Green Arrow gets Werewolf AIDS

Billionaire playboy Oliver Queen is gonna need some serious manscaping. Oliver is infected with the werewolf virus in Green Arrow Annual #1 by writer Bejamin Percy and artist Szymon Kudranski.

Oliver has a one-night stand with a woman named Melanie, who refuses to get close to him because he’s unrelatable. She chastises the Adonis for being rich, hot, white, male and well-endowed, which are apparently bad things in today’s politically correct world. Ironically, she’s discriminating against him for being ‘other.’

Meanwhile on the other side of tracks, a hate group hunts down people infected with a werewolf virus known as Lukos, which is Greek for wolf. The victim, Johnny Evision, reveals to police he contacted the virus sexually.

“I slept with the wrong…person,” he explains.

The police reply that he was asking for it. They tell him to continue taking his medication to suppress the symptoms until he can be relocated with other people like him. Johnny’s hesitation suggests he was about to say ‘man’ but to left it ambiguous to avoid further discrimination. There are clear parallels to HIV and AIDS, which were originally considered to be a gay disease. In fact, it was referred to as GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency). HIV positive people were similarly quarantined from the general public.

Green Arrow investigates the attacks and learns the origin of the virus. The Norse consumed the brain and heart of an infected wolf and became animal-like warriors known as Berserkers or Wargs. Their transformation was tied to their emotions unlike modern werewolves, which transform in response to a full moon. They were eventually hunted to extinction by Crusaders, Puritans and Hitler.

The virus resurfaces when a wolf attacks a group of hikers. The infected people are rounded up and medicated but some rebel. Dolph Marrock AKA Big Bad Wolf recruits Johnny into a werewolf biker gang called the Berserkers Bike Club. The gang decides to attack a Halloween parade in order infect the people who refused to treat them as equals.

Green Arrow stops the werewolves but he’s infected after being clawed. It remains to be seen how it will affect his dating life. He teams up with Catalina Flores AKA Tarantula to retrieve his dog, George, in Green Arrow #45. She is also critical of his white privilege. Catalina even attacks him for not understanding her when she tells him to shut up in Spanish. Green Arrow is apparently a masochist.

“There’s something about Catalina,” he thinks. “Some delightful poison I can’t antidote except with a cold shower or a punishing run.”