What Are The Best Kyle Rayner Green Lantern Stories?

[ColonelGM]

Kyle has always been my favourite GL since reading the JLA/Avengers crossover in 2003/2004 but I need some recommendations on what his best stories are in both Post Crisis and New 52 canon.

[EmeraldGladiator]

the Parallax ones, because Darryl Banks designed the coolest costume modification ever. Seriously my favorite Kyle stories were always the Hal Jordan ones because they had an extra gravity to them, luckily Hal made many a guest appearance in the book when Kyle was the star. Parallax View and the Zero Hour issue of Green Lantern were my faves.

[jbmasta]

There are two volumes so far collecting the Kyle era. As for recent, his best material is definitely in the 2015-2016 run of The Omega Men.

[Cat]

I liked his original Ion arc, and Emerald Knights was another goodie. Any of his team-ups with Wally and/or Connor Hawke are also worthwhile. Morrison also handled him really well in JLA, if you're looking for a team book.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

The best Kyle stories were in JLA under Morrison and Porter, by leaps and bounds.

His solo book under Ron Marz is a pretty good update of Stan Lee's early Spider-Man stories, but once the character "graduated" from being a novice to a full-fledged hero, there didn't seem to be anywhere left to take the character and DC Editorial at the time wasn't yet willing to let Kyle bring back the GLCorps, which was the next logical step.

Brain K. Vaughn did an interesting story with Kyle called "Circle of Fire" or something like that.

Judd Winnick's run was interesting and explored the idea of Kyle gaining godhood.

Ben Raab's run is pretty terrible and should be avoided.

[SJNeal]

IMHO, his best stories are the ones collected in the two GL: Kyle Rayner volumes now available. Marz last great Kyle story was "Emerald Knights", which already got a mention.

The Ion stuff was, for me, when Winick started to go off the rails; I preferred his early issues (though they still weren't as good as Marz').

While Morrison & Co. did some great character pieces with him in JLA, I never considered those "Kyle stories", per se.

[Trey Strain]

The best Kyle stories were in JLA under Morrison and Porter, by leaps and bounds.

His solo book under Ron Marz is a pretty good update of Stan Lee's early Spider-Man stories, but once the character "graduated" from being a novice to a full-fledged hero, there didn't seem to be anywhere left to take the character and DC Editorial at the time wasn't yet willing to let Kyle bring back the GLCorps, which was the next logical step.

Brain K. Vaughn did an interesting story with Kyle called "Circle of Fire" or something like that.

Judd Winnick's run was interesting and explored the idea of Kyle gaining godhood.

Ben Raab's run is pretty terrible and should be avoided.

I thought the Morrison and Porter stories were OK, not nearly as great as many people thought.

Re Marz: His best stories were the ones that guest starred Crazy Hal. Kyle should have remained as a young character but not so much of a bumbler. DC editorial eventually DID want Kyle to bring back the GLC, but without Hal. The process was started in Legacy: The Last Will and Testament of Hal Jordan, written by Joe Kelly. It was supposed to culminate in GL #150 of that series.

But by that time DC had decided to eventually bring on Geoff Johns as the writer, and he insisted that Hal come back as the same time as the Corps. This delayed the restoration by THREE YEARS! They didn't need to wait for Hal, and it all didn't need to be done in one big spectacular burst. That three-year delay to make everything happen at once sounds familiar, doesn't it? If not, then see the current situation with JSA, LoS and Shazam.

I don't think Raab's run was his fault. Johns was the writer-in-waiting, so Raab was pretty much writing what he was told. If not by Johns then by editorial.

Kyle as a god was a terrible idea and was a wild overreaction to people complaining about Kyle's origin, in which Ganthet handed Kyle a power ring and said, "You'll have to do."

[greatmetropolitan]

Morrison's JLA, Winnick's GL run and Omega Men had the best Kyle for me. Winnick in particular really drilled into the character to see what made him tick, and gave him an excellent, underused nemesis. Morrison's JLA Kyle stuff was typical Morrison, dropping an insightful, brilliant bit of development here and there and some just straight up cool action stuff. Highlights are DC One Million and the Sandman/Starro story. "Fear. You will surpass him". Goosebumps.

[Adset]

it's been a spell since i've read kyle's solo book, but i recall some specific stories:

#71-73, "hero quest" -- kyle gets some advice from batman, captain marvel, and wonder woman; #81, hal jordan's funeral; #83-85, "retribution" -- stranded on an alien world with a dead ring (?); the "three of a kind" crossover w/ wally and connor that continued on in their books, really established the three younger heroes as "big time" for me; and "emerald knights", #100-106, which has been mentioned already. by #100 i thought marz had more or less gotten kyle over his hal complex, but hal coming back to the present really rattled him. batman going to kyle's apartment and saying that he was the league's green lantern always resonated with me.

obviously, i loved the marz stuff more than anything that came after. if i remember right -- again, it's been awhile -- after "emerald knights" kyle became a bit obsessed with the legacy of green lantern and went off into space to try to re-start the corps and jade took over for a little while on earth. that was all fine and good, but i always thought those first 50 issues of kyle's solo act were the best.

[Montressor]

I loved when Kyle met the young, time displaced Hal Jordan. Great story, I loved Hal's reaction to the events of his future life. The storyarc also lead to the return of the GL Corps.

Also, Dream's words to Kyle--after asking Kyle why he always thought of the late Hal Jordan before making a move--brought a tear to my eye at the time (this was in an issue of Morrison's JLA).

[Zero Hunter]

I loved when Kyle met the young, time displaced Hal Jordan. Great story, I loved Hal's reaction to the events of his future life. The storyarc also lead to the return of the GL Corps.

I loved the Emerald Knights story. It ran in issues 100-106 and was a major high point of Kyle's run. Actually the story right before that with Kyle fighting Grayven and getting sent into the future to team up with the Legion in issues 97-99 are pretty great too.

[Zero Hunter]

Green Lantern issues 63-64 - Kyle meets Parallax for the first time and Hal wants Kyle's ring.




Green Lantern issues 74-75 - Kyle and the Darkstars (who are led by John Stewart) take on Grayven who is the unrecognized son of Darkseid. Grayven has been going around killing Darkstars in order to make his father acknowledge him, and this is their last stand.

[SJNeal]

Green Lantern issues 74-75 - Kyle and the Darkstars (who are led by John Stewart) take on Grayven who is the unrecognized son of Darkseid. Grayven has been going around killing Darkstars in order to make his father acknowledge him, and this is their last stand.

I almost forgot about this one! Definitely a high point!

I take back my earlier comment; the first 3 GL: Kyle Rayner volumes will contain his "Best Of"...

[Nomads1]

IMHO, his best stories are the ones collected in the two GL: Kyle Rayner volumes now available. Marz last great Kyle story was "Emerald Knights", which already got a mention.

I agree partially with this. The begginig of the KR era was really strong, but it was still packing quite a punch almost up to 110/115. The Grayven and Darkstar arcs, the Emerlad Knights, the cross-over with Green Arrow Conner Hawke (As much as I adored Barry, Hal and Ollie, I loved that DC was laying ground to a 3rd generation of legacy heroes with Kyle, Conner and Wally. Too bad they didn't have stones to push foward and ended up back pedeling it all the way, making a real confusing mess of things). He had some cool enemies that really weren't entusiastically adopted by other writers outside of the book, such as Grayven and Effigy, Sonar 2.0, etc.. I also liked the Circle of Fire mini and there was also a good Prestige Format two issues that showed Kyle's first attempt to restart the GLC.
I lost intrest in the character when Winnick took over the book. Never liked his writing. Raab 's run wasn't much to talk about either.

Peace

[Dr. Ellingham]

#71-73, "hero quest" -- kyle gets some advice from batman, captain marvel, and wonder woman; #81, hal jordan's funeral; #83-85, "retribution" -- stranded on an alien world with a dead ring (?); the "three of a kind" crossover w/ wally and connor that continued on in their books, really established the three younger heroes as "big time" for me.

Yeah, that's the real Kyle "era" for me. Perhaps nostalgia - it's where I started reading GL again. And I think if you separate out Hal from Kyle's run, it was those early issues, with Alan, Donna Troy and the like that are the core Kyle Rayner stories.

And it's true the stories with Parallax gave the book palpable momentum, excitement. Hal was Kyle's Sinestro. That dynamic really worked; the new hero that had respect for his predecessor, but recognized he was unhinged and dangerous. Once that was resolved, gone was the momentum.

Which is a shame. In hindsight, after Emerald Knights it would have been good to push the book back into Kyle's earlier territory; the Earth-centric, New York Spider-Man-ish roots. Instead they pushed him into the whole "mantle" thing - bringing back the Corps, giving him a version of Hal's costume, etc. It wasn't bad, so much as it just wasn't the point.