Originally Posted by
Dark Falz
GL fans fighting happened WAY before Geoff Johns. I became a fan of GL at around 2003 or 4, right around the tale end of the Kyle Rayner era. They were always at each others' throats. Kyle and Hal fans mostly fought and they both generally disliked John because he was on the Justice League cartoon instead of their favorite. At the time, John fans were a pretty silent bunch online from what I can tell. Maybe his audience hadn't generally gotten old enough. I dunno'. But he didn't seem a popular choice among online fans at the time.
I wouldn't say only Hal benefited from the Johns era. Guy did, too. He had his longest runs as a semi-lead during that period, and it restored him to being a Green Lantern. Though, as a kid, I couldn't understand why, for the life of me, they had Guy Gardner starring in Green Lantern Corps instead of John Stewart, considering John was on TV at the time. I would read posts about how John had no writers that liked him. My gullible self thought, "Well, if that's the case, the editors should make writers use that character." What I didn't know what the time was that the editors didn't like him, either.
It was just REALLY weird to see such a blatant discrepancy between the TV show and the comics, which I was trying to get into, but the comics seemed to be doing their damndest to not let me get into them. Comics fans would blame the show for not being comics accurate and would suggest that, while John could be there, the other Lanterns should be there, too. I was like, "Screw that. The show is all John has. Let him have it to himself instead of sharing space with these other guys."
So, yeah, it was like everyone going at everyone, and I think I missed the worst of the Kyle and Hal stuff. It was more or less like today, I'd say.