It's getting harder and harder for me to keep reading Benjamin Percy's Green Arrow series under DC Rebirth. It's so good and so compelling and so well written that it keeps making me think the same thing every time I read a new issue:

I wish this was the CW show. So badly. I mean damn, that would be a FANTASTIC show.

I mean, Oliver's in the thick of it this time for sure. He's been bankrupted out of Queen Industries by his own CFO in the name of a nefarious organization known as The Ninth Circle, who apparently is into all manner of criminal enterprises including human trafficking, money laundering and outright murder, and they've framed Oliver for the death of his secretary who was snooping around too much.

In Issue #1 they sent Shado to kill him. In Issue #2, we see that she failed. Now in Issue #3, Oliver's out for answers and he's a force of nature in trying to get them.

This series has so far been very well paced, brilliantly executed and appropriately tense at moments. This is a FUN book to read right now and it's everything that Arrow on the CW just isn't anymore: compelling, action-packed and expertly constructed. I would even go so far as to say that Percy's writing here rivals anything that was even done in the first two seasons of Arrow, which most fans consider to be the strongest seasons of that show.

I really don't like that I feel this way about it, but that's not Percy or Juan Ferryra's fault. They've created a masterful story so far that really grounds Oliver as the true social justice warrior he's always been meant to be. They've even managed to make John Diggle a stronger and more aggressive character than he is in the show. While Oliver is attempting to break into Queen Industries to get some answers from his CFO's office, Diggle, who lost a client to The Ninth Circle earlier and is most displeased with the notion that they killed Oliver, is actively tracking the organization down, all the way to The Vatican, to get some answers on who killed his friend.

So you've got Oliver, bankrupted, wanted for murder and presumed dead in Seattle looking for answers as to why it all went down, and Diggle halfway around the world thinking him dead and going to forcible measures to get his own answers on the matter.

Doesn't this just sound like it should be the damned TV show right now?! Seriously?!

Look, I'm still going to watch Arrow because I enjoy the DCTV Universe and I'm excited to see all of the crossovers this season with the addition of Supergirl and what Flashpoint is going to do everyone, but right now I have to give the Green Arrow award to Benjamin Percy and his team on this Rebirth series because they are just telling a solid story right now, one that I am really having a good time reading and can't wait for the next issue. I promise going forward that I won't keep comparing it to Arrow because quite frankly right now, Arrow is not even in the same league with this book. Not even close.

Bravo, Benjamin Percy. Green Arrow is right now one of the shiniest examples of excellence in the DC Rebirth line, without question.

5 out of 5 stars - DC UNIVERSE REBIRTH: Green Arrow #3

This is a bi-weekly series, next issue due out August 3rd.