stint with Checkmate. Nothing turns up on the bad guy, but he does get a sighting of Babette Doubel and rushes off to Metropolis to investigate. He makes a call to Oracle, who is able to give him the location of a closed down medical clinic. Roy finds a bunch of kung-fu nurses there, but in the brawl that follows accidentally knocks them all unconscious so they can't take him to Savage. Connor Hawke, aka Green Arrow (the second one) shows up, and he and Roy have a heart-to-hear talk about following in Ollie's footsteps. Roy's pissed Ollie didn't ask him to take over as Green Arrow -- Roy fully admits he would've said no, but just wanted him to ask the question. The two investigate the inner depths of the clinic, discover the cloning chambers -- as well as a whole bunch of dead babies piled up. Oh yeah, and a whole bunch more kung-fu nurses.

Yeah, But Is It Good? Fun, like the first one. It's interesting to see how Grayson has inserted little flashbacks in the first two books giving just little snippets of Roy's background, bringing readers up to speed on his character without resorting to a huge info-dump that would likely bore most people to tears. The interaction with Connor is excellent as well, conveying tension between the two without antagonism. Neat trick.

Synopsis: Roy and Connor fight kung-fu nurses, then Vandal Savage arrives. Savage gloats, then tells Roy that he is responsible for Lian's illness and vanishes via a magical teleportation scarab. Then Roy and Connor bust more kung-fu nurse heads. Roy makes it home, suit shredded, and switches into a new one that has Navajo influences in the design. Savage teleports in to kidnap Lian, using her as leverage to get Arsenal to protect his clone lab from the police Green Arrow had called in. He says Lian needs the clones to supply her with a kidney replacement, but Roy counters that he believes Savage has faked Lian's illness to get Roy to play along. Dinah tells Lian to do the "finger trick" she'd been taught, and Lian breaks Savage's thumb in a funny sequence. Dinah gets Lian, and Roy nails Savage with a framed photo of Cheshire. The two fight, and Savage teleports away taking Roy with him. The wind up in a null-space between dimensions where Savage tries to sway Roy to his cause. Roy has a flashback to his father's death, time with Green Arrow and various other key points in his life, mostly ones that end in disaster. Savage takes him to the lab, asking him if he feels lucky enough to risk his daughter's life. The choice is clear -- send the police away and use the lab to clone baby to harvest a kidney for Lian, or shut it down permanently and hope Lian can somehow survive until another donor is found.

Yeah, But Is It Good? Lots of conflict, and Roy's in a very tight fix. The flashback sequences show that Roy's life has pretty much consisted of one disaster after another, so will this decision follow the pattern? Tough call. Unfortunately, Savage is way too smug to allow any decision Roy makes be successful. Lian's "Finger trick" was marvelous.

Synopsis: Roy begins to fight off the police in order to save Savage's lab to help Lian, but just as he gets the men in blue stirred up madder than a hornets' nest, he has second thoughts and switches sides. Of course, the police don't know this, and come after him. He hides in an office and discovers Dr. Babette Doubel hiding under a desk. Roy holds off the cops with a firecracker arrow (no kidding!) as Babette explains that Savage coerced her into working for him, but that she's also working on an antidote to the illness Savage infects people with (Lian included) to force them to do his bidding. Roy is pleased as punch at the news she can cure Lian, so he rigs the lab to explode and escapes with Babette. Only they run into Savage, who puts a major butt- whoopin' on Roy, making references to their battles during the One Million crossover series. Roy manages to grab a paperclip and put out Savage's eye, as he did in One Million No. 4. This makes Savage mad. Roy checks his watch as Savage is about to kill him, and laughs that he kept Savage busy long enough for the bomb to blow up the lab. Savage freaks, and runs to the lab to stop the bomb. Roy and Babette flee the building just as it blows sky-high. Lian gets cured and all ends happily ever after at a Navajo naming ceremony for Roy in the Arizona desert.

Yeah, But Is It Good? That damn "Vandal Savage can't regenerate organs" crap surfaces again, and it really pisses me off. Devin, listen: That makes no sense! If Savage is 50,000 years old, there is NO WAY he could've survived for even the first 500 years if his organs didn't regenerate. It's just plain dumb. There's no way it could work, especially if Lew Shiner's Time Masters mini is still Savage's contemporary origin. It's just wrong. For the Savage character to work, he has to have an innate physical ability to regenerate. Saying his "soul" is immortal but his "body" is not is so moronic I can't even comment on it. I mean, duh! That's like the most basic tenant of EVERY major religion around. Other than that highly annoying brain-fart, this was a great mini-series. I'll be very happy to see more of Arsenal from Devin.