How do the 00's rank amongst your Favorite Green Lantern decades?

[phantom1592]

I'll go ahead and say it:

That run from 2004 - 2011 was the apex of the franchise.

The comics were absolutely killing it, John's had done for Green Lantern what Miller had done for Batman: taken the character to new heights and dare I say: dominance. GL briefly overtook Superman and was legitimately challenging Batman as the new Omega Hero (the Alpha of Alphas).

Then the 2011 movie happened.

Had the Ryan Reynolds movie been a smash hit like 1989's Michael Keaton movie was ...

Then Green Lantern is the Top Dog at DC, the Batman is dethroned, and the possibilities are endless.

Instead, the stink of the movie's failure wiped out the toy sales of the GL:TAS cartoon, causing it to be not renewed on TV.

And then the GL franchise came back to Earth, so to speak, in terms of power and popularity.

What could have been ... <sigh>

Interesting analogy... especially since I think the GL movie was more comic accurate than Keaton's Batman ever was. I loved the 89 movie... but it took some SERIOUS Liberties with the characters in a lot of ways.

GL on the other hand? It was a bit too 'by the numbers' and the script felt like a checklist... but as a fan of the comic, I recognized and predicted just about every thing they did.

Ironically Batman was both more serious... and more campy that GL's movie was. It played an interseting balance...

[The no face guy]

The 00's was a great decade for GL. I salute Geoff Johns and the service he did for Green Lantern!

In all honesty though, despite the ground swell to bring Hal back before Rebirth, I don't think Hal Jordan would be as popular as he is today, if it were not for Geoff Johns, he brought in a whole new generation of Hal fans.

[WillieMorgan]

I'll go ahead and say it:

That run from 2004 - 2011 was the apex of the franchise.

The comics were absolutely killing it, John's had done for Green Lantern what Miller had done for Batman: taken the character to new heights and dare I say: dominance. GL briefly overtook Superman and was legitimately challenging Batman as the new Omega Hero (the Alpha of Alphas).

Then the 2011 movie happened.

Had the Ryan Reynolds movie been a smash hit like 1989's Michael Keaton movie was ...

Then Green Lantern is the Top Dog at DC, the Batman is dethroned, and the possibilities are endless.

Instead, the stink of the movie's failure wiped out the toy sales of the GL:TAS cartoon, causing it to be not renewed on TV.

And then the GL franchise came back to Earth, so to speak, in terms of power and popularity.

What could have been ... <sigh>

It was definitely a huge missed opportunity. Thing is, there's been talk of a HBO Max series recently and that seems like a better fit for GL to me. It's such a convoluted mythology (no simple 'bitten by a radioactive spider' origin for members the Corps) that a television series might be a better format to explore all the sci-fi elements that make up the GL mythology as opposed to awkwardly cramming them into a two-hour long movie. With the correct budget and push a lot of the damage from the 2011 movie could be corrected.

[WillieMorgan]

Interesting analogy... especially since I think the GL movie was more comic accurate than Keaton's Batman ever was. I loved the 89 movie... but it took some SERIOUS Liberties with the characters in a lot of ways.

GL on the other hand? It was a bit too 'by the numbers' and the script felt like a checklist... but as a fan of the comic, I recognized and predicted just about every thing they did.

Ironically Batman was both more serious... and more campy that GL's movie was. It played an interseting balance...

It's got absolutely nothing to do with comic-book accuracy. The general movie going audience doesn't care about that. It was the execution that was lacking. It was a poorly thought through film that was punished for being that.

[j9ac9k]

It's got absolutely nothing to do with comic-book accuracy. The general movie going audience doesn't care about that. It was the execution that was lacking. It was a poorly thought through film that was punished for being that.

I agree. The movie took the idea of an intergalactic police force of thousands of aliens and made it seem mundane. It also took the best actor in Sinestro and "saved him" for the sequel instead of actually using him when he would have been a great villain. (nothing against Peter Saarsgard - he did a fine job with what he was given, but "creepy Hector Hammond" wouldn't have been as good as Sinestro)

So yeah, between the movie and Johns driving the emotional spectrum idea into the ground, killed all momentum that the 00's had created.

[Vampire Savior]

So yeah, between the movie and Johns driving the emotional spectrum idea into the ground, killed all momentum that the 00's had created.

That's true, but I also think Robert Venditti played a big hand in that. He wrote largely bad to mediocre-at-best Green Lantern stories for 5 years straight, thoroughly destroying whatever momentum was left.

But yes, the movie was certainly the biggest culprit behind Green Lantern's downfall.

[WillieMorgan]

It's true that Venditti's run has it's issues. It's rather lopsided for me. His early run was too obsessed with both deconstruction of Johns' legacy and inter-franchise crossovers only to enormously course correct immediately afterwards. To the 'Renegade' period no less which was like chalk and cheese. I found a lot of his dialogue stunted also, especially during his final 'Hal n' Pals' title. Thing is, I feel that Venditti was in an invidious position regardless of how well received his run was though.

He was on a bit of a hiding to nothing from day one to be honest. He was following the most successful run in Lantern history. The name Venditti on a front cover was never gonna shift copies like the Johns one would. I feel like some sort of comedown was inevitable and would have happened regardless of the writer. Unless, maybe if someone of the calibre of Morrison had been persuaded to take up the reins back in 2013?

[Frontier]

It's true that Venditti's run has it's issues. It's rather lopsided for me. His early run was too obsessed with both deconstruction of Johns' legacy and inter-franchise crossovers only to enormously course correct immediately afterwards. To the 'Renegade' period no less which was like chalk and cheese. I found a lot of his dialogue stunted also, especially during his final 'Hal n' Pals' title. Thing is, I feel that Venditti was in an invidious position regardless of how well received his run was though.

He was on a bit of a hiding to nothing from day one to be honest. He was following the most successful run in Lantern history. The name Venditti on a front cover was never gonna shift copies like the Johns one would. I feel like some sort of comedown was inevitable and would have happened regardless of the writer. Unless, maybe if someone of the calibre of Morrison had been persuaded to take up the reins back in 2013?

Jeff Parker did a great job following Johns' run on Aquaman. I'm not sure who of the New 52 stable at the time would have been a good choice to take over for GL.

[Dr. Ellingham]

While the movie tanking hurt the TV series, and perhaps the "franchise" as well, all IPs go through peaks and valleys. It's inevitable. I don't think GL will ever be bigger than it was circa 2008 - that was the peak. The X-Men will probably never be bigger than it was in the 1990s / early 2000s.

Even Batman has peaks and valleys. The mainstream IPs that are sustainable across generations (Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, X-Men) have the inertia to sustain in the down years, and come back up. The B-level IPs, which includes Green Lantern, do not have that kind of buoyancy. At least up to now.

My take is - at least we got to see a lot of cool GL stuff. I never thought there'd be a Green Lantern animated series, or a live action movie. At least it all happened. And in our media-starved world, more will come too. Some of it will suck, but hopefully some of it will be good. "All will be well."

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I don't think any DC character, outside of Superman & Batman, has seen the creative highs that spanned from New Frontier to Blackest Night. Hell, even after Johns' run ran out of steam and the movie tanked the franchise, there was still the superlative Green Lantern The Animated Series, which is amongst the best DCAU projects ever made in my view.