Green Arrow's Lost Arch Nemesis

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).