Hal Jordan: The Green Lantern Appreciation 2021

[silly]

It's something Joe Staton introduced in the first Tales of the Green Lantern Corps miniseries. I think it's meant to be an infinity symbol.

Thanks

I thought they were trying to make a big construct of Hal's face mask.

[Gaius]

[Frontier]

Ah...New Frontier .

[Johnny]

Damn, pretty much all the GL stuff that originally made me a fan are basically seen as ancient history now.

[Gaius]

Damn, pretty much all the GL stuff that originally made me a fan are basically seen as ancient history now.

I only first read it in trade back in 2016 so it's not that ancient to me.

[TheKryptonMan]

I actually enjoyed his JL run a lot, thought it was solid filler. Of course I’m sure his writing of Diana is why it fell short for you. Venditti is solid but he never really seemed to have any deep love or appreciation for Hal.

I have to agree with you there as far as his lack of appreciation of Hal. That's why John's imo was better at writing Hal. I enjoyed Morrison's run on GL ( Hal ) . Even back in the day, Marz was really good at writing Kyle and some Hal too.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

His version of "incompetent leader" Hal made me drop the book.

Yeah. For Hal who questioned authority to BECOME authority made zero sense to me. Venditti had enough trouble following in Johns' footsteps, but, making him the leader was a huge mistake on his part.

[Johnny]

I think him being a leader is fine depending on how he's portrayed. Hal did kind of have the "leader" role in the animated series and it was great.

[EmeraldGladiator]

I thought Venditti certainly improved over time.

I was less than lukewarm on Venditti's Green Lantern run, found in dry and uninspiring, however I really enjoyed HalJ&tGLC quite a bit, probably more than anything GL related since Blackest Night. Which means I liked it better than Johns end of run and more than Morrison's. Morrison's run was ok better than I expected but it didn't have any, "hell yeah Hal" moments in it. HJ&tGLC did, my favorite was Hal laying the smackdown on Zod.

[Mutatis_Mutandis]

I was less than lukewarm on Venditti's Green Lantern run, found in dry and uninspiring, however I really enjoyed HalJ&tGLC quite a bit, probably more than anything GL related since Blackest Night. Which means I liked it better than Johns end of run and more than Morrison's. Morrison's run was ok better than I expected but it didn't have any, "hell yeah Hal" moments in it. HJ&tGLC did, my favorite was Hal laying the smackdown on Zod.

I had the opposite reaction. While HJGLC was better than his earlier run, his Hal was still entirely one-dimensional and came across as an obnoxious caricature of an action hero, quipping silly lines every few panels. Yes, he did "lay the smackdown", but there wasn't really any meat to the character under Venditti's pen. I think it was really Guy who had the best character moments in that run (going by memory here but I don't really feel like going back to it and reading it again). Hal spouting lines like, "You stepped up to the mic with your emo crap, I came here to rock" makes him look like an idiot boomer.

I'm sure lots of fans like that version of the character but it's not the one I'm interested in. Give me weird Zen Hal reading Thoreau off-world instead any day.

[Vordan]

I think him being a leader is fine depending on how he's portrayed. Hal did kind of have the "leader" role in the animated series and it was great.

I can buy Hal leading small groups, but being leader of the GLC just isn’t something I buy. You need someone who is as comfortable leading from the back and directing people as they are charging into the fray at the front and I don’t see Hal as that guy.

[j9ac9k]

Hal's a battlefield leader, charging the front lines, not a "sit in the back" general pushing pins into a map or a politician. I can see why it could be an interesting storyline to throw Hal into a leadership position he didn't ask for, but Venditti just made Hal look like an idiot.

Then in HJ&GLC Venditti treated all the main characters well, but as posted above, they were all one-dimensional. Venditti just did the same thing over and over (and over) where he presented each of those 4 GLs as character types rather than characters as though he was introducing them each time - Hal's a hotshot, Guy's a hard-head, etc... and never got deeper than that for any of them. He made sure to give them all cool moments, but aside from some awesome Rafa art, stringing together those cool moments didn't make for a compelling or memorable read.

[Frontier]

I think coming out of Johns' run and what happened it made sense for Hal to take a leadership in the role after what happened to the Guardians and his prominence as the lead. You could have explored why it's not a natural fit for him or he wasn't cut for it in the long haul without making come off as incompetent, dumb, or useless as he did. Eventually it came off like "let's @#$% on Hal" the series up until he went Renegade. Like literally I think John and Guy got to take swings at him, Carol turned on him to hook up with Kyle, the Corps. started turning on him when the rest of the universe did, it just wasn't a fun book.

I did think it was time to introduce a new Star Sapphire villain that wasn't Carol, but Hal couldn't even really fight her.

As far as the writing in Hal and Pals...I mean, it wasn't character-defining work or anything but I think it was still a solid and fun GL comic with the core Four GL's. It was more of a Summer Blockbuster compared to the high-spec Space Gothic Horror Morrison was doing but it felt as valid and a good counterpoint to Simon and Jessica's book. I don't think the dialogue for Hal was all that different quality-wise, but that's just me.

[Gaius]

I had the opposite reaction. While HJGLC was better than his earlier run, his Hal was still entirely one-dimensional and came across as an obnoxious caricature of an action hero, quipping silly lines every few panels. Yes, he did "lay the smackdown", but there wasn't really any meat to the character under Venditti's pen. I think it was really Guy who had the best character moments in that run (going by memory here but I don't really feel like going back to it and reading it again). Hal spouting lines like, "You stepped up to the mic with your emo crap, I came here to rock" makes him look like an idiot boomer.

I'm sure lots of fans like that version of the character but it's not the one I'm interested in. Give me weird Zen Hal reading Thoreau off-world instead any day.

I feel I liked HJ&GLC more than you, but I would mostly agree with this. Bit more meat on the bone in Morrison that sticks with me more than Venditti's series, not that there can't be room for both in comics.

Plus Hal's idea of a vacation being to larp on a medieval alien world that his ring hates is as cool to me as smacking around Zod.

[silly]

Damn, pretty much all the GL stuff that originally made me a fan are basically seen as ancient history now.

We need new stuff, especially for the new generation of potential fans.