In this review of Batman/Green Arrow/The Question: Arcadia #2, as Batman and Green Arrow clash on the frozen wastes, The Question’s investigation heats up underground!
Batman/Green Arrow/The Question: Arcadia #2 main cover by Gabriel Hardman (DC Comics)
BATMAN/GREEN ARROW/THE QUESTION: ARCADIA #2
Written by GABRIEL HARDMAN
Art and Main Cover: GABRIEL HARDMAN
Variant Cover: MAHMUD ASRAR
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: 1/7/26
This review contains spoilers
The Question (Vic Sage), under cover, is press-ganged into “indentured servitude” for the Arcadia project.
Meanwhile, Batman chases Green Arrow (Oliver Queen) across a frozen island near Greenland in the Batplane. Batman attempts to stop the bloodthirsty Captain Billings, billionaire Emil Rotha’s security commander, from killing Green Arrow, but fails. Oliver manages to fight off many of Billings’s troops, but accidentally lands in the ice cold ocean and is captured.
The Question meets members of the Ceres resistance group among the throngs of slaves.
Batman confronts Rotha over Billings’s actions and tries to get Oliver released. Rotha refuses, and tries to sell Batman on his vision of independent nation-state cities in a climate collapse future, hinting at threats to Bruce Wayne who funds Batman as well.
The Question dons his mask at night and goes investigating.
Batman slips into server rooms for some digital files, impressing a security guard superhero fan.
Green Arrow is awakened by his phone, ringing from The Question, who gives him more hints about Ceres. Queen is invited to talk to Rotha while Question heads to the ventilation system. Rotha tries the same speech to Green Arrow as he gave Batman, claiming the slaves are just working off their “debt” and happy to be part of the project. As Green Arrow protests, a huge explosion rocks the compound, injuring Rotha. In the chaos that follows the attack, Billings takes charge and starts shooting the workers he suspects of being Ceres.
The Question finds the group of Ceres members hiding, including their apparent leader, Ashti, and is captured by them.
Batman confronts Green Arrow in his cell, uses acid to break the lock and tells Oliver to leave the island.
The Question uses his last gas pellet to allow Ceres to escape down the sewers, but a drone follows.
Batman and Green Arrow both find huge troop movements in the compound.
The Question and the Ceres members reach their escape vehicle, but the drone leads troops to their position, and many are killed. Green Arrow joins the fight and knocks out the drone and some troops, and calls The Question and Ceres to follow.
Batman tries to reason with the injured Rotha, but discovers that Rotha desires violent retaliation for the assassination attempt, and knows Batman’s secret identity. Disgusted, he finds Green Arrow and The Question and the Ceres members, throwing in his lot with them and giving Oliver his bow and arrows.
Analysis
Gabriel Hardman’s dark sci-fi noir tale takes a very action packed turn, with Batman, Green Arrow, and The Question all deploying their signature strengths against the problem of Arcadia. We get a humorous hint that The Question hid his gear in unmentionable places, a very cool Batplane vs. Green Arrow scene, and Green Arrow and the Question mixing it up with fisticuffs many times throughout the issue. All action is lovingly rendered by Hardman and colorist Romulo Fajardo Jr. There’s a very real love evident for all three characters, despite them all being at odds for most of this chapter of the story. Each perspective gets some play – Batman’s desire to limit damage and death by working with the system, Green Arrow’s outrage at abuse of power, and The Question’s methodical, single-minded detective work. Each character, though, cares about saving people, which inevitably puts them against the rather cartoonishly evil Billings and the less shallow but still ultimately pretty mustache twirling Rotha. I will be very curious to see if Hardman plans to have any future ramifications of the causes that drive Rotha to build the Arcadia projects, or if stopping the ultrapowerful billionaire will be the end of the plot. Given the attempt to view things from different perspectives so far, I hope that the last half of the story will give us some complexity to our admittingly all too believably monstrous villains.
So far, the mundanity of the villains leaves the story feeling a bit generic – though the heroic characterization and beautiful artwork does lift it quite high above many other stories on the shelves. The use of Green Arrow and The Question especially also gives it both a historical connection (to the Fables Annuals project by Denny O’Neil, mentioned last review) and a less frequently deployed character appeal as well as the Batman factor. Still plenty of time for our villains and our Ceres resistance fighters to gain a bit of depth to latch the story to our memories a bit longer than just the gorgeous visuals.
Gabriel Hardman’s main cover features Green Arrow about to loose an arrow at a raging Batman in the snow – a nice transition between issues 1 and 2. The great Phil Hester’s variant shows Batman rock-chimneying up some steel girders as snow falls around him, Green Arrow and Question treading the deep drifts below Batman.
Final Thoughts
Though the overall plot and villain characterization is a bit thin, the characterization of our trio of heroes and the gorgeous artwork maintains a high level of reader enjoyment.
