Absolute Green Arrow Will Be a Superhero Horror Comic For Our Time

Even though it’s barely over a year old, DC Comics‘s Absolute Universe has had its share of shocking moments. One of the best occurred in Absolute Evil #1 from October 2025, which introduced this universe’s take on Oliver Queen a.k.a. Green Arrow, only to kill him off a few pages later. The scene upset readers not just because it saw the immediate end of a much anticipated take on a beloved character, but because he died at the hands of Hawkman, one of Green Arrow’s (uneasy) allies in the mainline universe.

However, it turns out that death is just as permanent in the Absolute Universe as it is in the main DC Universe. “Oliver Queen may be dead. The Green Arrow is not dead,” DC executive editor Chris Conroy said at the ComicsPRO Annual Meeting 2026 (via Popverse). The upcoming series Absolute Green Arrow, written by Pornsak Pichetshote and penciled by Rafael Albuquerque will feature an undead Green Arrow, dubbed the Longbow Hunter by the press, killing the billionaires who sent Hawkman to kill Oliver Queen. “This is a slasher horror series,” teased Conroy. “This is Scream, Halloween, meets Green Arrow.”

As any CW fan knows, this isn’t the first time that Green Arrow has been called something other than Green Arrow by observers. But the term “Longbow Hunter” carries particular significance, as it refers to a well-regarded 1987 miniseries by Mike Grell. A pre-Vertigo Mature Readers tale, The Longbow Hunters separated Ollie from his superhero pals such as Green Lantern and turned him into a modern day Robin Hood on the streets of Seattle, where a serial killer has been terrorizing sex workers.

Although The Longbow Hunters broke from previous Green Arrow adventures, it retained a core aspect of Oliver Queen’s personality. Green Arrow is the loudmouthed liberal of the superhero set, willing to berate Green Lantern and the Flash for being cops and more interested in fighting fat cat landlords than he is petty looters.

Ollie retained his left-leaning politics when he appeared in Absolute Evil, marking a distinctive change from his other heroes. An alternate reality created by the New Gods big bad Darkseid, the Absolute Universe is a darker world, which strips its heroes of some of their most important qualities. Aboslute Batman fights without a fortune to aid him. Absolute Superman came to Earth as a young adult who remembers the destruction Krypton. Absolute Wonder Woman was raised in Hell, far from her fellow Amazons on Paradise Island.

Yet, when Oliver Queen showed up in Absolute Evil, he had all of his usual trademarks. He wore all green, sported a Van Dyke beard, and was pals with Roy Harper. More importantly, he had a passion for social justice, complaining to Roy about a secret island that billionaires visit via private flights to terrorize children. “I gotta do something… Somebody’s gotta do something,” Oliver insists, just pages before Hawkman presents his battered corpse to those who represent those billionaires.

The proximity between the Absolute Universe and the horrors of our real world supercharges Absolute Green Arrow. The miniseries may be about an undead superhero in a universe created by an evil god, but it channels the anger and helplessness we all feel when we read the news and see unspeakable crimes going unpunished. The series will help us deal with the things that shock us every day, at least until real heroes start doing something about it.

Absolute Green Arrow hits comic book shops on May 20, 2026.