Editing Neal Adams (section)

===''Green Lantern/Green Arrow'' and "relevant comics"===
[[File:Green lantern 76.JPG|thumb|''Green Lantern/Green Arrow'' #76 (April 1970). Cover art by Adams.]]
Batman's enduring makeover was contemporaneous<ref name="GCDDennyNeal" /> with Adams and O'Neil's celebrated and, for the time, controversial revamping of the longstanding DC characters [[Green Lantern]] and [[Green Arrow]].<ref name="McAvennie1970sp139">McAvennie "1970s" in Dolan, p.  139: "Real-world politics have always gone hand-in-hand with comics and their creators' own personal perspectives.  Yet this was never more creatively expressed than when writer Denny O'Neil and artist Neal Adams paired the liberal Green Arrow with the conservative Green Lantern."</ref><!--after a brief Adams return to [[Deadman (DC Comics)|Deadman]] (writing and drawing the backup story in ''[[Aquaman]]'' #51-52, June & Aug. 1970, and drawing 7½ Deadman pages tucked into a 23-page [[Challengers of the Unknown]] story in ''Challengers of the Unknown'' #74 (July 1970)-->

Rechristening ''Green Lantern'' vol. 2 as ''Green Lantern/Green Arrow'' with issue #76 (April 1970), O'Neil and Adams teamed these two very different superheroes in a long story arc in which the characters undertook a social-commentary journey across America.<ref name="McAvennie1970sp139" /> A few months earlier, Adams updated Green Arrow's visual appearance by designing a new costume and giving him a distinctive goatee beard for the character in ''The Brave and the Bold #85'' (Aug.-Sept 1969).<ref>McAvennie "1960s" in Dolan, p. 134: "Artist Neal Adams targeted the Emerald Archer for a radical redesign that ultimately evolved past the surface level ... the most significant aspect of this issue was Adams' depiction of Oliver Queen's alter ego.  He had rendered a modern-day Robin Hood, complete with goatee and mustache, plus threads that were more befitting an ace archer."</ref> A major exemplar of what the industry and the public at the time called "relevant comics",<ref>{{cite book|last=Delaney|first= Samuel R. |title=Silent Interviews: On Language, Race, Sex, Science Fiction, and Some Comics|publisher=[[Wesleyan University Press]]|year=1994|location= Middletown, Connecticut|isbn= 978-0-8195-6280-7|page= 89}}</ref> the landmark run began with the 23-page story "No Evil Shall Escape My Sight" and continued to "... And through Him Save a World" in the series' finale, #89 (May 1972). It was during this period that one of the best known O'Neil/Adams stories appeared, in [[Snowbirds Don't Fly|''Green Lantern'' #85–86]], when it was revealed that Green Arrow's ward [[Roy Harper (character)|Speedy]] was addicted to heroin.<ref name="dc-ency">{{Cite book|last= Greenberger|first= Robert|author-link= Robert Greenberger|contribution = Green Arrow|editor-last= Dougall|editor-first= Alastair|title= The DC Comics Encyclopedia|pages= 142–143|publisher= [[Dorling Kindersley]]|year= 2008|location= London, United Kingdom|isbn= 978-0-7566-4119-1}}</ref><ref>McAvennie "1970s" in Dolan, p. 146: "It was taboo to depict drugs in comics, even in ways that openly condemned their use.  However, writer Denny O'Neil and artist Neal Adams collaborated on an unforgettable two-part arc that brought the issue directly into Green Arrow's home, and demonstrated the power comics had to affect change and perception."</ref> Wrote historian [[Ron Goulart]],

{{Blockquote|These angry issues deal with racism, [[Human overpopulation|overpopulation]], pollution, and [[drug addiction]]. The drug abuse problem was dramatized in an unusual and unprecedented way by showing Green Arrow's heretofore clean-cut boy companion Speedy turning into a heroin addict. All this endeared DC to the dedicated college readers of the period and won awards for both artist and writer. Sales, however, weren't especially influenced by the praise, and by 1973 the crusading had ceased. I remember dropping in on [editor] Julius Schwartz about this time and asking him how relevance was doing. 'Relevance is dead', he informed me, not too cheerfully.<ref name=goulart297 />}}

After ''Green Lantern'' was cancelled, the adventures of both super-heroes continued in the pages of ''[[The Flash (comic book)|The Flash]]'' #217–219 and #226 (1972–74).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cbr.com/dc-unveils-new-collected-editions-from-the-original-universe/ |title=DC Unveils New Collected Editions from the Original Universe |date=April 5, 2004 |website=Comic Book Resources |access-date=January 14, 2012}}</ref>