Today, Shelby and guest writer Zach are discussing Green Arrow 23.1: Count Vertigo, originally released September 4th, 2013. This issue is part of the Villain’s Month event. Click here for our Villains Month coverage.

Shelby: Just what makes a villain? Are villains people (super-powered or otherwise) who tried to do right but realized doing wrong was faster and easier? Were they denied something in their life, and have decided to get it back no matter what it takes? Are they just huge assholes? As DC rolls out Villains Month, I suspect we’ll be asking ourselves these questions over and over. This month, I’m hoping to get some deeper insight into the role of the villain, as well as the origins of the villains our heroes encounter every month. Also, I want some depredation and cruelty, because what’s the point of a month of villains only without depredation and cruelty? Happily, Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino, and Marcelo Maiolo give me exactly what I want, kicking of Viillains Month with a dizzying bang.

On his way to Seattle to deal with his Green Arrow problem, Count Warren Zytle, a.k.a. Count Vertigo makes a little stop at Crius, an abandoned test facility in Vancouver. He reminisces about his time there as a child; after being forced to flee Vlatava with his mother, money was pretty tight, so she sold him to Crius. There, the fine doctors implanted his first vertigo device, which he used to great effect when the other kids teased him.

From there, things go about as you would expect. Once he becomes a young man, he kills the head of Crius for what he did to him, then our young Warren heads to Vlatava to reclaim his title. Which brings us back to today; he’s made his trip down memory lane because his lackeys have finally tracked down his sad, addict mother. He forces her to admit how poorly she treated him, and then kills her before burning the abandoned facility to the ground. Just another day in the life of a supervillain.

This issue is exactly what I would hope for with this month-long event. Sure, it’s a break in Ollie’s story, but it gives us some great insight into his current enemy and long-time nemesis. With Lemire handling the writing and the incredible team of Sorrentino and Maiolo on pencils and inks respectively, the issue doesn’t interrupt the story at all, feeling like just another issue. Vertigo’s origin makes for an interesting foil to Green Arrow. Warren had it all as a child, but lost it all before he could even enjoy it. He went through hell to get it back, doing whatever it took, and he’s not about to let someone take it from him again.

Ollie, on the other hand, has always had everything handed to him on a silver platter, and until recently he never really appreciated it. Only after losing it all at the start of Lemire’s run on the title did he truly realize what he had taken advantage of. The difference is Ollie doesn’t feel he is owed anything; he understands he didn’t do anything to earn the privilege he used to have, and will work to earn it now.

On the flip side, Warren didn’t earn the suffering he endured most of his life. He was denied what was owed him, so once he was able to take it back, he did so as violently as he felt necessary. I love this sort of comparison of heroes and villains; you can see the branching points in both characters’ lives that lead them to either a life of crime or a life of villainy. If Warren’s mother hadn’t resented him for forcing her to flee Vlatava, would he have become a villain? If Ollie hadn’t come to appreciate what he had before he lost it, would he have turned villain to get it back as fast as possible?

Sorrentino and Maiolo made some really interesting choices with the art in this issue, even more interesting than usual. The first portion of Vertigo’s flashback is told entirely from a first-person perspective; we are experiencing the story as Warren. It’s not until the panel above, when he attacks the other boys and “reveals” himself as Count Vertigo (sort of) do we actually see him. We never get a chance to see him as just a child; we don’t get to observe and pity him from a distance, we are forced to experience his pain and sadness ourselves, until it bursts forth. The most interesting visual cue of this issue, though, is the inclusion of narrow panels between regular panels. It took some squinting, but I finally realized they were just warped, negative versions of the panel proceeding.

They’re showing us how Warren sees the world; they’re trying to make us feel like we’ve got vertigo. It’s the contemporary comic book version of Jimmy Stewart’s spiral rotating background in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, and it’s so clever I can hardly stand it. With that, I’ll hand the mike over to our frequent guest Zach. What’s up, Zach? What were your thoughts on this early entry to Villains Month? I didn’t even touch on Warren’s reunion with his mother; is it just me, or is the art in that part something straight out of Silent Hill or Resident Evil?

Zach: Thanks for the nod Shelby, you know I love popping in whenever I can. And wow, getting to sit back and enjoy Lemire and Sorrentino’s synergy is an enormous treat!

I love visual cues, and if there is anything to be grasped from this installment from Team Arrow, it’s the theme of oscillation. Warren’s world becomes the staple in the center. Everything else begins to spiral around him with quite volatile repercussions, the best casualty being his mother. That scene is the most striking moment of the issue for me, because right from the splash page it felt like its own quiet tension. The uneasiness starts to set in as Vertigo returned his lost childhood to his mother, via the stuffed bear. Roles reverse, and then the world distorts with the flex of power.

I love this panel so much. It’s just the subtlety that I keep yapping about. I nearly missed the bowing in the background because I was so enthralled with the mother/son confrontation, but this really is the heads up to ya that the big drop is coming. The wrecking ball is being readied. Too bad for me, I haven’t partaken in the awesomeness of Silent Hill enough to geek out with Shelby!

Lemire’s storytelling method is a wonderfully complete wavelength of character, beginning and ending with a helicopter ride full of determination and renewed purpose.

Along the way, the plot gracefully swings between the present and stepping-stones of Vertigo’s past, simulating that same quirk of uneasiness as we switch from first person to third. Can’t help but love them.

Oh, funny thing? Directly accompanying those helicopter scenes are Momma Zytle. The past and present become dark reflections of one another.

Not to be outdone, Andrea Sorrentino keeps this unstable presence of vertigo and oscillation alive in his panelwork. As Shelby pointed out in those warped negatives, they are the world through Warren’s eyes, and they frequent the pages almost every other panel until the needed crescendos are met. All the zigging and zagging does a stellar job or ratcheting up tension and skewing the narrative a bit. But then, when the buildup does hit, it breaks pattern. Those defining moments of fallout are also my own answer to “What makes a villain…a villain?” in an odd sense.

Heroes become accustom to their own patterns of knockdown, drag out fights, no matter what they get up in the end to fight for a greater cause and triumphing over evil. The cycle will continue. There’s always going to be someone to oppose the opposition, and even for heroes that take the ‘extra step’ – such as The Punisher he doesn’t kill for himself. Vertigo was always meant for greater things and he pushes himself forward. He breaks that horrible rut of his life, being a lab rat to be experimented on, to say “No!” killing for freedom. And yet, killing for revenge.

Then again, with his mother.

This is a Villains’ Month title that has definitively earned its keep in my heart. It blends right in with the previous narrative continuity while also standing alone. Sorrentino’s moody art remains as potent as ever, now employing a quieter use of Vertigo’s abilities as well as the outright badass splash page versions. Maybe, just maybe, it’ll put Count Vertigo over the one true Count.

Time will tell!

Zach Kastner is a full-time college student and full-time comic reader. He is a screenwriter-in-the-making and also an art man. To get a peak inside his brain, follow him on Twitter @zachkastner

For a complete list of what we’re reading, head on over to our Pull List page.  Whenever possible, buy your comics from your local mom and pop comic bookstore.  If you want to rock digital copies, head on over to DC’s website and download issues there.  There’s no need to pirate, right?