Man, I can never tell which of my posts is going to get the most comments.

I mean, yesterday I put together a silly little post on a long forgotten Green Arrow villain, and you people went nuts.

Saranga went so far as to insist--nay, demand!--that I reveal exactly how GA defeated The Roper in his one and only appearance.

(Actually, see asked very politely, and I can never resist a lady with an English accent...go read her blog!)

So, your wish is my command. But don't blame me when this makes your head explode from excessive WTF, OK?

It seems that each time our heroes encountered the Roper, Green Arrow left him an arrow with a piece of rope attached:



Oliver is such a dingus, he won't even tell Speedy what the secret plan is.

At their final confrontation, the amazing archers are captured because Roper blinds them with glow-in-the-dark ropes. Seriously.

So it's curtains for the heroes...but there's one little transaction left to go:

What in the world is going on??

Wow, it's a good thing that when the Roper tied you up, he put you right next to that button...

Wow, it's a good thing the Roper was standing in the one exact spot he needed to be...

You're kidding, right? Your entire plan depended on A) the Roper keeping all of those pieces of rope on him; B) You and Speedy getting captured; C) Roper trussing you up on the same wall as that hidden button; D) Roper standing right in front of the doorway from whence the electromagnetic boomerang arrow would come; E) that, even though neither end of the rope you've tricked him into taken was secured to anything, it will somehow bind him helplessly just by twirling around him (again, with neither end secured--and not tied!); and F) despite being a master of ropes, the Roper will remain hogtied until the police arrive to grab him and free you. ALL of that had to go exactly right, or the plan fails.

Well, at least there's an explanation, of sorts, for A:

How convenient that Oliver Queen knows ancient Malayan rope language...and that the concept of European naming systems and secret identities are easily translated into that language!!

But wait...how did Green Arrow know the Roper's secret identity in the first place???

So...Green Arrow "knew" from before they even encountered the Roper for the first time. In other words, he let the guy commit at least 4 more major crimes, because it wasn't enough proof for court.

Uh, maybe you could have told the cops and gotten a search warrant? Followed the guy until you caught him changing into his costume? Done a background check on "Stephen Gard, wealthy philanthropist," upon whose hand you noticed rope burn?

Nah, that wouldn't be nearly as much fun as an overly complex and ridiculously unlikely plan. But hey, at least Green Arrow got to use his electromagnetic boomerang arrow!

The Roper's only and only appearance was in Adventure Comics #176 (1952), as reprinted in World's Finest #204 (1971).

For much of the Golden Age and early Silver Age, Green Arrow was portrayed as a complete Batman wannabe.

I don't wish to chide the imaginations of those early creators, but we had a single multi-millionaire crime-fighter with the youthful ward (who wore a predominantly red costume) and an Arrow Cave and an Arrow Car and an Arrow Plane and...

Well, you can see that, to most DC writers, Oliver Queen was just Bruce Wayne with arrows.

Except there was one department in which Green Arrow was distinctly lacking (just one?)--his rogue's gallery.

Go ahead...try to do a mental list of Green Arrow's villains. See how far you get after Merlyn.

Which is why I'm calling for the resurrection of Green Arrow's long-lost arch-nemesis...THE ROPER!!!!!

No, no, not Norman Fell, Mr. Roper from Three's Company!

You see, Green Arrow captured murderer Steve Bogardus...but when execution time came:

Oops. Then, before they can try again the next day, Bogardus uses a rope to escape:

Well, after all of this, and a few more amazing coincidences (flaming ropes cause him to need complete plastic surgery...which allows him to be undetected by police hunting for him!), Bogardus decides that ropes are lucky for him, and...

Intense study and practice follow...


And thus...

What follows is a crime wave of roped-based felonies:

And, in true Bat-villain fashion, many of the crimes had a rope-based theme: a rodeo, a restaurant named Skipper, etc.

But wait, you may be saying...how can a guy armed only with ropes defend himself against crime-fighting archers??

Seriously. He twirls his rope so fast that arrows can't penetrate!

Yes, he has the power of super-jump-roping.

He also has, like his nemesis, many a trick rope. For example, when Green Arrow tries flaming arrows to burn up his ropes?


Yes, he used stinky ropes.

But that's not all:

Wow, Green Arrow blinded by glow in the dark ropes. Some crimefighter.

Anyway, Green Arrow eventually wins through a trick too ridiculous to describe. Seriously, don't ask.

And Bogardus is executed...the Roper is never to be heard from again.

Still, post-Crisis etc, there's no reason to believe that Steve Bogardus is actually dead these days. Once Oliver Queen is done playing Robin Hood in Star City's new forest, how about we bring back the scourge of the underworld: THE ROPER!!!

Please, DC?

The Roper's only and only appearance was in Adventure Comics #176 (1952), as reprinted in World's Finest #204 (1971).