Today’s Lesson: Speedy’s drug addiction saga is infinitely more depressing when it’s in Dutch – Groene Lantaarn Classics #2730

The comics-loving audience won’t soon forget the time when Green Arrow exclaimed “NEEE! Speedy is een JUNKIE!”

I don’t have much to say about this comic. I’ve profiled a foreign Green Lantern book here before, but unlike my limited (and fading) grasp of French, I have absolutely no working knowledge of Dutch. I’m not entirely sure of the effect the translation here has on the original Denny O’Neil/Neal Adams script, other than making the reader look for windmills, clogs and marijuana in every panel. I also don’t want to dawdle on looking at the book, lest this post take on a moronic “Dance for me, monkey!” parlor game vibe. “Look, dey’re talkin’ Dutch or sometin’! Huhuhuh!” And lastly, everyone knows the story of Speedy’s dalliance with needles and opiates by rote at this point.

But, just to give you a feel for what our friends in Holland got when they read this — with its recolored Adams/Dick Giordano art — here’s some bookends. The first page, with skulking toughs waiting to take out an oblivious Oliver Queen:

And the last few panels, which give us the mainlining money shot:

Hey, where’d Speedy’s costume go? And Green Arrow’s hat? “O, lieve God!” indeed.