A bat! That's it! It's an omen.. I'll shall become a bat!
Pre-CBR Reboot Join Date: 10-17-2010
Pre-CBR Reboot Posts: 4,362
THE CBR COMMUNITY STANDARDS & RULES ~ So... what's your excuse now?
I don't have anything against heroes with gray hair per se (looking at you Mr. Fantastic), but I usually associate Hal with grey temples with Emerald Twilight, so I can't say I'm much of a fan of it.
I think it gave his look some extra character, tbh.
"They can be a great people Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you. My only son." - Jor-El
Bah... Green Lanterns, Especially Hal were chosen for fearlessness and being cool at all times, but most especially under pressure. the idea that Hal Jordan was buckling under pressure annoys me more than the idea that he was getting old
This is my biggest issue. Aging some and not aging others... it becomes mess. Whatever little bit they may have gained by giving those wasn't worth the issues it brought up.
one of the first comics I read of greying Hal was the eclipse annual which was kinky on another level so I didn't like the characterization he got saddled with on greying but it did make him look distinguished and a little more commanding.
I thought it was ridiculous since no other characters (i.e. Clark, Bruce, Barry, Arthur, et al) had been similarly aged. Apparently Geoff Johns also thought it was stupid since he retconned Hal's gray hair in Green Lantern: Rebirth as the Parallax entity's subtle influence on him.
Avatar: Here's to the late, great Steve Dillon. Best. Punisher. Artist. EVER!
The age thing started to slowly get de-emphasized even earlier during the Emerald Knights arc where the young time-displaced Hal was looking at a statue of his older self with the gray temples and saying: "Went gray pretty early, huh?" Seems like ever since back then they started to gradually retcon that Hal really wasn't some older veteran GL when he got the gray hair.
Last edited by Johnny; 08-11-2018 at 02:18 PM.
A bat! That's it! It's an omen.. I'll shall become a bat!
Pre-CBR Reboot Join Date: 10-17-2010
Pre-CBR Reboot Posts: 4,362
THE CBR COMMUNITY STANDARDS & RULES ~ So... what's your excuse now?
Seems like a dumb period in DC history. It doesn't make sense for him to be older than Clark, Bruce, Arthur etc when he was always part of their generation. Barry escaped it because he was dead, but was he treated as having been around Hal's age before he died?
Seems like a transparent attempt to make Hal older to gradually phase him out, which they eventually did for a time.
Green Lantern fans give them a thumbs up.
http://www.thegreenlanterncorps.com/...ead.php?t=9379
I started getting those at 25, so I didn't associate gray temple with impending decrepitude and a sudden need for adult diapers...
Plus I very much preferred *adult* Hal Jordan to the frat-boy joke he turned into when Geoff Johns got his hands on him. Probably the biggest sin Ryan Reynolds ever committed was portraying John's immature d-bag version of Hal Jordan *perfectly.*
I agree, the Hal in the main Green Lantern book and the Hal from the New 52 JL title were like two different people. Johns' Hal always had the cocky swagger the character is known for, but he never wrote him anywhere else like he did in the JL Origin/The Villain's Journey arcs. When Johns brought Hal back for The Darkseid War, he didn't write him that way there too.
Last edited by Johnny; 08-11-2018 at 09:47 AM.