Green Lantern on HBO Max

[j9ac9k]

I find the top gun type of badass to be to be too self destructive for my personal liking and it needs a heavily dose of plot armor for it not to come across as too dumb to live.

That's a frequent criticism from people who don't understand the character. Hal is extremely competent, and has put in his 10,000 hours of training and experience so that he can react in any given situation, what Gladwell calls "rapid cognition" or thinking without thinking. Like any athlete who has honed his skills, when people always say, "don't overthink it" it's because someone like Hal has spent the time developing what we'd call a gut instinct in moments where action is called for and there is no time to make a plan. I feel some writers don't nec get that either, but the best stories with Hal exemplify that kind of rapid cognition thinking, which makes sense for someone wearing a weapon that responds to one's thoughts.

As for all the same old criticisms that are being levelled against Hal now, all I can say is I'm getting flashbacks to the "Kyle v Hal" flame wars when Kyle was GL and without derailing this thread any further, these are the same things Kyle fans said about Hal back then, but then "Rebirth" came along, showing Hal as Hal and the GL franchise saw the most success it's ever had. The rest is just personal preference, no matter how much you want to reverse-engineer it as some kind of fact.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

One other slight aspect of that...

In a series that would seemingly be set in deep space, you would have so many alien possibilities that would have nothing to do with how the obvious "Go To" would work. It just seems odd to go right to the "Dictionary Definition Action Hero..."(honestly, I wouldn't even be in a hurry to use John or the other human Lanterns) when you have so many other options.

That's actually part of the whole critique of Golden Age science-fiction (which inspired Hal Jordan). The fact is that the protagonists of science-fiction explorers of strange and aliens were often white male rugged macho dudes. For all that people think of Star Trek as progressive the appeal of that show was largely about Shatner's Kirk travelling the stars and shacking up with space babes and being cool, calm and collected and so on. Jordan is cut from the same cloth. I mean Chris Pine in JJ Abrams' Star Trek basically is Hal Jordan (which is what makes Chris Pine's performance as the more vulnerable and less macho Steve Trevor so interesting).

Fundamentally Hal Jordan represented "The Man". Like in the Denny O'Neil series with Green Arrow, Jordan was the conservative type. And the early stories with him and John Stewart were not flattering to Stewart (nor have the comics been) because there was a kind of white dude telling an angry man to tone it down aspect to their relationship. People go on about how Superman and Batman are authoritarian figures but Jordan is even more that.

When Geoff Johns revived him, he basically made Hal Jordan this womanizing type. And that lent Jordan to become this male fantasy leading to stuff like this (https://www.cbr.com/abandoned-love-t...superheroines/) that Gail Simone had to cut down on. And if you read his romantic history, Hal Jordan is basically ripe to be #MeToo'd charitably speaking.

He's basically a very dated character. I think people had excessive sympathy for him with that whole Parallax/Zero Hour thing and yeah he got a raw deal and deserved a proper send-off but Johns has taken him too far in the other direction to no discernible profit and gain.

[SiegePerilous02]

The problem is that Hal is just not interesting. I mean people have tried to make him so but he isn't. He's often dumb and stupid, and his womanizing looks pretty skeezy these days.

Lots of opinions being presented as facts here. You think he's uninteresting, but not everyone does.
I don't think GL:TAS would do well critically or in ratings or the Johns and Morrison runs wouldn't be doing well if he was inherently uninteresting and offering nothing to work with.

There are some who have the opinion John Stewart is boring, but I guess they are factually incorrect and Hal being boring is just factually correct?

There's the fact that he had a relationship with an underage girl Arisia (https://www.cbr.com/things-that-turn...an-and-arisia/).

yeah, we all know about the Arisha thing. Unsurprisingly, Hal Jordan fans aren't wild about it.
Meanwhile Superman used to gaslight the woman who became his wife, Wonder Woman used to sling racial slurs at the Japanese, Billy Batson owned a slave and Peter Parker hit his pregnant wife in a rage.

Let's bring all that back and hold it against all of them. But I don't think the fans would be happy.

EDIT: Meanwhile, the last few pages of Mosaic #1 written by Gerard Jones becomes very uncomfortable in light of certain revelations, and unfortunately John was the character chosen this time. I won't post the picture because it's in poor taste, but it's in the John Stewart appreciation thread if anyone is interested. I do NOT hold it against John any more than I hold the Arisha thing against Hal though. Especially as it's coded and not literal, but still very awkward and gross.

Most superheroes are essentially white male Aryan fantasies but usually in the case of Superman and Batman there's some interesting psychological and identity issues on top of that. In the case of Hal Jordan, he's a white super-pilot hotshot before he got the ring.

Do we really want to call Jewish Hal Jordan an Aryan power fantasy?
Same with Superman, invented by two Jewish creators and is as metaphorically Jewish as it gets, being Space Moses and all.

A lot of people like to say the 2011 movie is bad without bothering to understand why it is so. The movie-makers were tasked with trying to sell Hal Jordan to a mainstream audience and make him relatable to people who are not by default fans of the comics. I personally think that they did make an attempt to do so, and put fingers on the problem and the issue is that Hal Jordan is a dated character. If they had chosen another GL, it would have been a different movie and provided him other options on how to introduce the story and mythos. If you had say Kyle Rayner (which would have been a better fit for Reynolds all things considered) they would have had less issues about making the character vulnerable and relatable. If they went with John Stewart, then they would have found something deeper and more interesting thematically.

Except has had been pointed out to you numerous times, Hal Jordan fans do not like this movie. It wasn't just rejected by the mainstream or the fans of other Gls, it was rejected by the very people who liked Hal already. Maybe the more obvious answer is...it's just a shitty movie? In terms of casting, characterization, plotting and especially special effects. And yet the GL cartoon was able to use the same character as the lead and was received more warmly. And it's not like it's old, it was fairly recent. Meanwhile, Superman, Batman, Spider-Man and the X-Men have had films that were unable to make them appealing to mainstream audiences.

If you had the same apathetic director making a superhero film with Kyle or John, it still would have sucked. It just would have found different ways to suck. We'd just have John standing around in awkward cartoon effects in an eyesore of a costume.

Has it occurred to you that Pitt's character being "shady and extreme" is in fact the whole point of the "down to Earth, reserved, confident masculine badass". A lot of people find that dated and dubious to begin with, and pretty unbelievable.

Um no, because one set of qualities is not inherently tied to the other. Which is why I made the distinction of Pitt's character being more extreme. Hal is never implied to have killed his wife nor capable of the violence and brutality we see in the (awesome) climax, nor is just every character who has the same laid back demeanor capable of it.

Exactly. And go back to history, if they went with the "golden oldie" in the '50s we would just have Alan Scott as the GL rather than Jordan. So it's kind of hypocritical to insist that Hal Jordan be the center of mythos and ignore later contemporary trends because A) Jordan wasn't there first, B) Jordan was a contemporary creation of the '50s (A Right Stuff era pilot becoming a GL).

Hal was the first with the GL mythos and it was built up around him.
Alan has nothing to do with any of that, and wasn't even in the same continuity as Hal until the mid 80s.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Lots of opinions being presented as facts here. You think he's uninteresting, but not everyone does.

Historically, a lot of people said Hal Jordan was uninteresting. Editors themselves said it. It was the justification for Emerald Twilight printed in the Letters' column pages moreso.

Do we really want to call Jewish Hal Jordan an Aryan power fantasy?

A product of a 2015 retcon and obviously a lazy attempt to address this problem.

This website run by actual Jewish people cite this as part of a clumsy attempt to use Jewishness as a device (http://www.jewornotjew.com/profile.jsp?ID=2453) to keep characters white but also-technically not-white at the same time. And as it points out it's unsure if it's actually canon, because DC has multiple versions of characters, and the Hal Jordan of the Silver Age isn't the character today.

Same with Superman, invented by two Jewish creators and is as metaphorically Jewish as it gets, being Space Moses and all.

Firstly Superman the character isn't Jewish. Siegel and Shuster didn't create him to be. Yes a lot of Golden Age and Silver Age comics creators were Jewish but they all represented a Pre-World War II American attitude to their Jewish identity, i.e. as many scholars pointed out, their stories were about assimilation rather than multi-culturalism. And as such Kal-El attempting to pass himself off as WASP in the old days was seen as an allegory for Jewish dudes trying to pass and fit in (see the movie Gentleman's Agreement). Superman is different from say Ben Grimm/The Thing. That was a character Jack Kirby intended to always be Jewish by ethnicity and religion and even then it was only in the 2000s that Marvel officially had Grimm portrayed as explicitly Jewish.

The first real Jewish superhero in American comics, i.e. a character intended as Jewish and explicitly portrayed as such is Katherine "Kate" Pryde, Shadowcat of the X-Men...but you know nobody wants women to be the first of their kind. Kate Pryde was created by Chris Claremont who had a very Post-WWII attitude to identity and didn't buy into assimilation and so on.

Secondly, the fact is Superman hasn't always been the character that Siegel/Shuster portrayed. In Continuity terms, Silver Age Superman was different from Golden Age, and different in turn from Post-Crisis, and then the New 52. Superman in later continuities was absolutely shown as a WASP borderline authoritarian dude. I am not saying that's right but it's not invalid for people to see him that way because he was in fact shown that way for a good period of the Silver Age.

Hal was the first with the GL mythos and it was built up around him.

To the extent that Green Lantern has a "mythos" it's not really centered on Hal. It's a fact that Geoff Johns' run was inspired by three comics that Alan Moore did in the '60s -- Tygers, Mogo Doesn't Socialize, In Blackest Night.

Not only do these stories not feature Hal Jordan, they don't even mention him.

[Hybrid]

Wow, I had no idea the can of worms I'd be opening up when I made this topic. I just wanted to see if other people were excited for Green Lantern on HBO Max like me.

[kidfresh512]

John had a couple of episodes of Justice League where he was the central character. Like when when he was taken to oa when accused of destroying a planet, the brave and the bold episode where he and Wally took on gorilla grodd, the Despero episode, his ship with Hawkgirl and the convoluted history they share. That show did a lot for him.

I would love it if Kyle would get his main character status back. He's actually my favorite lantern.

Same. Kyle is the GL I loved the most growing up. I agree with those saying this show should be about the ensemble to really work and do the corps justice. Big budget will only help. They cant have a titans budget and effects and make this type show work.

There is no reason this show can't work. If they are true to the characters that have worked and grew for generations.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Wow, I had no idea the can of worms I'd be opening up when I made this topic. I just wanted to see if other people were excited for Green Lantern on HBO Max like me.

Well the question is what Green Lantern are people gonna get. The post is in a general media place. If you want a forum with a more Pro-Hal Jordan atmosphere, I suggest the DC Comics General Forum.

If you are gonna ask in Media it's apt and logical for people to bring up previous Media versions of GL and express judgment based on that.

[Hybrid]

Also, I should repeat that my ideal GL show is Hal and John being the two leads, not John as "Hal's black sidekick" or whatever.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Also, I should repeat that my ideal GL show is Hal and John being the two leads, not John as "Hal's black sidekick" or whatever.

I take your point.

[SiegePerilous02]

Historically, a lot of people said Hal Jordan was uninteresting. Editors themselves said it. It was the justification for Emerald Twilight printed in the Letters' column pages moreso.

Lol of course the editorial at the time is going to print the letter columns to support their editorially enforced story idea. How much do you want to bet there were some disenting opinions that were excluded? They may have been the minority, but odds are they were there. Hell, I think the writer of Final Night wasn't on board with any of what they did to Hal and killed him off there out of mercy.

They are no longer in power though. Obviously some writers, editors and fans disagree. It's fine if you disagree with them, but that's your opinion, not objective fact.

A product of a 2015 retcon and obviously a lazy attempt to address this problem.

It seems to have been around at least as early as the Bronze age. Certainly before 2015.

Hal Jordan.jpg

That's why he's the one saying "Happy Hannukah." Of course, the larger problem of writers not doing much with it and the article you linked to are a thing, but let's not dismiss it as a lazy 2015 retcon when it isn't. And he very much is the Hal Jordan of the Silver Age there. No reboots yet.

To the extent that Green Lantern has a "mythos" it's not really centered on Hal. It's a fact that Geoff Johns' run was inspired by three comics that Alan Moore did in the '60s -- Tygers, Mogo Doesn't Socialize, In Blackest Night.

Not only do these stories not feature Hal Jordan, they don't even mention him.

Wrong again. Moore did those in the 80s.

And Qull of the Five Inversions mentioned Hal to Abin Sur and told him he'd be his successor, and he was shown in a panel. And of course, Moore was building off the mythos established in the same stories that introduced Hal. That's why Abin Sur is in one of them and it ends with Hal's origin story. Without the Broome Hal Jordan comics, we wouldn't have Moore's stories.

Wow, I had no idea the can of worms I'd be opening up when I made this topic. I just wanted to see if other people were excited for Green Lantern on HBO Max like me.

Lol sorry for my part in it, but when your guy gets criticized you feel compelled to stick up for him.

It's obviously a loaded topic. The GL fandom wars always seem particularly toxic.

[kidfresh512]

Also, I should repeat that my ideal GL show is Hal and John being the two leads, not John as "Hal's black sidekick" or whatever.

I think to be true to the series they shouldn't be limiting by having the Earth Gls be the only leads.

If you have the budget for it bring in some of the alien Gls. Rotate them in and out even give us a feel for how large the Corps is and how large the Universe and threats they face are.

[numberthirty]

I think to be true to the series they shouldn't be limiting by having the Earth Gls be the only leads.

If you have the budget for it bring in some of the alien Gls. Rotate them in and out even give us a feel for how large the Corps is and how large the Universe and threats they face are.

Heck, Earth Lanterns that we can already name.

No one has made a rule that the characters in the show have to be human Lanterns from Earth that we are already familiar with.

If we are talking "Two Arms"/"Two Legs"/"Essentially Human", I'd just as soon see some version of Sodam Yat as any of the Earth Lanterns we have brought up.

[j9ac9k]

I am a John Stewart fan, but this is why I keep getting turned off by his thread - the pervasive negativity and sour grapes.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Lol of course the editorial at the time is going to print the letter columns to support their editorially enforced story idea.

Fact is, killing off a superhero from the Silver Age is a big thing. And it's not something to be done lightly. Hal Jordan being made into a villain and then killed wouldn't have happened if Hal Jordan wasn't generally unpopular and disliked.

It seems to have been around at least as early as the Bronze age. Certainly before 2015.

At that time "Happy Hannukah" had fallen into general usage especially in metropolitan areas and having heroes voice such sentiments was common in comics. Just like today people also say Happy Kwanzaa without necessarily practicing that faith, or when people say Happy Diwali around October without being Hindus.

Nobody considered Hal Jewish before 2015 and even after that, it's not something that's commented on much. Ben Grimm he ain't.

Wrong again. Moore did those in the 80s.

Got me there.

And Qull of the Five Inversions mentioned Hal to Abin Sur and told him he'd be his successor, and he was shown in a panel.

Okay Hal is depicted but he's not mentioned by name.

And of course, Moore was building off the mythos established in the same stories that introduced Hal.

By focusing on a backstory character and providing an explanation for why Abin Sur who can travel in space with a Lantern ring used a space-ship, whose crash ended up killing him.

You are also ignoring the original contributions that Moore made such as Mogo Doesn't Socialize! which expands on the lore with Tomar Re as an archivist talking about the lore of the GL and the different weirder types of Lanterns, like a sentient math equation and of course Mogo the character itself.

The GL fandom wars always seem particularly toxic.

Voicing criticism or irritation at Hal Jordan getting countless second chances over unde-representation of John Stewart is not toxic at all.

[SiegePerilous02]

Fact is, killing off a superhero from the Silver Age is a big thing. And it's not something to be done lightly. Hal Jordan being made into a villain and then killed wouldn't have happened if Hal Jordan wasn't generally unpopular and disliked.

And he wouldn't have been brought back and at the forefront of the highest selling run the franchise had if he was generally unpopular and disliked. Yeah, there are plenty who dislike him but just because they are loud doesn't mean they are as numerous as you think.

At that time "Happy Hannukah" had fallen into general usage especially in metropolitan areas and having heroes voice such sentiments was common in comics. Just like today people also say Happy Kwanzaa without necessarily practicing that faith, or when people say Happy Diwali around October without being Hindus.

Nobody considered Hal Jewish before 2015 and even after that, it's not something that's commented on much. Ben Grimm he ain't.

Yeah no disputing he's nowhere near Ben Grimm level, and it's still not commented on all that much. But I definitely saw it mentioned before 2015.

And did you know this panel existed before now, and do you know for certain it's being used in the context you described above?

Okay Hal is depicted but he's not mentioned by name.

That's quibbling. It doesn't matter because he's shown and it's a given about who is being discussed.

By focusing on a backstory character and providing an explanation for why Abin Sur who can travel in space with a Lantern ring used a space-ship, whose crash ended up killing him.

You are also ignoring the original contributions that Moore made such as Mogo Doesn't Socialize! which expands on the lore with Tomar Re as an archivist talking about the lore of the GL and the different weirder types of Lanterns, like a sentient math equation and of course Mogo the character itself.

I'm not ignoring them, but Moore building off of the lore established in the original Hal Jordan comics and his comics in turn being used as inspiration for new Hal-lead stories by Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison isn't a convincing argument in the slightest that Hal is unnecessary for the franchise. It's no different than Superman or Batman stories going off into stories where they play minimal (if any) role and other characters get focused or are fleshed out. World building basically.

Voicing criticism or irritation at Hal Jordan getting countless second chances over unde-representation of John Stewart is not toxic at all.

When it's the same tired arguments and essentially character bashing* it can get very irritating very quickly. You dislike Hal so it's not toxic to you, but obviously there are other perspectives. And it's not limited to voicing criticism to Hal. Going back to the 90s, it includes criticism towards Kyle and Kyle fans in turn bashing Hal.

*"Hal is stupid," "Hal is inherently uninteresting," "Hal is expendable and replaceable, " "Hal is unpopular and everyone hates him and always did" IS character bashing.

I am a John Stewart fan, but this is why I keep getting turned off by his thread - the pervasive negativity and sour grapes.

Yep. Though I try not to hold it against the character himself.

At least on this site, it seems there is more bashing on Hal from John fans than the reverse.