Hal Jordan: Green Lantern Appreciation 2020

[Mutatis_Mutandis]

I've read Emerald Dawn and Emerald Twilight, with some issues in between. That run seems like an utter waste of time to me. Naturally, it goes back to my own personal dislike for that era but can you blame me. Look at this damn thing, could they make their protagonist look anymore unappealing if they tried. No wonder that book wasn't selling.

I agree (that second cover is especially appalling) but The Road Back's still a pretty cool story and Hal still doesn't look as *bad* in that one as he does in the later issues of that run. He's still sporting a scruffier version of his jacket and jeans look (and the white temples are less prominent in Pat Broderick's art) whereas later in the run, even his casual attire becomes more dad-like. :\

[Johnny]

Will check out The Road Back, but in all fairness, I often believed DC probably planned to get rid of Hal as early as after CoIE was over. But they likely thought of the backlash that would follow, especially after they had already killed off Barry at the time, so perhaps they decided to go about it the more sneaky way. Make the character unappealing to a younger audience, age him up, give him lackluster stories and by the time of ET, people would practically beg of them to get rid of him. Hell, I was about 5 or 6 at the time so I wasn't old enough to be a DC fan, but if I was, that certainly doesn't seem like the kind of character that would appeal to me. Unfortunately they underestimated the fan backlash. I'd like to say things worked out for the better in the end, but to see how little they thought of the Hal Jordan character at the time gives you no guarantee they won't do anything like that again.

[phantom1592]

Will check out The Road Back, but in all fairness, I often believed DC probably planned to get rid of Hal as early as after CoIE was over. But they likely thought of the backlash that would follow, especially after they had already killed off Barry at the time, so perhaps they decided to go about it the more sneaky way. Make the character unappealing to a younger audience, age him up, give him lackluster stories and by the time of ET, people would practically beg of them to get rid of him. Hell, I was about 5 or 6 at the time so I wasn't old enough to be a DC fan, but if I was, that certainly doesn't seem like the kind of character that would appeal to me. Unfortunately they underestimated the fan backlash. I'd like to say things worked out for the better in the end, but to see how little they thought of the Hal Jordan character at the time gives you no guarantee they won't do anything like that again.

Nahhh... Can't agree with that. COIE was the triumphant RETURN of Hal Jordan. It would be kind of stupid to go to THIS trouble...



If the whole plan was to kill him off. Add in that Green Lantern rode though the crisis unchanged and grew into the GL Corps.. .and didn't get the grey hair 'modern age' update till 1990 (4-5 years AFTER Crisis, I have no reason to think he was ever on the chopping block.

[Johnny]

Well if there really wasn't some elaborate plan to get rid of him, that makes it even worse, because that means they turned him old and made him a villain for literally no reason than shock value. I take no solace in the fact that they thought so little of one of the characters who helped build their universe.

[phantom1592]

Ouch... MD Bright has always been one of my favorite Hal artist. At least until Rebirth and Van Sciver got a hold of him. That second one sucks on an atomic level.... but Bright was awesome. He's about the only one who drew the grey temples decently for me.

Well if there really wasn't some elaborate plan to get rid of him, that makes it even worse, because that means they turned him old and made him a villain for literally no reason than shock value. I take no solace in the fact that they thought so little of one of the characters who helped build their universe.

I think the key here is 'elaborate plan'. CoIE ended in 1986... Hal went Grey in 1990 and then went evil 1994. SOMEWHERE in there, they made a plan to get rid of him... but I don't think it was no 8 year grand scheme to destroy their characters. I think they made BIG bucks in 1993 by killing superman... and then Batman... and then looked around the office and said "Who else do we have?!?"

Honestly I will never understand the reasoning behind Parallax. It wasn't even a case of 'get rid of old guy and bring in new guy.... They canned FOUR books to give Kyle his push. I don't know what the sales were like... but I find it REALLY hard to believe that Kyle's start was better than ALL FOUR books he replaced.

The grey hair I never liked... but it didn't bother me either. With the Grey hair and age came wisdom and experience. They REALLY pushed and promoted that Hal was the best GL that had ever lived and every other Lantern should kiss his ring. Which I personally loved. Guy and John were pushed off and got their own books and all the teams wanted Hal to be THEIR Green Lantern. Since Rebirth he was deaged and kind of flip flops between 'Just another cop' and 'doing the impossible'... but he lost a LOT of status after Rebirth and has been working to regain it.

That just doesn't feel like the empty push you give someone you hate. If I were to GUESS... I'd say that they gave up on him somewhere around # 35-40... That's when I remember the book losing it's steam and getting sucked into crossovers with other books I didn't care about. Legion and Darkstars were big ones... But whatever plan they had didn't start at CoIE... there was a big gap there when GL just kept going and growing... then moving to Action Comics... before the final restart in vol 3.

[HAN9000]

I think the key here is 'elaborate plan'. CoIE ended in 1986... Hal went Grey in 1990 and then went evil 1994. SOMEWHERE in there, they made a plan to get rid of him... but I don't think it was no 8 year grand scheme to destroy their characters. I think they made BIG bucks in 1993 by killing superman... and then Batman... and then looked around the office and said "Who else do we have?!?"

Honestly I will never understand the reasoning behind Parallax. It wasn't even a case of 'get rid of old guy and bring in new guy.... They canned FOUR books to give Kyle his push. I don't know what the sales were like... but I find it REALLY hard to believe that Kyle's start was better than ALL FOUR books he replaced.

The grey hair I never liked... but it didn't bother me either. With the Grey hair and age came wisdom and experience. They REALLY pushed and promoted that Hal was the best GL that had ever lived and every other Lantern should kiss his ring. Which I personally loved. Guy and John were pushed off and got their own books and all the teams wanted Hal to be THEIR Green Lantern. Since Rebirth he was deaged and kind of flip flops between 'Just another cop' and 'doing the impossible'... but he lost a LOT of status after Rebirth and has been working to regain it.

That just doesn't feel like the empty push you give someone you hate. If I were to GUESS... I'd say that they gave up on him somewhere around # 35-40... That's when I remember the book losing it's steam and getting sucked into crossovers with other books I didn't care about. Legion and Darkstars were big ones... But whatever plan they had didn't start at CoIE... there was a big gap there when GL just kept going and growing... then moving to Action Comics... before the final restart in vol 3.

Yeah, at that time DC tended totorture their characters to boost sales. Mark Waid once said after Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, he felt that guys in DC were planning to do something to Wally, so he created Bart as the big news to save Wally.

About how the run went off, here's an interview that might explain a lot.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190815...39/iview.shtml
After Andy Helfer left the book, his assistant Kevin Dooley became the editor in charge of the book. He and Jones were at odds with each other. Jones were unwillingly to execute Kevin Dooley's plan and Dooley rewrote a great amount of scripts. The quality of the book suffered as a result. And Hal became the victim of the editor and writer's conflict.

[liwanag]

man, i forgot it was valentine's day.

[liwanag]

[Vampire Savior]

The Gerard Jones era started off good, in my opinion. It really fell to pieces as it progressed, though. I more or less liked Pat Broderick and M.D. Bright on art. Broderick seemed to be going for a Paul Gulacy type of look at times, which was cool. Although Broderick did turn in some questionable work here and there. M.D. Bright was overall more steady, but also a bit more boring, in a way. And Joe Staton was still doing work on Green Lantern, and it was always fun seeing him. Jones has been pretty open about the run falling to pieces over editorial conflicts, so I'm pretty sure there wasn't a plan to intentionally ruin Hal Jordan. Just conflicting views and too many cooks in the kitchen.

[docmidnite]

Will check out The Road Back, but in all fairness, I often believed DC probably planned to get rid of Hal as early as after CoIE was over. But they likely thought of the backlash that would follow, especially after they had already killed off Barry at the time, so perhaps they decided to go about it the more sneaky way. Make the character unappealing to a younger audience, age him up, give him lackluster stories and by the time of ET, people would practically beg of them to get rid of him. Hell, I was about 5 or 6 at the time so I wasn't old enough to be a DC fan, but if I was, that certainly doesn't seem like the kind of character that would appeal to me. Unfortunately they underestimated the fan backlash. I'd like to say things worked out for the better in the end, but to see how little they thought of the Hal Jordan character at the time gives you no guarantee they won't do anything like that again.

Nah. Wolfman's plan all along was to leave Hal out of CoIE (because Hal had too much experience saving not only the positive matter universe but also the Anti-matter universe where the Anti-Monitor was from, and why they had a rookie John Stewart who had no experience saving planets let alone the universe take Hal's spot during CoIE) and bring Hal back afterwards. Unfortunately Wolfman had to leave the book so he entrusted the GL Editorial staff to carry out that plan (which they did)

Also, DC decided to give Hal and Katar Hol new origins at the same time about 5 years after CoIE. So Emerald Dawn I and Hawkworld came about but went in 2 completely opposite directions. Both were EXTREMELY successful but while Ostrander wanted to leave Hawkworld in the past like originally planned, DC decided to pick up where Hawkworld had left off in the present with Hawkworld the ongoing series featuring a much younger Katar and Shayera despite the fact Katar and Shayera already had their own book and made numerous appearances in other books before that (which created the whole Hawk mess) whereas Jones wanted to pick up exactly where Emerald Dawn I left off ignoring prior continuity with a young Hal back at Ferris and writing Guy and John in as contemporaries so as not to mess around with their statuses too much (especially Guy's status with the JLI/JLA at the time). Unfortunately, Helfer and DC were too invested in GL's prior continuity (again mainly because of Guy and the JLI) so when they decided to start volume 3, DC aged Hal out of nowhere (which was a bait and switch for me and a lot of longtime GL fans because it came about so unexpectedly) and gave him the Reed Richards look to cement Emerald Dawn I deeply in the past.

Luckily for DC, Emerald Dawn and the first three major arcs of volume 3 (The Road Back, A Guy and his G'Nort, and The Return of Star Sapphire) were so successful that it spawned a sequel to Emerald Dawn and 3 more GL inspired books (Guy Gardner, GL: Mosaic and GLC: Quarterly) making GL a more successful franchise than even the Superman books (which is what eventually led DC to doing something drastic with the Superman books with the Death of Superman)

That's why I consider Hal DC's 4th pillar. Outside of Clark and Bruce, Hal is the only other character in DC's stable that can spark a franchise of multiple books. Hal has done so twice (which is 2 times more than Wonder Woman has ever done)

[gorosaurus]

Thanks! That was the main one I was wondering about.

[liwanag]

i have fond memories of md bright in green lantern and in g.i. joe.

[HAN9000]

That's why I consider Hal DC's 4th pillar. Outside of Clark and Bruce, Hal is the only other character in DC's stable that can spark a franchise of multiple books. Hal has done so twice (which is 2 times more than Wonder Woman has ever done)

It’s true. However sadly, he isn’t treated like a franchise carrier by DC. Whenever anything wrong happens, they tends to create a new character instead of fixing their mistakes. I’d say it’s lazy and unwise if DC really wants to build their IPs.

[liwanag]

It’s true. However sadly, he isn’t treated like a franchise carrier by DC. Whenever anything wrong happens, they tends to create a new character instead of fixing their mistakes. I’d say it’s lazy and unwise if DC really wants to build their IPs.

i agree it's sad how dc treated hal and managed the rest of the corps.

(well, dc did put hal in grant morrison and liam sharp creative hands, so there's that).

but, it's funny how dc feels harley is the 4th pillar, more so than gl or flash.

[SebastianS]

i have fond memories of md bright in green lantern and in g.i. joe.

This page was my introduction to GL. LOVED IT!