Hal Jordan Appreciation 2018

[mrumsey]

It is tounge and cheek... Horseheads is where the Sing Sing jail is in the town of Elmira.

Not to get further off topic, but Sing Sing prison is not located anywhere near Horseheads or Chemung County, it's located in Ossining NY 30 miles away from NYC.

[2nd line g]

pretty sure morrison won't be using anything from Venditti's run.

I figured as much. My backlog is so big is more what I was getting at.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Couple of things - The only GL I’ve read is the Johns Omni vol 1, and the las 12 issues of N52. Being relatively new to comics I decided to go back to the Bronze Age and start collecting because I was pretty confused with continuity, characters etc....

I listened to the OA podcast for the first time and listened to the Venditti interview. Podcast is top notch and it made me want to run out and buy the GL Rebirth run by Venditti.

If you are looking for any Bronze Age recommendations, you can't go wrong with Marv Wolfman's run, followed by the Mike W. Barr Exile in Space years, Len Wein & Dave Gibbons Return to Earth, culminating in Steve Englehart & Joe Statons Green Lantern Corps run that climaxes in Crisis on Infinite Earths (which began during Wolfman's GL run and was edited by Len Wein) and features the reintroductions of John Stewart and Guy Gardner.

Venditti gets a bad rap, and in a lot of ways he deserves some licks for some crappy stories, but it was clear a lot of his run was compromised by editorial idiocy. An endless string of crossovers and events that forgot that Geoff Johns' run lost steam when it became a series of crossovers and events. Aping a format that had already run its course was a bad idea.

When Hal Jordan & the GLCorps Rebirth hit, Venditti clearly had something to prove and delivered a lot of fun stuff, but it was again plagued by event after event without enough focus on these guys as actual people instead of awesome action heroes.

Anyway, enjoy your Bronze Age GL deep dive!

[vartox]

I'm so excited for TGL! The solicit sounds great and the new logo is great. Also really cool to see DC actually promoting this book

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I think I’ll be trade waiting on this. I’m so unbelievably behind that it’ll read better that way for me anyway.

Morrison's stuff tends to read better and better with re-reads. His recent re-edit and revision of Final Crisis was a revelation.

[mrbrklyn]

If you are looking for any Bronze Age recommendations, you can't go wrong with Marv Wolfman's run, followed by the Mike W. Barr Exile in Space years, Len Wein & Dave Gibbons Return to Earth, culminating in Steve Englehart & Joe Statons Green Lantern Corps run that climaxes in Crisis on Infinite Earths (which began during Wolfman's GL run and was edited by Len Wein) and features the reintroductions of John Stewart and Guy Gardner.

To me this felt like one long dark period, especially the Stanton art. I hated Gibbons as well. Gil Kane was the GL that, IMO, one should read to understand this character. Minimal soap opera, maximum HERO

[mrbrklyn]

Not to get further off topic, but Sing Sing prison is not located anywhere near Horseheads or Chemung County, it's located in Ossining NY 30 miles away from NYC.

Sorry
Elmira Correctional Facility, and Southport Correctional Facility

I have worked in the area.

[j9ac9k]

I actually associate the "Beware my power" phrase more with John Stewart.

I do think the "The" is a little interesting but I like that its going to make this GL series stand out being a bit different than just being called "Green Lantern"

Plus it's cool that Hal is called THE Green Lantern. (That's a joke(kinda) to the other GL fans.)

I still think there's a chance the title refers to the actual lantern rather than Hal himself. It looks like he's holding the lantern that the dying GL gives him from the preview pages rather than the one we've seen Hal use for decades. Wonder if there's anything to that or just a stylistic choice.

[WallyWestFlash]

To me this felt like one long dark period, especially the Stanton art. I hated Gibbons as well. Gil Kane was the GL that, IMO, one should read to understand this character. Minimal soap opera, maximum HERO

Agreed. John Broome and Gil Kane's run is the quintessential Hal.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

To me this felt like one long dark period, especially the Stanton art. I hated Gibbons as well. Gil Kane was the GL that, IMO, one should read to understand this character. Minimal soap opera, maximum HERO

If we were talking about Silver Age GL, I would agree with you, but Gil Kane had largely moved on from GL during the Bronze Age. I also didn’t care for Joe Staton when I was younger, but I understand just how good a storyteller he was now. As for Gibbons, we’ll have to agree to disagree there

[jbmasta]

If you are looking for any Bronze Age recommendations, you can't go wrong with Marv Wolfman's run, followed by the Mike W. Barr Exile in Space years, Len Wein & Dave Gibbons Return to Earth, culminating in Steve Englehart & Joe Statons Green Lantern Corps run that climaxes in Crisis on Infinite Earths (which began during Wolfman's GL run and was edited by Len Wein) and features the reintroductions of John Stewart and Guy Gardner.

Venditti gets a bad rap, and in a lot of ways he deserves some licks for some crappy stories, but it was clear a lot of his run was compromised by editorial idiocy. An endless string of crossovers and events that forgot that Geoff Johns' run lost steam when it became a series of crossovers and events. Aping a format that had already run its course was a bad idea.

When Hal Jordan & the GLCorps Rebirth hit, Venditti clearly had something to prove and delivered a lot of fun stuff, but it was again plagued by event after event without enough focus on these guys as actual people instead of awesome action heroes.

Anyway, enjoy your Bronze Age GL deep dive!

To be more accurate Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps tended to do big cosmic threat level storylines. The battle to be the galactic law enforcers (the Sinestro Corps and the Darkstars), the potential restoration of a Lantern Corps, the fates of the New Gods and the Guardians etc. The remarkable thing is how Venditti was often able to balance out the huge scale and stakes by focusing on a relationship within the conflict. Sinestro's Law boiled down to the complicated relationship between Hal and Sinestro. Quest for Hope detoured to the start of Guy and Arkillo's whatever you call it. Kyle and Soranik's rekindling relationship was key to Prism of Time and Fractures. Fathers and sons are a recurring theme, especially in the second half. These things go a long way to making the storylines more relatable to readers, just in a more fantastic setting. Being a team book isn't the easiest place to show it, but it does come through.

The good news is that Morrison appears to be moving away from the big cosmic threat level storylines that have been happening on a regular basis since the start of the Geoff Johns era really.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

To be more accurate Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps tended to do big cosmic threat level storylines. The battle to be the galactic law enforcers (the Sinestro Corps and the Darkstars), the potential restoration of a Lantern Corps, the fates of the New Gods and the Guardians etc. The remarkable thing is how Venditti was often able to balance out the huge scale and stakes by focusing on a relationship within the conflict. Sinestro's Law boiled down to the complicated relationship between Hal and Sinestro. Quest for Hope detoured to the start of Guy and Arkillo's whatever you call it. Kyle and Soranik's rekindling relationship was key to Prism of Time and Fractures. Fathers and sons are a recurring theme, especially in the second half. These things go a long way to making the storylines more relatable to readers, just in a more fantastic setting. Being a team book isn't the easiest place to show it, but it does come through.

The good news is that Morrison appears to be moving away from the big cosmic threat level storylines that have been happening on a regular basis since the start of the Geoff Johns era really.

To be fair, Venditti certainly did a better job balancing the giant cosmic space wars with actual human emotion post-Rebirth than he did during the worst days of the New 52, when the book was a non-stop series of events that had virtually no character depth that I could recognize.

That said, I am also happy that Morrison is pumping the breaks on the never-ending Armageddons to let Hal be a space cop for a few months.

[zoch]

The Green lantern solicitation seemed interesting I'm looking forward to Hal upcoming Green lantern book.

[silly]

And Frank Quitely is doing alternate covers!? Brilliant.

[Johnny]

Never been a fan of Quitely to be honest. At least for me, the variants would likely be a huge step down from what Tyler Kirkham was doing with the Hal Jordan variant covers.