Release: September 2026 | Writer: Pornsak Pichetshote | Artist: Rafael Albuquerque | Colorist: Marcello Maiolo | Letterer: Jeff Powell
With Dinah and Green Arrow trapped with Solomon Grundy and Hector Hammond. How will they escape? And finally, we will see WHO Green Arrow is!
*Absolute Green Arrow #5 SPOILERS ahead!*
TIME FOR THE REVEAL
Dinah and the one-armed Green Arrow are trapped and are being watched over by guards. They seem to be at the end of the line. But Green Arrow knows that he needs someone like Dinah on his side. He begins talking to her about her mother, because of how well he knows her. Presenting a grapevine or truce between these two.
Today, everyone in this room, including Hector Hammond and Solomon Grundy, wants to get to the bottom of who is the Absolute Green Arrow.
And it is...
MALCOLM MERLYN?! The personal security for Hector Hammond?!
Malcolm had this planned out all along. Malcolm Merlyn is actually a code name introduced all the way back when a man named Guillermo Garcia reached out to him for help in finding his son.
After trying to search for him, it led Malcolm to Oliver Queen, who was working on bringing Hammond down. He was murdered out of presumed jealousy or because Queen was a threat.
Hector tries to trick Grundy into killing Merlyn to kill him, but Roy Harper comes in for the rescue. But it's all for nothing, as Grundy is able to impale and kill Malcolm Merlyn in cold blood.
Dinah and Roy fight back as much as they can, but they are almost at death's door. Especially Dinah's family, who are threatened by Hammond if they don't spill the information about who they are working with. That is, until Merlyn is able to scramble to his feet and uses his teeth to shoot an arrow towards Hammond's face.
Merlyn collapses. It looks like that was his last-ditch effort to help Dinah and send her a message to kill all these people. Not just for herself, but for Ollie too. The Green Arrow has died...
Or…HAS HE?!
CONCLUSION:
Oh, we love a good mysterious cliffhanger.
Absolute Green Arrow is all that and a bag of chips. Action, drama, storytelling, intrigue. All of those exciting descriptors are present in practically every issue. This is a comic that is a charm to read individually and will end up being even more of a charm to read as a completed graphic novel if that's your main go-to for comics!
The concept of the "swerve, there's actually TWO people behind it" that you see in movies like Scream and now Absolute Green Arrow is a phenomenal trope. But only when it’s done right. And this time in Absolute Green Arrow, it is absolutely handled well.
I think I have my guesses as to who the real Absolute Green Arrow might be, but I'd love to see everyone's guesses on who they think it is.