Roy Harper's downgrade didn't come all at once, but when it started it went downhill fast. After the failure of "Green Arrow/Black Canary", the editors decided to take the Arrow Family in a new and terrible direction and Roy was most notably affected. After "JLA: Cry for Justice" ended with him losing his arm and most devastatingly his daughter Lian, the downgrade took a worse turn with "Rise of Arsenal" where he is abandoned by everyone after his relapse and is manipulated by Cheshire to join Deathstroke's team in the latter "Titans: Villains for Hire". Then the "New 52" happened and Roy's achievements, character development, and the many relationships he's had including his daughter were retconned away. What was once a seasoned hero who once led the Titans and the Outsiders, a devoted single father and mentor to younger heroes, and a man who wanted to do as much good as he could was now a clingy manchild whose only friend- Jason Todd who is deserving of his own nomination for Worst Downgrade- openly and frequently puts him down with little to no pushback. Yes, even Roy's addiction was changed from heroin to alcohol and it's no longer Dinah Lance who stayed up with him during his withdrawal but Killer Croc who begrudgingly became his AA sponsor. Even visually Roy was done dirty by the New 52. Post Crisis, he was often designed with a thick build, compared to Nightwing's more acrobatic build. New 52, he's thin and kind of greasy looking, especially when drawn by Kenneth Rocafort. It's not until "Infinite Frontier" that he was given more of a solid build. Roy has recovered some since then, especially reuniting with Lian and looking much better, but the 15 years of bad writing and bad editorial decisions has certainly done a number on his reputation that readers who first saw him in "Red Hood and the Outlaws" are thrown by how wildly different he was before the "New 52".
