Tuesday, October 21, 2008

That blasted junkie Speedy!

This is one of my all time favorite images in comic book history, only because of the reactions of Hal and Ollie. Ollie is in obvious shock, because since it's Ollie we're talking about, he misses all the signs of Roy's ongoing drug abuse. Hal on the other hand is just one mean SOB here! Hal just seems totally unfazed by Roy shooting up and rips into Ollie. Remind me to never piss off Mr. Jordan...
Ollie being the kind hearted and forgiving individual he is(Yeah right!!)deals with this revelation by trying to knock the drugs out of Roy... Sorry Ollie, that's not quite how it works...
Finally, Ollie has enough of physically abusing Roy and throws him out to live on the streets with the rest of the "sniveling punks" . Speaking of a mean, cold-hearted SOB...
Anyway, Hal, feeling badly for Speedy, tracks him down living in an alley near a dumpster and takes him to Black Canary, since as Hal puts it, "I don't have any experience in helping someone with your problem." Why would Hal think that Dinah has experience in helping recovering junkies??!! That's really typical of Ollie and Hal back in the day, when they didn't want to deal with something, they'd dump it in Dinah's lap!
Thanks to Dinah's efforts and care, Roy is able to cure his addiction cold turkey, putting poor Dinah through hell in the process. Ollie, ever the idiot, decides that since Roy isn't an addict anymore, everything is fine again, even though he abandoned Roy, and forced him to LIVE ON THE STREETS! Roy, understandably doesn't forgive Ollie and gives him a well deserved shot to the face. It would take many years for the wounds between Ollie and his ward, Roy to heal. To this day, Roy is still much closer to "Uncle" Hal and Dinah thanks to them helping him through his most trying period.

Wow, this story was pretty heavy stuff for comic books back in the early 70's! I can't believe that the Comic Code Authority would even allow a story like this to see the light of day. Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams really put together a great story, and everyone should definitely try to get their hands on these issues(I wound up picking them up in a TPB)if they haven't already. It was really fascinating to see the way each character interacted with each other and themselves, concerning Roy's addiction.

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