Originally Posted by
Bored at 3:00AM
Venditti had the benefit of following Geoff Johns, which briefly kept the sales up, but they quickly sank like a stone once readers, including myself, realized that it was garbage.
However, I'm not just talking about Venditti's run, I'm talking about the character's entire publishing history, during which Hal Jordan was by no means a guaranteed best seller. He's always been one of DC's biggest characters, certainly, but he's rarely been an automatic sales character in the way that Superman and Batman have been. Sales dipped heavily in the late 60s, and again in the 70s, 80s, and 90s when there wasn't a strong creative direction.
That said, these things often change. Batman once sold so poorly that Detective Comics was nearly cancelled, Flash has suffered numerous sales slumps, and both Wonder Woman and Aquaman have never been consistent sellers.
I honestly don't know how the new corporate bean counters are going to view the Green Lantern franchise as a whole after it imploded following the failure of the movie and the end of Johns's run. I hope they see some value in Hal Jordan as on ongoing concern, but I don't think there's any guarantee of it, either.
The only thing that seems certain about this new era for DC is that there don't appear to be any sacred cows. Just because Hal Jordan has been appearing monthly for the last several years doesn't mean that is going to be the case moving forward.