Red Devils of Gayland: Fearsome Foursome

Telling you the story of the Red Devils of Gayland was merely the background to making clear the level of desperation in seeking Green Arrow foes to make custom Heroclix figures of that would drive me to create:

The Red Devils of Gayland

They are based on the Ninja dial from the Batman: The Animated Series Heroclix set (a figure I probably wouldn't use much, if at all; not a ninja fan). It's an easy fit with sneaky acrobats.

A similarly easy fit was the sculpt: Daredevil, of course:

Plenty of those to go around.

This foursome of Red Devils probably aren't enough to go up against a Green Arrow team by themselves, but they are a perfect 100 point plus-up to a team built around a more serious threat. Like... um.... the Octopus?  Sure; the Octopus.

Red Devils in Gayland: Wow

When last we left Gayland, the Red Devils, having rendered our brave bowmen unconscious, load them into the human-cannon as human cannonballs to launch them at... well, see for yourself.

Don't THOSE sound like fun attractions.

So.  Star City has an amusement park named Gayland. Which features a "House of Swords" topped with upraised spikes with an adjacent crocodile pen. Star City must have an unusually large Cenobite population is all I can figure. 

"Gayland: We Have Such Sights To Show You!"

Jeez, and I thought Star Citizens were just stupid; apparently they are freaky as heck. Which reminds me, Ollie is fulfilling his greatest fantasy:

BACK to his senses...?!

 

being shot like an arrow.  

For most heroes, suddenly waking up to find yourself being fired from a cannon would be disorienting. But Green Arrow is promethean in his foresight: "Surely, at some point I'll be knocked unconscious and hurled into the sky simply as the natural result of my own incompetence and foolhardy bravado, so I'm going to practice that by putting a CATAPULT in my car and shooting myself into oblivion as often as logistically possible."  

Sure enough, Ollie's mithridatean preparations have paid off so that he can not only calmly consider his circumstances with wonder, but take a moment to appreciate his surroundings (because, after all, he does this every day):

"If only I had my camera-arrow!"

Yes: "wow", indeed, Ollie.  In Golden Age tradition, Ollies uses one danger to defeat another:

 

Well, THAT'S convenient.

BTW, extra points to any commenter who can explain what on earth a "House of Swords" is and what OTHER purpose it might serve at Gayland than allowing Ollie at this very moment to free his hands so that he can do this:

Pretty sure Speedy is sleeping through all this.

The really impressive part is that he managed to get ALL the arrows to land at a 90 degree angle.

 

Having escaped The Death Trap, genre-savvy Ollie knows it's time to start wrapping things up. He and the Nervy Kid quickly find and capture the Red Devils who had previously proven insuperable:

"Say it ain't so, Circus Joe!"

Yes; "wow", indeed, Circus Joe.  Anyway, Ollie decides to impersonate one of the Red Devils (since it worked so well last time).

"You sound MUCH taller than Circus Joe."

 

Naturally, one of the supposed potential Victims was the mastermind, because, well, it's a Golden Age story and that's always what happens.

Star City has several outlets that sell matching fedora/briefcase sets.

In the end, it turns out to be a Scooby-Doo real estate plot (which is why we started this series with Scooby-Doo's crossover with Green Arrow, ha hah!).

Officer Right looks askance at his partner's brown-nosing me-tooism. 
"Really, Lefty? Why don't you say "AND HOW!" to top it all off?"

And finally, as always, Ollie and his roommate add an item to their Armoire of Trophies. 

 TOMORROW: Red Devils made REAL

 

Red Devils in Gayland: A Stitch in Time!

We pick up the adventure in Gayland with Alphabetically Next Victim Faber plummet to a certain death by faulty parachute.  Why the bad guys would bother to give Faber any parachute at all, rather than just, you know, rolling him off a tower, I can't imagine. Unless they are just trying to make things easy for Green Arrow, but who then saves Faber with one of the most idiotic arrow-stunts I've ever seen:

"Arrow... stitch?"  REALLY, now.

Well, there's little point in trying to make fun of THAT.

The Archers and Faber head to see Sloan, the Victim whose voiced was faked to lure Faber to his gravity-based doom.  But not before Ollie leaves a note taunting the Devils:

There's no point to it.
Other than "Green Arrow's a ****."

The super-shaftsmen go back out in the wilds of Gayland hoping to be attacked by the Devils.

What horned devils WOULDN'T want to keep their date with two super-shaftsmen?

Who's the Green Arrow **** who's a sex machine to all he tricks? SUPER-SHAFT! You're damned right.

"IT'S RAINING MEN! HALLELUJAH!"

This is not as bad as the ketchup bottle incident, of course.
But still.

"Just relax," Ollie says. "Just let yourself go."
Wow.

The Red Devils lead the Archers on a merry chase to and through the Funhouse...

"Funhouse"? Is that what the kids call it nowadays?

where the bowmen pretend to be overwhelmed by one of those tilt-a-way floors. You know, the kind you regularly navigated while laughing as ten years old.  All this is, um, part of a plan by Ollie to disguise himself as one of them?

Clearly, the writers are just making it up as it happens, much like Ollie.

Fortunately, Ollie (and the writers) realize they need the Boy Backup to hang back and wait until Ollie screws things up. Which is immediately.

Ollie failed to notice that he's a header taller than the guy he's replacing.
Have I mentioned recently that Green Arrow is not a detective?

Speedy is there to save Ollie's sorry butt, but even his assistance is insufficient.

"We've got a date with a cannon." I'm so sure.

I draw your attention to the Devil's lame William Tell joke.  Sure, Golden Age characters quip stupidly and improbably while fighting.  But this joke comes up on top of others in this story I haven't highlighted: the Wadsworth Poem, Robin Hood, (h)arrowing, William Tell, "getting the point".  These references aren't just in this story, they are in EVERY Green Arrow story in the Golden Age.  

Writers are, famously, supposed to write comic book stories as if "every comic is someone's first", but Green Arrow writers write every story as if it were someone's LAST.  "Well, it's not like anyone reading this will ever read ANOTHER Green Arrow story after this one, so we better put ALL the archery jokes in here. Every time."  And if you think that sounds normal, just imagine someone calling Batman "you flying rodent!" in EVERY SINGLE Batman story.

Couldn't resist that one, either.

TOMORROW: I Shot A Green Arrow Into The Air....

The Red Devils of Gayland: What Goes Wrong.

So, while Green Arrow, in pursuit of the Red Devils, insanely drives the behemoth Arrowcar up the roller coaster...

We never get to see the interesting parts, like how Ollie got the Arrowcar past the turnstiles or had to slowly back the Arrowcar (which isn't latched to the tracks) OFF the coaster.  Whenever Ollie does something too ridiculous, the artists just refuse to draw it (like the Boomerang Arrow)

... the Red Devils try to dispose of their only real threat: his sidekick.

Realizing that the boy's death upon impact would be gruesome, Ollie resolves to shoot him through the head before he hits the ground; "It's the only humane thing to do."

Purely by accident, Ollie's shot becomes a lifeline that allows Speedy to coast to the ground. Upside-down, face first into a tree. Beggars can't be choosers.

Okay, fine; BUTT first.

The Red Devils escape by acrobatting themselves down from the rollercoaster.

How four supremely physical acrobats were getting their ass-kicked by an adolescent with no circus aerialist training I'll never understand.  Heroes; always adopt a circus aerialist.

But Green Arrow has more important things to do than finding the people who just tried to kill his sidekick. 

"Just make sure you stay in the shadows, kid, we're only a few pages in and you're already making me look bad."

Why? Because Ollie has just discovered: THE ALPHABET.

Thought I was kidding, didn't you?

I think Ollie's foes, consciously or not, try to make things easy on him. They know -- LORD knows -- he's not detective.  So, rather than give him clues in the form of complex, multilayered puzzles and wordplay, they keep it simple with stuff like, say, killing their victims in alphabetical order.   Ollie gets graded on a curve.

Proving, again, that the Octopus is the perfect Green Arrow foe.

After singing the first verse of the Alphabet Song to determine the next victim, Ollie bursts in his windows and is highly disrespectful to his staff:

"SHUT UP YOU ORIENTAL FLUNKY I'M A COLORFULLY CLAD MILLIONAIRE ANTHROPOLOGIST JUST DO AS YOU ARE TOLD AND CLEAN UP THAT STUFF I MADE YOU SPILL!"

Ollie is crestfallen that he's too late because now he has to DRIVE back to Gayland, where there probably aren't any open windows for him to catapult through. How TEDIOUS.

"I was afraid of that. UGH. 
Now I have to walk down the stairs like a normal person.
Somehow, I blame you for this, Wing."

As they approach Gayland, the archers see Faber The Next Victim, about to be dropped from the parachute drop ... in a faulty parachute!

Ollie has REMARKABLY good eyesight. Even for a super-expert archer.

TOMORROW: Ollie and the boy meet the devilish foursome in the woods near the Fun House.

The Red Devils of Gayland

This is a subject I've been able to avoid successfully here for 15 years, but now (for Heroclix-related reasons) I can avoid it no longer. It's part of a broader topic of the inferiority of Green Arrow's Rogues Gallery.

And that's from people whose rogues gallery is nothing but guys in monster masks.

The CW solved this by just rummaging through DC's bin of bargain villains dented by Batman.  But you can't do that as easily in Heroclix where Batman villains literally have a sign on them that says "Batman Enemy".  So when you want to expand GA's roster of foes, you switch from bargain-hunting to dumpster diving, which brings us to:

THE RED DEVILS OF GAYLAND

Some people need their asses kicked to get them to Gayland.
Never seen anyone run OUT of Gayland, before, though. 
Must have realized they were wearing white socks with suits.

It begins with a series of "Final Destination" style deaths at the local eponymous amusement park.

PLEASE tell me that's George Beecham's fedora beside him in that pool. 
No self-respecting man would be murdered from a great height without his fedora.

Fortunately, Ollie Queen and his Boy Quiver are in Ollie's bedroom, which is within eyesight distance of Gayland. So to speak.

Try not to think about why Red Vest isn't wearing shoes
and what Ollie is getting dressed FROM.

All of Green Arrow's action -- um, crimefighting action, I mean -- starts with either staring out the window or at the TV.  Remember, the authorities notify Green Arrow he's needed by shooting a flaming arrow signal momentarily across the skyline, which, if he's not staring out the window all the time, he'll miss.

Try not to think about what happens when that lands
or what "Green Arrow is needed" means.

Grabbing his Gayland-peeping binoculars, Ollie sees: a hung man!

Well, of course, he's hung, honey; it's Gayland.

Oh, sorry, I mean to say "hanged". 

Ollie's blond hair dye to arrive...?

Commissioner Nameless gives Ollie a free hand.  So to speak.

Translation: My officers are afraid to enter Gayland,
but you and the boy seem to be dressed for it already.  

I guess it's appropriate that Star City has a nameless, faceless Police Commissioner.  Would YOU want to be known as the man who calls Green Arrow for help?

"That'll never happen again, Number One."

TOMORROW: Speedy ejaculates Green Arrow into an open window.