They didn't really cut it short, Morrison apparently sees the book as a TV series and the idea with the mini series was basically to give Sharp a breather between the first and second "season", since he wants to draw the entire main series with no fill-in artists.
I guess I'm ever the pessimist when it comes to Hal and DC.
Save Ferris...
Just finished the Silver Age Omni V1 (Showcase 22-24, Green Lantern 1-35).
Knee-jerk thoughts:
Hector Hammond is my favorite villain of the era. Both his origin/first appearance (#5) and the issue he found out about the Guardians and then created an evil Guardian of his own to fight Hal (#34) were fantastic, full-issue events (I think there were only one, maybe two, other issue-length stories in the omni).
"Pretty lady boss Carol Ferris"
Jim's girlfriend-then-wife believing Jim, and not Hal, was Green Lantern was easily my favorite reoccurring thing. Morrison bringing this up in the latest Annual was hilarious. Morrison has actually brought back a TON of Silver Age stuff in The Green Lantern I never in a million years would have been able to identity prior to reading through this.
THE ACCURSED COLOR YELLOW! I started reading comics circa 1994, so Kyle Rayner was my introduction to the GL mythos, and I've been reading ever since -- so the yellow impurity, while I obviously was aware of it, has never really been an issue since I've been reading these past 25 years. But boy howdy -- every issue of this omni, Hal's dealing with something yellow.
Hal seems to get knocked out and lose consciousness a lot in this era. It's almost endearing? "Oh, poor Hal. He never saw that rock coming."
I really liked the instantaneous bromance with Barry Allen. Again, as a Kyle Rayner/Wally West kid, my Green Lantern and Flash didn't necessary get along/tolerate one another (at least for the first few years). So it's nice to see the reverse.
The art is rock solid, but I can't get over how goofy Silver Age Sinestro looked.
Now on to V2...
I've been reading the Pre-Crisis stuff, and not the modern comics. Not sure if I'm feeling burnt-out on modern comics, or perhaps I'm no longer the target demographic.
According to your link, his first appearance was GL #190 (1985). I guess he must have featured in the Tales of GL Corps back-up. The GL 2814 trades I downloaded only featured the main stories.
What an awesome visual. The imagination of some of these comic creators are just insane.
Thanks for the clarification.
That's perfectly normal. Comics should be trying to reach new audiences. Sometimes those attempts to tap into the current cultural zeitgeist work for you, sometimes it doesn't. I remember back in the mid-90s, when both DC and Marvel were desperately trying to ape the more extreme style epitomized by the then new Image comics, I was utterly turned off and left comics for a few years. The great thing is, once you come back, you end up finding little gems you missed while you were away like I did with Robinson & Harris's Starman.
If modern comics aren't hitting your particular tastes, just take a break and explore some of the older comics out there. There's certainly plenty of them.
It's amazing how great Hal works in so many different duos. Hal and Barry. Hal and Ollie. Hal and John. Hal and Guy. Hal and Wally. Hal and Kyle. Hal and Jessica. Only Batman has him beat for better team-up character in the DCU.
I'd love to see a team-up book with Hal and various DC heroes.
Great point. Hal and Bruce is always a fun team-up too. Also Hal and Roy. It's a bit strange, isn't it? Like Hal's "disconnect" from Earth should make him one of the least approachable people and yet, he almost gets along well with everyone. Maybe he's just been exposed to too many different cultures to the point where he can pretty much adapt himself to any kind of person?
As a character, Hal's definitely larger than life and more like Bruce and Clark in a sense, but at the same time, there's something strangely down to earth about him. Like the dude goes on road trips, crashes on his friends' couches -- stuff you'd never see Bruce or Clark do. And at the same time, his idea of a vacation is taking a trip to some medieval fantasy planet.
Last edited by Mutatis_Mutandis; 08-16-2019 at 08:58 AM.
I'm currently not as annoyed by this show's portrayal of Hal as I used to be. Oliver is a pompous blowhard, Barry is an incompetent speedster, Carol is a crazy ex-girlfriend, Supergirl is somewhat of a bully, etc. Hal being a Superman fanboy who is comically full of himself isn't anymore unlikable than the rest of the changes for most of the characters. The fact that Hal keeps being portrayed as a goof in outside media is where my concern comes from, but otherwise this show isn't really doing much harm to the character.
Last edited by Johnny; 08-16-2019 at 10:31 AM.
At least it looks like he's going to properly finish the transformation this time.
I agree on principle even if this show doesn't really sell me on the idea of Hal and Jessica, at least with how they're portrayed here.
I did like the kind of mentor/mentee relationship they built up to in the comics.
At least he comes off wayyyyyyyyyy better then their version of Robin.