Snowbirds Don't Fly
| "Snowbirds Don't Fly" "They Say It'll Kill Me... But They Won't Say When" |
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Cover of Green Lantern vol. 2, #85 (Aug-Sept, 1971), showing Roy "Speedy" Harper (m.) preparing to shoot heroin in front of a shocked Green Lantern (l.) and his guardian Green Arrow (r.).
Art by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano. |
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| Publisher | DC Comics |
| Publication date | August-September – October-November 1971 |
| Genre | |
| Title(s) | Green Lantern vol. 2, #85-86 |
| Main character(s) | Green Lantern; Green Arrow; Speedy; Black Canary |
| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | Dennis O'Neil |
| Penciller(s) | Neal Adams |
| Inker(s) | Neal Adams, Dick Giordano |
| Editor(s) | Julius Schwartz |
"Snowbirds Don't Fly" is a two-part anti-drug comic book story arc which appeared in Green Lantern/Green Arrow issues 85 and 86, published by DC Comics in 1971. The story was written by Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams, with the latter also providing the art with Dick Giordano. It tells the story of Green Lantern and Green Arrow, who fight drug dealers, witnessing that Green Arrow's ward Roy "Speedy" Harper is a drug addict and dealing with the fallout of his revelation. Considered a watershed moment in the depiction of mature themes in DC Comics, the tone of this story is set in the tagline on the cover: "DC attacks youth's greatest problem... drugs!"
In the first part (Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85), Green Arrow (Oliver Queen) runs into muggers who shoot him with a crossbow. Strangely, the weapon is loaded with his own arrows. Tracking down the attackers, Green Arrow and his best friend, Green Lantern Hal Jordan, find out that the muggers are junkies who need money for their addiction, and are surprised to find Queen's ward Speedy (Roy Harper) among them. They think he is working undercover to bust the junkies, but Queen catches him red-handed when he tries to shoot heroin. It becomes evident that the stolen arrows are indeed Queen's, which he shares with Harper when they fight crime together. In the second part (Green Lantern/Green Arrow #86), an enraged Green Arrow lashes out at his ward. In shame, Harper withdraws cold turkey, and one of the junkies dies of a drug overdose. Queen and Lantern tackle the kingpin of the drug ring, a pharmaceutics CEO who outwardly condemns drug abuse, and visit the funeral for the dead junkie.
During the 1960s, Green Lantern was on the verge of cancellation, which gave writer Denny O'Neil a great deal of creative freedom when he was assigned the series. O'Neil recounted that "my journalism background and laid-back social activism had led me to wonder if I couldn't combine those things with what I did for a living. ... So this was my chance to see if this idea I had would work. It was a situation where nobody had anything to lose. And I think that writing about things that really concerned me pulled out of me a higher level of craft. Also, it gave me real problems to solve in terms of craft which I hadn't faced before." The first of these "socially motivated" Green Lantern/Green Arrow stories was written with Gil Kane slated to be the artist, but Kane dropped out and was replaced by Neal Adams.
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