The Appeal of Green Arrow

"Star is too much like Starfish!"

(This interpretation is how I would personally view and characterize Green Arrow and may not be directly supported by a majority of published material, but I think this reading is very reasonable.)

The two most memorable elements of Oliver Queen's character seem to be (1) his forced foray into survivalism and (2) his extremely progressive social views. Though the former had been present for decades prior to the latter, and the latter may seem to be an arbitrary addition to his character, I believe there is a lens through which the two coalesce and fit together to serve a central theme for Green Arrow.

Jack Kirby may have introduced the island-survival part of Green Arrow's origin long before Dennis O'Neil turned him into a hardcore liberal, but I think the two are linked by the abstract idea of POVERTY.

Oliver Queen was affluent before his time on the island during which he was forced to fend for his life by scavenging for basic necessities. The obvious irony of the story is that a pampered individual had to learn to survive on his own. But the other irony that often goes unnoticed is that a rich person was forced to undergo extreme poverty. A survival scenario is quite similar to living in dire poverty -- the only difference is that the difficulty in attaining basic necessities for a survivalist usually comes from their physical environment: what resources are present and how hard it is to physically attain and make use of them. A person in modern society living in poverty has similar challenges securing shelter and food, but the difficulty comes from a lack of finances and a lack of social support.

So it stands to reason that Oliver Queen would be shaken and changed after his stay on the island -- not only because of the traumatic ordeal, not only because he learned independence, but also because he learned what deep poverty feels like.

Then he returns to Star City and notices something with his newfound perspective: given the social inequalities that foster impoverished environments and the lack of help for those in poor financial states, modern civilization is not as different from the island as it should be. Oliver takes up the identity of the Green Arrow to right wrongs in a world that forces some people to behave like survivalists, when they should never have to. A homeless person would tear Oliver apart. The brutality of the island's conditions is something no one should have to endure, and certainly not when they live in the midst of a civilization that could certainly help them. And so Oliver Queen would logically adopt extremely liberal viewpoints.

His Robin Hood-esque appearance elicits thoughts of redistributing wealth to aid the poor.

His use of a bow and arrow, a primitive survivalist tool, serves as a reminder of the primality that modern society continues to foster by refusing further progress in social aid, and ironically weaponizes it to make that system better.

I think this reading lends itself well to connecting the two main things that people think of when they think of Green Arrow. And a core theme like this, involving Ollie turning into a deeply empathetic progressive who just wants the world's experiences to be as far away from his own as possible, makes Green Arrow seem like a far greater hero to me.