Would Geoff John's GL Be As Big If It Starred John Stewart instead of Hal?

[Holt]

If they had made it John poor guy would've been in that wack-ass movie that basically killed the entire mainstream push for the franchise, so I guess small victories.

It's funny looking back on it now. In that period after Rebirth DC and WB really were building up Green Lantern as the next big thing and were clearly hoping he'd be an Iron Man-like breakout hit with the mainstream (I even remember certain fans claiming Jordan should take WW's place in the Trinity because he was outselling her by such a wide margin). Then it seems like overnight that went away.

[Vordan]

If they had made it John poor guy would've been in that wack-ass movie that basically killed the entire mainstream push for the franchise, so I guess small victories.

It's funny looking back on it now. In that period after Rebirth DC and WB really were building up Green Lantern as the next big thing and were clearly hoping he'd be an Iron Man-like breakout hit with the mainstream (I even remember certain fans claiming Jordan should take WW's place in the Trinity because he was outselling her by such a wide margin). Then it seems like overnight that went away.

Lmao I guess there is a bright spot after all! GL was their first attempt at making a cinematic universe. Didn’t they even have a post credit scene with Amanda Waller? Yeah the failure of that is what led to Snyder.

It wasn’t an overnight disappearance. Johns GL still was right behind Batman in sales. But after he left, the title floundered. WB stopped pushing the character after the movie and cartoon flopped, and he never got another animated movie even though his first two sold well. Venditti did a terrible job during the New 52, although Hal N’ Pals was ok. But there was a clear lack of direction post Johns. Really I think they should’ve just put Hal and Carol together and let Hal step aside. He’s never going to get as good of an ending as Johns gave him, even though I’m enjoying Morrison I still don’t think whatever his run’s ending will be as good as Johns. After Morrison I wouldn’t mind seeing one of the other Core 4 take over, and I do want it to be Stewart. Just let Hal rebuild his relationship with Carol on the side, don’t even need to take his ring or GL status away, and let one of the others be the main focus for a bit. Let Hal be the one in the side books like “GLC” and Stewart or Raynor or Gardner or Baz or Cruz be “The” Green Lantern for a bit.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Lmao I guess there is a bright spot after all! GL was their first attempt at making a cinematic universe. Didn’t they even have a post credit scene with Amanda Waller? Yeah the failure of that is what led to Snyder.

How is that in any way a bright spot?? It was the failure of that movie that tanked the whole franchise and we still haven't seen any cinematic adaptation of anything Green Lantern since. Not to mention that if that movie had been a success, we probably would have seen John make his cinematic debut by now. And it's only now, almost a whole decade later, that we are seeing them actually moving forward with plans for a Green Lantern series for HBO Max. But, really, is it better for a whole franchise to tank, so nobody from said franchise can be in the spotlight, just because some peoples' preferred Green Lantern wasn't at the center of it? Like it or not, no Hal means no John.

[Vordan]

How is that in any way a bright spot?? It was the failure of that movie that tanked the whole franchise and we still haven't seen any cinematic adaptation of anything Green Lantern since. Not to mention that if that movie had been a success, we probably would have seen John make his cinematic debut by now. And it's only now, almost a whole decade later, that we are seeing them actually moving forward with plans for a Green Lantern series for HBO Max. But, really, is it better for a whole franchise to tank, so nobody from said franchise can be in the spotlight, just because some peoples' preferred Green Lantern wasn't at the center of it? Like it or not, no Hal means no John.

I was joking mate, have you seen how I talk about the Snyder DCEU?

[Stanlos]

I cannot speak for how big it would be but the illogical and inorganic choice to push Hal and sideline the others to introduce two more randoms also of earth killed any interest that survived the silliness of the cosmic rainbow Lantern stuff. I know the GLs exist but I just don't bother anymore.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

I was joking mate, have you seen how I talk about the Snyder DCEU?

Ooooh. Sorry, I didn't realize.

I cannot speak for how big it would be but the illogical and inorganic choice to push Hal and sideline the others to introduce two more randoms also of earth killed any interest that survived the silliness of the cosmic rainbow Lantern stuff. I know the GLs exist but I just don't bother anymore.

Sorry, dude, gonna have to disagree. Bringing back Hal, as others have said, was something that had been built up to for a while and was widely anticipated among the audience. They obviously didn't need to sideline others, but Hal was kind of an obvious choice to head it up. On top of that, the Emotional Spectrum was probably one of the most popular concepts to come out of DC Comics, well, ever.

[Raijin]

No. Hal has always been Geoff’s guy and I’m glad because he writes a terrible John.

[Midnight_v]

If they had made it John poor guy would've been in that wack-ass movie that basically killed the entire mainstream push for the franchise, so I guess small victories.

It's funny looking back on it now. In that period after Rebirth DC and WB really were building up Green Lantern as the next big thing and were clearly hoping he'd be an Iron Man-like breakout hit with the mainstream (I even remember certain fans claiming Jordan should take WW's place in the Trinity because he was outselling her by such a wide margin). Then it seems like overnight that went away.

Damn, that movie... small victories indeed. They'd have blamed it bombing on it being about John too smh

[SecretWarrior]

The "Rebirth" aspect had nothing to do with what made the run interesting considering it had no effect on any plot points down the line. What made that run interesting was the blackest night prophecy established by Alan Moore, and that would've worked well for any GL including John, who had developed a fanbase from the cartoon. By and large GL villains are Corps villains, so as long as you have conflicting ideologies you can create conflict--even parallelism. It's been done with Batman, Captain America, Ant-Man, Black Panther, Spider-man, etc. Arguments that the Rebirth mattered are just personal fanboyism, not an analysis of the plot.

-Any GL could've taken down Sinestro in SCW
-Any GL could've made contact with the Reds in Rage of the Red Lanterns
-Any GL could've taken down Black Hand if they were at the right place at the right time

John has multiple connections to Sinestro and Korugar, and, even if he didn't, it wouldn't have mattered. Silence of the Lambs didn't require Jodie Foster to have a deep connection to Hannibal Lector. They were placed in opposition by ideology and circumstance.

Anyway, once the prophecy was fulfilled, the book pretty much died a creative death, continuing to spin its wheels with some Krona storyline.

[SiegePerilous02]

The "Rebirth" aspect had nothing to do with what made the run interesting considering it had no effect on any plot points down the line. What made that run interesting was the blackest night prophecy established by Alan Moore, and that would've worked well for any GL including John, who had developed a fanbase from the cartoon. By and large GL villains are Corps villains, so as long as you have conflicting ideologies you can create conflict--even parallelism. It's been done with Batman, Captain America, Ant-Man, Black Panther, Spider-man, etc. Arguments that the Rebirth mattered are just personal fanboyism, not an analysis of the plot.

-Any GL could've taken down Sinestro in SCW
-Any GL could've made contact with the Reds in Rage of the Red Lanterns
-Any GL could've taken down Black Hand if they were at the right place at the right time

John has multiple connections to Sinestro and Korugar, and, even if he didn't, it wouldn't have mattered. Silence of the Lambs didn't require Jodie Foster to have a deep connection to Hannibal Lector. They were placed in opposition by ideology and circumstance.

Anyway, once the prophecy was fulfilled, the book pretty much died a creative death, continuing to spin its wheels with some Krona storyline.

I think this statement and the idea that any GL could have been inserted into the plot over Hal is pretty blatant personal fanboyism in itself.

You can't say Rebirth didn't effect on the plot down the line. Another GL can't take down Sinestro in SCW when he was dead prior to that and was only resurrected in Rebirth to coincide with Hal's resurrection.

It basically boils down to people saying "things would have resulted the same for John...provided factors X,Y,Z were all different." There is also the fact that Johns wasn't writing this if he couldn't write it with Hal, so you'd have to hope there was another up and coming writer of comparable talent who could pull off something similar and who wanted to write John. And since there is no changing the past, if we play these "what if" games we'd be here all day.

[Vampire Savior]

To disregard Rebirth's importance is either being disingenuous or very ill informed (in this instance, I'm going to choose being disingenuous). What caused people to get excited about Green Lantern in the initial part of Johns' run was the return of Hal Jordan. You couldn't have gotten the same effect with John Stewart because he wasn't/isn't nearly as important a character in DC mythology, and comics readers don't care about him nearly as much. And I say that as not really having a horse in that race. It just is what it is.

The return of John Stewart!

...

It's like...no one would have cared about that.

[SiegePerilous02]

To disregard Rebirth's importance is either being disingenuous or very ill informed (in this instance, I'm going to choose being disingenuous). What caused people to get excited about Green Lantern in the initial part of Johns' run was the return of Hal Jordan. You couldn't have gotten the same effect with John Stewart because he wasn't/isn't nearly as important a character in DC mythology, and comics readers don't care about him nearly as much. And I say that as not really having a horse in that race. It just is what it is.

The return of John Stewart!

...

It's like...no one would have cared about that.

And he'd been back for a while at that point anyway, right?

He'd also missed out on developing a dynamic of his own with Sinestro. since Sinestro was off the table for the same length of time Hal was.

[Noodle]

The "Rebirth" aspect had nothing to do with what made the run interesting considering it had no effect on any plot points down the line. What made that run interesting was the blackest night prophecy established by Alan Moore, and that would've worked well for any GL including John, who had developed a fanbase from the cartoon.

Blackest Night wasn't even a factor in the first 1/3rd of John's run. It wasn't even a factor in the books until after the Sinestro Corps War, and by that point the book was already very popular.

Blackest Night just added to the popularity. It wasn't popular because of it.

[Vampire Savior]

And he'd been back for a while at that point anyway, right?

He'd also missed out on developing a dynamic of his own with Sinestro. since Sinestro was off the table for the same length of time Hal was.

Yeah, but looking at it fairly, DC could have done a lot more with John Stewart's return. It was like they brought him back and didn't make anything out of it or do anything with him. He was given the B or C story in the Green Lantern books, often behind Kyle (A story), and Jade (B story). It also didn't help a lot that the B story typically featured John and Kyle's peculiarly hued girlfriends planning ways to cheat on them, or move away from them, or something of the sort. Actually, I wouldn't even say John had much of a C story. He was more like an add-on facet of Jade's B story. And while he did get a spot in the Justice League, much like now, he was just there and didn't make much of a difference either way and in stories that didn't make much of a difference either way.

[Frontier]

Meanwhile, poor Guy and Simon fans will have to be satisfied with whatever small crumbs get thrown at them. Hey, Guy at least got to be in a few episodes of Batman: The Brave and The Bold

Guy was also in GL:TAS and has probably had the most dialogue of any GL in Young Justice.

Meanwhile, poor Simon got replaced by Hal as Jessica's partner on DC Super Hero Girls .

Blackest Night wasn't even a factor in the first 1/3rd of John's run. It wasn't even a factor in the books until after the Sinestro Corps War, and by that point the book was already very popular.

Blackest Night just added to the popularity. It wasn't popular because of it.

I think there might have been vague allusions to Blackest Night early in the run if you looked hard enough, but that's about it.