Too Many Earth Lanterns...

[Johnny]

lol this is sarcasm, right?

Not at all man, there's not many legacy characters that have been treated as being more replaceable than Hal Jordan. A franchise hostage holder would not be treated the way Hal has been on many different occasions. If they thought so little of him to turn him into a bad guy in order to prop someone else, then they tell us themselves that the alleged grip he has on the franchise is not nearly as firm as some would tend to believe. Whoever the proverbial main GL is depends only on who's in charge and we have many examples of people in charge not caring about the Hal Jordan character whatsoever. Whoever comes in after Didio, especially if it's someone younger who was introduced to DC in the 90s or early 2000s would likely not care about the character either.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I dunno, is Morrison changing things up enough to where it would have a major impact on a GLC title?

It's not so much about Morrison making major status quo changes, but rather Morrison & Sharp having the space to re-establish what the look and feel of the GL mythos is now before spinning off new titles from that. After the serviceable, but creatively empty, blandness of the post-Geoff Johns era (sorry Venditti), the entire GL franchise needed to contract again in order to receive the jolt to the system that The Green Lantern brought in.

Now that the table has been set and new readers are being brought on board, there's room for the franchise to start expanding again, but it will require another creator able to keep up with Morrison, otherwise they'll end up diluting the brand again like they did in the idiotic expansion during New 52

[Frontier]

It's not so much about Morrison making major status quo changes, but rather Morrison & Sharp having the space to re-establish what the look and feel of the GL mythos is now before spinning off new titles from that. After the serviceable, but creatively empty, blandness of the post-Geoff Johns era (sorry Venditti), the entire GL franchise needed to contract again in order to receive the jolt to the system that The Green Lantern brought in.

Now that the table has been set and new readers are being brought on board, there's room for the franchise to start expanding again, but it will require another creator able to keep up with Morrison, otherwise they'll end up diluting the brand again like they did in the idiotic expansion during New 52

The one thing I think you can say about the old Venditti era is that the satellite GL titles were more interesting or positively received then the actual Green Lantern book.

As far as writers to keep up with Morrison...well, the only one I can think of who did so successfully was Tomasi but I don't see him writing Green Lanterns anymore.

I think there was an issue of brand dilution to some degree but I don't think the expansion during the New 52 was inherently bad when you have what was at the time a very strong franchise with good momentum and some good books came out of it. There just wasn't enough juice after Johns left to keep it going indefinitely.

[Vampire Savior]

I'm clearly not a fortune teller, but my intuition tells me that nothing is going to spin off from Morrison's The Green Lantern. What I mean by that is that I don't think Morrison will establish a direction and tone for Green Lantern as a franchise the way that Geoff Johns and Gerard Jones did. I believe Morrison's story will just be his story and the aesthetic and tone of it will be contained within that one book. If another Green Lantern book is released (well, we already know about Far Sector), I don't think it will resemble and may not even acknowledge whatever Morrison is doing.

EDIT:
My opinion about the post-Johns era is that it was quite a bit better than the latter part of what Geoff Johns was doing. War of the Green Lanterns, Rise of the Third Army, and Wrath of the First Lantern are all garbage stories, in my opinion. That said, there were some really dumb ideas in the post-Johns era, like The Emotional Reservoir. That era was also damaged by the debacle with Green Lantern: Lost Army not being able to finish or even be explained, and Edge of Oblivion was just plain bad.

GLC, New Guardians, and Red Lanterns weren't bad books, but GL was pretty terrible, and it hurt the other titles creatively when they had to play ball with whatever GL was doing, which was nearly all the time.

[dswynne]

Well, I have an interesting proposition. Why don't they just let go of Simon and Jessica, since their stories have been told, and just focus on "Jo", Teen Lantern, and maybe the Vietnamese boy. At the rate things are going now, Simon and Jessica are old hat, so if totally fresh characters is what we're looking for, they should be thrown in the trash, too.

I'm glad we are in agreement. Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner and John Stewart should definitely be gone/retired, with Kyle Rayner as the elder statesman guiding Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz as present-day GLs, with other future GLs coming on board for consideration (maybe, in the form of a academy setting?).

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I'm glad we are in agreement. Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner and John Stewart should definitely be gone/retired, with Kyle Rayner as the elder statesman guiding Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz as present-day GLs, with other future GLs coming on board for consideration (maybe, in the form of a academy setting?).

I honestly don't understand wishing that characters that don't work for you need to disappear when they clearly have plenty of fans out there. Why would DC do that? They tried to do that with Hal Jordan for a decade, yet kept realising that sales spiked anytime he appeared in a story as GL. I really dig the vast majority of the Earth GLs. The only one that doesn't work for me is Baz, but that doesn't mean I want him killed off when he's a perfectly good character that someone could do cool things with.

If a creator has a cool story to tell with a character they like, and DC thinks there's enough readers out there to support it, they should publish that comic. Unfortunately, there's a huge gulf between what DC thinks there's a market for, and what some readers do.

The only certainty is that crappy stories will sell crappy no matter which GL stars in them. Sales spike whenever Hal shows up, but only to a certain point. If the stories ain't good, readers will leave.

Any of the GLs could headline a best selling book with the right creators behind it.

Had Dwayne McDuffie and Cully Hamner done a Green Lantern books with John Stewart, it would have sold like gangbusters.

If Patton Oswalt wanted to do a Guy Gardner book with Patrick Gleason, it would do great.

Same goes for everyone else. Good creators creating good comics with good characters are what matter.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

The one thing I think you can say about the old Venditti era is that the satellite GL titles were more interesting or positively received then the actual Green Lantern book.

As far as writers to keep up with Morrison...well, the only one I can think of who did so successfully was Tomasi but I don't see him writing Green Lanterns anymore.

I think there was an issue of brand dilution to some degree but I don't think the expansion during the New 52 was inherently bad when you have what was at the time a very strong franchise with good momentum and some good books came out of it. There just wasn't enough juice after Johns left to keep it going indefinitely.

No franchise has enough juice to go on indefinitely without good creators on the books. Superman is one of the greatest fictional characters of all time, but his comics are largely average unless you've got a creator like Bendis steering the ship.

Batman is just misery porn without good stories done by great creators.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I'm clearly not a fortune teller, but my intuition tells me that nothing is going to spin off from Morrison's The Green Lantern. What I mean by that is that I don't think Morrison will establish a direction and tone for Green Lantern as a franchise the way that Geoff Johns and Gerard Jones did. I believe Morrison's story will just be his story and the aesthetic and tone of it will be contained within that one book. If another Green Lantern book is released (well, we already know about Far Sector), I don't think it will resemble and may not even acknowledge whatever Morrison is doing.

EDIT:
My opinion about the post-Johns era is that it was quite a bit better than the latter part of what Geoff Johns was doing. War of the Green Lanterns, Rise of the Third Army, and Wrath of the First Lantern are all garbage stories, in my opinion. That said, there were some really dumb ideas in the post-Johns era, like The Emotional Reservoir. That era was also damaged by the debacle with Green Lantern: Lost Army not being able to finish or even be explained, and Edge of Oblivion was just plain bad.

GLC, New Guardians, and Red Lanterns weren't bad books, but GL was pretty terrible, and it hurt the other titles creatively when they had to play ball with whatever GL was doing, which was nearly all the time.

I think Johns peaked with Blackest Night, and the rest felt like him just wrapping things up. The fiasco surrounding the 2011 film soured Johns on the whole thing for a bit, too, I think. He created so much Lantern stuff in such a short period of time, he just burnt himself out.

The GL franchise is in better shape creatively now than it has been at any point since Johns's peak, that's for sure. Various Lantern characters are sprinkled throughout the DCU in interesting places. I don't know where Guy, Kyle, & Simon are going to end up though. A Lantern Corps book would be great just so we can get a regular drip of crazy new alien GLs though

[EsotericFailures]

Morrison didn't intend for Damian Wayne and Spyral to be material for other writers either. Morrison's work could be the basis of a Green Lantern line if DC puts the effort into it. But we should wait for him to get the first 12 issues done first.

[lemonpeace]

DC gave Jessica and Simon their own bi-monthly title and had them both in the League at the same time, but they only care about Hal. lol When you look at his entire history, he must be the worst "franchise hostage holder" I've ever seen.

I gotta disagree there, considering Simon and Jessica's title ended with Hal in the spotlight. I wouldn't go so far as to say he's "franchise hostage holder" per say BUT they is a clear difference in how they handle Hal's character as opposed to other Lanterns. DC's creator (as of late) have been pretty insistent on having Hal have the Batman effect, as in whenever he's around things for other GL characters tend to grind to a halt and orbit around him. Case and point, the constant need to tell us he's The Greatest Green Lantern of All Time™, which is a nonsensical concept in a franchise that's supposed to be an ensemble and has been one for longer than it's been a solo.

[Dred]

Jessica and Simon, part of the JL but literally kicked out for Hal any time an event would happen. What a lark that was.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I gotta disagree there, considering Simon and Jessica's title ended with Hal in the spotlight. I wouldn't go so far as to say he's "franchise hostage holder" per say BUT they is a clear difference in how they handle Hal's character as opposed to other Lanterns. DC's creator (as of late) have been pretty insistent on having Hal have the Batman effect, as in whenever he's around things for other GL characters tend to grind to a halt and orbit around him. Case and point, the constant need to tell us he's The Greatest Green Lantern of All Time™, which is a nonsensical concept in a franchise that's supposed to be an ensemble and has been one for longer than it's been a solo.

That was a Venditti thing and it was a terrible idea. I honestly can only remember a couple other times in the '80s where Hal was referred to as "The Greatest Green Lantern".

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Jessica and Simon, part of the JL but literally kicked out for Hal any time an event would happen. What a lark that was.

You mean once? One time.

People, come on.

[Dred]

You come on. It shouldn't have happened at all. They literally offscreened current members of the JL so they could bring Hal back because he's the important one. It's stupid **** like that that makes newer characters fumble and fail whenever they get a push. The biggest comic you put out that you are advertising and selling to the most people and, woops, suddenly these new minority characters are no shows and Hal Jordan is back! Go figure.

Hell, Hal Jordan got his new HAL JORDAN ONLY comic as a backup preview to HIC. These are conscious decisions.

[Johnny]

Jessica and Simon, part of the JL but literally kicked out for Hal any time an event would happen. What a lark that was.

You mean in Metal? Because Hal did not replace anyone when he previously showed up in The Darkseid War. Could it be that Scott Snyder just wanted to use Hal in Metal so that's what he did. His JL run is basically a continuation of that event where Hal was one of the main players and yet he's nowhere to be found in Snyder's current book, because he wanted to use John this time around. The only other "event" he showed up most recently in was Flash War but he wasn't exactly an important player there and it was likely because of his friendship with Barry.