Green Lantern vs Nova vs Quasar vs Dr Spectrum

[Pendaran]

Just to pre empt something:

Plus, that ignores Rich doing something like putting a grav field that can drop a Strontian right on Kyle's head

And Kyle, if we're talking one man lantern corps era, is not only more powerful than Strontians

Xenith is not as powerful as Gladiator. Doing her up, it doesn't suck, but it's not the same thing.

[The Arbiter]

I was under the impression that Strontians had a much larger spread with their "average" power levels as opposed to say Kryptonians. Just a side effect from the nature of their powers.

Not that I have ever seen a weak Strontian mind you.

[The Dork Knight]

Yeah Gladiator went through some rigorous training to be the "best" there was. Involved having his powers enhanced and killing other Strontians as I recall

And also Kyle is more powerful at his prime anyway

[Pendaran]

Gladiator indeed went full original pokemon theme song efforts to be the very best, as it were, like no one ever was.

I feel awful for making that specific comparison ;p

[Pendaran]

And also Kyle is more powerful at his prime anyway

Pre "How dare anyone have ever suggested anyone could ever be as good or better than Hal Jordan" Rayner was a force unto himself, sure. Though vs Gladiator or that ilk the speed thing would be a thing.

Nova comes nowhere near that though.

[The Dork Knight]

Pre "How dare anyone have ever suggested anyone could ever be as good or better than Hal Jordan" Rayner was a force unto himself, sure. Though vs Gladiator or that ilk the speed thing would be a thing.

Nova comes nowhere near that though.

This was more in relation to a grav field powerful enough to hold down a Strontian and such force as compared to a GL

Also not really a fan of Hal, but they had stories and stories about how Kyle was sooo much better than him during the time so it's hard to feel too sorry for that dude now. Kyle is the original "new character must be twice as good as his predecessor" guy

[Pendaran]

Also not really a fan of Hal, but they had stories and stories about how Kyle was sooo much better than him during the time so it's hard to feel too sorry for that dude now. Kyle is the original "new character must be twice as good as his predecessor" guy

Well several things from my own view: Honestly, Hal was... frankly not great as a character, nor is he currently. The big fans of Hal will talk about how wow he's so brave, or how he did this or that big feat, or how he banged whatever woman and I just start rolling my eyes like the only things apparently interesting about him are either being discount Superman, being powerful, or some incredibly juvenile stuff.

Kyle had to slog through a lot to reach the point he did, he had to earn the respect of the people around him from ground zero, and there was something, before all the retcons, almost uplifting and rare for DC comics where they were willing to say "in fact anyone can find it in themselves to be an awesome hero if given the chance and they persevere." True or not, that's a really optimistic statement on humanity. Whereas Hal's return was "actually no, only already super awesome test pilots can be the bestest heroes."

In that sense, I was pretty okay with Kyle being treated as the greatest for a while.

[The Arbiter]

Kyle had to slog through a lot to reach the point he did, he had to earn the respect of the people around him from ground zero, and there was something, before all the retcons, almost uplifting and rare for DC comics where they were willing to say "in fact anyone can find it in themselves to be an awesome hero if given the chance and they persevere." True or not, that's a really optimistic statement on humanity. Whereas Hal's return was "actually no, only already super awesome test pilots can be the bestest heroes."

Someone needs to send this paragraph to DC.

Well said, Pen.

[The Dork Knight]

Well several things from my own view: Honestly, Hal was... frankly not great as a character, nor is he currently. The big fans of Hal will talk about how wow he's so brave, or how he did this or that big feat, or how he banged whatever woman and I just start rolling my eyes like the only things apparently interesting about him are either being discount Superman, being powerful, or some incredibly juvenile stuff.

Kyle had to slog through a lot to reach the point he did, he had to earn the respect of the people around him from ground zero, and there was something, before all the retcons, almost uplifting and rare for DC comics where they were willing to say "in fact anyone can find it in themselves to be an awesome hero if given the chance and they persevere." True or not, that's a really optimistic statement on humanity. Whereas Hal's return was "actually no, only already super awesome test pilots can be the bestest heroes."

In that sense, I was pretty okay with Kyle being treated as the greatest for a while.

I don't mean the "earning respect part", which was cool enough but might as well point out that Hal has been given **** by everyone post Rebirth about the one time he messed up. He has been forced to "earn back" the respect every time and it's a longer running thing now then Kyle being considered a competent lantern finally

I mean more the "Hal succumbed to the dark side but Kyle you're so awesome you didn't! Hal succumbed to the dark side and you're so awesome you didn't (again)! Wow Kyle I succumbed to the dark side but you're so awesome you didn't!" thing they did over and over again

Hal Jordan turned into the" bad example" for Kyle to be contrasted with and having to turn a 40 year old character into a villain just to make the new guy look good was a pretty bad take imo (especially since they reversed it and now it's even worse, at least we had some character development before)

[Pendaran]

Again my thing is.. what was Hal's personality really to speak of before Emerald Twilight? "Brave. Bangs women. Gets awkward moral lectures from Green Arrow that are really cringey to re-read decades later" are barely a personality. Yeah, Emerald Twilight wasn't great, but at least it had some rough pathos and you could see as a narrative what would send Hal down so dark a path. Hal was a 40 year old character where they increasingly kept throwing crap at a wall and hoping it would stick for some way to write him and eventually that stopped being sustainable for anything but an attitude of "screw it, let's just cater to as narrow a fanbase as possible while we keep the IP rights rolling along", i.e. the attitude of modern comics. At least his fall to the dark side created potential for stories, be it of his fall, of his works as a villain, or of his climb towards some state of redemption.

This is also my thing with comics Barry Allen and why one of the only really memorable things he ever did were die, then be brought back to just cater to the poisonous, aging nostalgia that is the slow murderous march of supers comics. Those characters were petering out because there was no there, there.

The main really, really bad, terrible thing around Kyle Rayner was the wiping out of the rest of the Green Lantern mythos at the time and keeping it just super dead for the longest time. That basically lessened the overall potential for what stories could be told, not increased it, which is always a terrible idea. It makes a given character's world feel less richly developed.

I don't mean the "earning respect part", which was cool enough but might as well point out that Hal has been given **** by everyone post Rebirth about the one time he messed up.

Largely in really superficial ways that only end up underscoring in fact how mega awesome Hal is and how mean and unfair people are to him. Hey, did you see that time he punched Batman down to give a writer fanboy retribution for Batman saying mean things about him and also having hit Guy Gardener? Wasn't that great??!?!?!

etc. ;p

[The Drunkard Kid]

Gladiator indeed went full original pokemon theme song efforts to be the very best, as it were, like no one ever was.

I feel awful for making that specific comparison ;p

To be fair, he was introduced in the pages of X-Men, which is basically about a Professor who traveled around the world gathering and studying a bunch of beings born with a variety of supernatural abilities, giving them nicknames, cross training them in his personal gym, occasionally helping them evolve new powers out forms, building a rapport with them, then using them to battle against wild beings with supernatural abilities in order to add them to his stable and occasionally send minors leading teams of beings with supernatural abilities to save the world from other organizations that sometimes wear themed outfits and use trained supernatural beings to enact crimes and/or Armageddon.

There are even groups dedicated to collecting supernatural beings in order to use their powers in their day to day lives, to evolve them to more legendary forms (occasionally using special items to force/guide the evolution), or for breeding them to create new legendary Supernatural beings.

[Captain Morgan]

While I don't like Hal or find him interesting, I enjoyed GL comics through the Johns run and even a bit beyond. Kyle's run at White Lantern was actually a pretty fun pulp sci fi read, for example.

In Rebirth they have really dialed the Hal wank up to 11 though and it is getting pretty hard to read.