Green Lanterns or Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps?

[randomengine]

If one were to sort a linear progression of titles considered to be the main canon for Green Lantern, which is considered the main trunk during the period when Green Lanterns and Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps were both in print?

Arguments for Green Lanterns:

• Was bi-weekly along with Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman and other main titles.
• Began publication at the same time as Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman and other main titles.
• Kept publishing longer than the other title and ended on a more personal note to Hal than the other title.

Arguments against Green Lanterns:

• Did not center around Hal Jordan

Arguments for Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps:

• Continuation of the story from the previous main Green Lantern series.
• Focuses on Hal Jordan, the main Green Lantern

Arguments against Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps:

• Did not publish bi-weekly like the rest of the main titles.
• Began publishing later than other main series.
• Ended publishing before Green Lanterns ended.

[Lirica]

Now, I dunno how true this is, but I read somewhere that Green Lanterns was pushed to be the A title, but inevitably HJatGLC became more popular of the two, since it followed Hal and had John, Guy, and Kyle in it too. Realistically imo, unless Hal is out of the picture for whatever reason, the main GL title will be where Hal is.

[j9ac9k]

I voted for HJ&GLC because it followed major developments with the Corps. Return of Kyle to Green, the partnership then falling out with the Yellow Lanterns, the destruction of Sinestro's Warworld, the reappearance of the Darkstars etc.

Otherwise, it's all debatable and I don't think there's any definitive answer. A lot will also depend on which, if any, major storylines follow from something that happened in one of the titles.

[randomengine]

Now, I dunno how true this is, but I read somewhere that Green Lanterns was pushed to be the A title, but inevitably HJatGLC became more popular of the two, since it followed Hal and had John, Guy, and Kyle in it too. Realistically imo, unless Hal is out of the picture for whatever reason, the main GL title will be where Hal is.

At the time, DC was emphasizing that Green Lanterns was the book that contained the Green Lanterns that were actually in the Justice League title. They pushed that narrative very hard. While true, it felt like a bait and switch because those Green Lanterns were indeed the new scrubs. I think this confusion was a way for DC to push Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz because any book with Hal in it would have sold well. If they ever even whispered that Green Lanterns was the secondary book, the sales on it would have fallen like a stone. That's why this decision is so difficult and frustrating. It was designed to be this ambiguous for sales purposes.

Another aspect that was promoted hard, muddying the waters further, was the fact that Baz and Cruz were considered the main defenders of the Earth sector while Hal and the others were dinking around on OA.

I want to choose Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps because it feels right, however DC themselves treated Green Lanterns as the main book.

[vartox]

Hal n Pals DID publish biweekly!

I think DC treated and promoted Green Lanterns as the main title while it was running though.

[Vampire Savior]

That's why this decision is so difficult and frustrating. It was designed to be this ambiguous for sales purposes.

Another aspect that was promoted hard, muddying the waters further, was the fact that Baz and Cruz were considered the main defenders of the Earth sector while Hal and the others were dinking around on OA.

I want to choose Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps because it feels right, however DC themselves treated Green Lanterns as the main book.

I'm not trying to hamper discussion, but I think this line of thinking about "main titles" is wrong headed, from both the publisher's and fan's perspective.

From the publisher's point of view, if they were to come out and say that "book a" is more important than "book b", then that would most likely have a negative impact on book b's sales. If you were a publisher, why would you want that? Why would you purposefully sabotage a title like that? This isn't to say publishers haven't done that. They have, and I think it is wrong headed to look at and approach the books that way.

From fans' point of view, I think they should read what appeals to them the most without considering what is and isn't a main book, because when you follow this line of thinking all the way through, it's what gets people only buying events, because they must feel all the other books are not important, quality be damned. That's played a large hand in leading the comics industry down the pooper. Certainly a lot of the blame falls on the publishers, too. Perhaps even most, because they are the ones conditioning fans to think that way.

[K. Jones]

I think the intention from the presentation was that the Simon and Jessica book was the "new lead book". Lots were done to keep them distinct, with GLs being mostly earthbound and HJGLC being spacey. The problem lay in the fact that Jordan & GLC kicked off with like ... a duel to the death with Sinestro, a showdown with Brainiac and Larfleeze, and on and on with the epic storylines, culminating in the Darkstar thing after Hal's contributions to Dark Nights: Metal.

Whereas Green Lanterns featured some tired old Atrocitus plots (the Red Lanterns were only ever interesting A: When they were new and getting explained and B: Charles Soule's Guy Gardner), MORE Volthoom after Volthoom had been killed by Hal Jordan, then his Earth-3 puppet by Sinestro in Forever Evil, and on top of that you know ... Frank Kaminsky? Like, just a generic Hal Jordan supporting character. I mean it's not a bad book. Actually once I got around to reading it it's actually really fun and quite solid.

But Hal & GLC was dropping some big league stories, featured all the classic cast of characters, and was more fun.

I still think Green Lanterns was meant to be the "main book". It actually also outlasted Hal & the GLC, which was wrapped up first, while Lanterns went on under a "transitional" or fill-in pen to tell Jurgens' finale Cyborg-Superman story (featuring Hal and the rest). It made it to #57. Hal's book only made it to #50.

Part of me thinks I'm just defending GLs placement as the "main book" because of the obvious element of the titling. Easier to go from "Green Lantern Vol. 4 to Green Lantern Vol. 5 to Green Lanterns to The Green Lantern, while typically the book labeled "Green Lantern Corps" is the secondary book. But it wouldn't be the first time "Corps" stole the show from the main book. Pete Tomasi was constantly telling the cooler story even while Johns was building his big mythos. Van Jensen's Corps was just phenomenally better with it's Chang art and John Stewart lead (and everything else) than Venditti's main book, and Venditti's core titles continued to be the kind of weak link until Rebirth hit - always okay, never the best Lantern book around, outshined by Jensen's GLC, then Soule's RL, then Bunn's Sinestro book, respectively.

[Johnny]

Green Lanterns was positioned as the main book more accessible to new readers, while Hal & Pals was for the established fanbase. Towards the end HJ&TGLC was probably the more popular title but GLs was still treated like it was the main Lantern title. It was also promoted much more heavily.

[Frontier]

Green Lanterns was kind of a back-to-basics, new reader friendly book about Green Lanterns on Earth and dealing with their persona lives.

Hal N' Pals was in premise more like a GLC book even though it had a lot of stuff you would probably expect to be in a flagship Green Lantern book.

[Lirica]

At the time, DC was emphasizing that Green Lanterns was the book that contained the Green Lanterns that were actually in the Justice League title. They pushed that narrative very hard. While true, it felt like a bait and switch because those Green Lanterns were indeed the new scrubs. I think this confusion was a way for DC to push Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz because any book with Hal in it would have sold well. If they ever even whispered that Green Lanterns was the secondary book, the sales on it would have fallen like a stone. That's why this decision is so difficult and frustrating. It was designed to be this ambiguous for sales purposes.

Another aspect that was promoted hard, muddying the waters further, was the fact that Baz and Cruz were considered the main defenders of the Earth sector while Hal and the others were dinking around on OA.

I want to choose Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps because it feels right, however DC themselves treated Green Lanterns as the main book.

Whatever I read had the right idea, I just never got any of the details. Thank you for the info.

[Adset]

I honestly didn't feel an effort to push one over the other. It's possible that I missed something, but aside from Green Lanterns launching first I never noticed anything obvious. Both books were rather independent (which was a great change of pace after the crossover-heavy New 52 era the franchise was forced to endure). Green Lanterns went way downhill after Humphries left. I realize the series wrapped up after HJ&TGLC did, but I attributed that to Vendetti wanting to leave his book @ #50 and it was a natural ending point; Green Lanterns had already had a creative change and it was easier to turn it into a catch-all GL book for that brief Jurgens run to bridge the gap until The Green Lantern launched. I don't consider Green Lanterns "outlasting" HJ&TGLC to be a win in its favor.

Two solid series, though, however you want to slice it. I'd buy the crap out of a Green Lanterns omnibus if it just included the Humphries stuff. Same with a complete run of HJ&TGLC.

[silly]

Venditti had a nice run on Hal's. And the art team was top notch too.