Hal Jordan: Green Lantern Appreciation 2019

[j9ac9k]

I have no source for this other than my fleeting memory, but I thought Hal's whole arc of quitting was because they knew Crisis was coming and the writer wanted to use Crisis as the backdrop for him fighting to get his ring back. (which he did in the Crisis crossover issues of GL) But it sidelined him for the main series.

[ShinySephiroth]

Howdy! I'm behind and saw a couple of mentions of it via searching but I think the comments were out of context... was there ever a resolution to the "Weaponeer" from The Green Lantern Vol 1 #1? Like, is he Hal Jordan from the Antimatter Universe or something else?

[Dr. Ellingham]

I don't claim to know what actually was going on behind the scenes, because I wasn't there, but it seems to me if the GLC title wasn't doing well, DC would not have gotten the creative team from the book to do a line wide crossover (Millenium, which, admittedly was terrible) and have GLC lead that.

Absolutely. The book was doing very well circa Crisis, especially given how closely tied in it was to the main event. Keep in mind that Englehart had significant cache back then, similar to Geoff Johns say 10-15 years ago. He was considered pretty much "the" Batman writer, and the same with JLA, Captain America, etc. He was also a novelist, and a would-be screenwriter - DC asked him to help script what became Tim Burton's Batman, originally to be based on his classic run. He had clout with publisher Jenette Kahn.

Back in the 1960s-1980s, comic publishers were required to post their annual distribution, printings, subscriptions and sales for ongoing magazines for the year prior. These appeared in April issues (on sale January) the following year. Almost 20 years ago they were compiled into a book - The Standard Catalog of Comic Books. Here is the average number of comics sold each year for GL in the 1980s:

1980 99,915
1981 91,104
1982 89,657
1983 89,795
1984 87,050
1985 80,765
1986 96,488
1987 85,739

While these are average figures, the book seemed pretty steady in this era, though 70-80k was definitely low (Batman, Teen Titans and Batman were all in the 100k-200k range in the mid-80s). Here is the 1987 filing:

SOO-1988-04-cc.jpg

The most recent issue - a tie-in to Millennium, only sold 80k (second highlighted figure). Sales going down during a big crossover isn't a good sign. And going by interviews given in the past, the Millennium series itself sold really poorly. I remember buying them in bargain bins for 25 cents each 5-6 years later.

I'm sure DC wanted Englehart to continue on GL, but they began imposing conditions - going back to basics a bit, and dropping the new-agey / team stuff. Which led to ACW.

Steve Englehart wrote on his website that GLC was cancelled because DC wanted to use GL to prop up Action Comics Weekly...which would be a strange decision to me if GLC was selling well in its regular format, but I guess stranger decisions have been made. Or perhaps Englehart was just saying that because of his ego. I don't know.

Englehart is my favorite Batman and JLA writer (outside Morrison, anyway), so I'm loathe to critique him. But on his site at one point he claimed that JLU is based on his work.

Now - to be fair they did adapt one of his JLA stories. But like with a lot of 70s/80s creators, there's typically a fair amount of hyperbole in their claims.

[Dr. Ellingham]

Wait....so John's initial story arc from the 1980's which low-key reflected a mini black superhero renaissance (James Rhodes as Iron Man, Storm leading the X-Men, Victor Stone in NTT, and the introduction of Monica Rambeau) was due to a case of writer's block?

Yup. You can hear a good interview with Len Wein on these topics here:

Green Lantern's Light Special: An Interview with Len Wein - 2012

He talks about how his run would've brought back Hal back to the ring starting around 17 minutes in, and experiencing writers block and being fired from the book circa 21:30.

[phantom1592]

Also, what I said about Wolfman wanting Hal out of the way during CoIE because Wolfman was afraid that the readers would simply expect Hal to save the universe (because Hal had saved multiple universes so many times before that it became part of Hal’s whole schtick) was confirmed by Wolfman himself on his old Yahoo page (same place he confirmed his Barry Allen loophole) .

I find it interesting that they ALWAYS find a way to write out Hal during the Crisises. Depowered during COIE, Off-world or dead for Infinite Crisis (I Know kyle was doing Rann-Thanagar War... Hal is drawing a blank) , Framed and on trial during Final Crisis... Actually caused Zero Hour... Whenever there is a universe ending thing going on... Hal needs to be kept off the table.

[docmidnite]

I have no source for this other than my fleeting memory, but I thought Hal's whole arc of quitting was because they knew Crisis was coming and the writer wanted to use Crisis as the backdrop for him fighting to get his ring back. (which he did in the Crisis crossover issues of GL) But it sidelined him for the main series.

Wolfman’s plan was always for Hal to get the ring back, he just needed him out of the way for CoIE.

[phantom1592]

Wolfman’s plan was always for Hal to get the ring back, he just needed him out of the way for CoIE.

yep

I'm always quick to point out whenever the 'Green Lantern is a title not a person/pro John' bring up that run.... that it wasn't about 'replacing' Hal. Hal 'quit' from 181-198... however he was NOT in FOUR of those issues... He was even on the cover to all but SIX of them.

Hal didn't have a ring... but he never left. The 'story' was as much about What Hal does when he doesn't have his powers and how he deals with his relationship and Carol... as it is about John becoming the new Lantern. He's not wearing a ring... but it's still his story.

It's like when Steve Rogers gave up being Captain America to UsAgent…. and the book was immediately split in half with new-Cap getting the first half, and 'The Captain' getting the back half...

[HAN9000]

I wish I still did, but with like everything else that was on those old Yahoo geo cites back then, it's lost to ages now. lol

Could you cite some more keywords about that page? Domain name or address or anything? (Is it groups.yahoo.com or...?) Maybe I can use wayback machine to find it.

[liwanag]

I find it interesting that they ALWAYS find a way to write out Hal during the Crisises. Depowered during COIE, Off-world or dead for Infinite Crisis (I Know kyle was doing Rann-Thanagar War... Hal is drawing a blank) , Framed and on trial during Final Crisis... Actually caused Zero Hour... Whenever there is a universe ending thing going on... Hal needs to be kept off the table.

that can really be frustrating for a hal jordan fan.

makes me want for hal to jump ship and leave dc.... actually, not really. i'd still prefer dc over other companies...

good thing geoff happened and did gl rebirth, sinestro corps war, and blackest night.

[Johnny]

that can really be frustrating for a hal jordan fan.

makes me want for hal to jump ship and leave dc.... actually, not really. i'd still prefer dc over other companies...

good thing geoff happened and did gl rebirth, sinestro corps war, and blackest night.

Did that really make that much of a difference in the long run. It literally took one crappy movie for WB to ruin all the momentum the franchise had. Granted, Johns' ideas were getting somewhat stale anyway, but still.

[j9ac9k]

Hal not being in even one panel of the original "Crisis" sticks in my craw, but Dc has done pretty well by Hal considering how anyone who's not the Trinity gets treated. Hal was the center of three event series - "Zero Hour", "Final Night" and "Judgement Day" as part of his fall/redemption arc. And he was front and center for years during Johns's run. After the movie he's never had that kind of exposure, but they've always kept him around, sometimes even in JLA stories when he's not even on the team. I know that as fans we always want more, but he's got a solo title when two are on teams and three are in limbo, so I'm less frustrated these days.

[docmidnite]

Could you cite some more keywords about that page? Domain name or address or anything? (Is it groups.yahoo.com or...?) Maybe I can use wayback machine to find it.

I know it’s not yahoo.com because that still exists for news. Did you ever play Freedom Force? I used to get all of my unlicensed DC and Marvel skins from a lot of those old geo cities sites as well. Other than that, that’s all I got. Sorry I couldn’t be of more assistance. If I knew so much about the internet was going to change I just would have saved the quote

[liwanag]

[liwanag]

[HAN9000]

I know it’s not yahoo.com because that still exists for news. Did you ever play Freedom Force? I used to get all of my unlicensed DC and Marvel skins from a lot of those old geo cities sites as well. Other than that, that’s all I got. Sorry I couldn’t be of more assistance. If I knew so much about the internet was going to change I just would have saved the quote

That's all right. Thank you for letting me know about that.

Anyway after searching I found something else... George Perez said at least two times that he always regreted that he didn't put Hal in COIE and wished it could have been different.
One time is: https://13thdimension.com/george-per...-fanboy-dream/

They did leave somebody out — Hal Jordan wasn’t in that book, I always regretted that. Because John Stewart was the predominant Green Lantern at the time. But I said, “No, I will gladly do it,” and they said, “Do you really want to?” I said, “Yes!”

Another time is in a book:
https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=...page&q&f=false