Hal Jordan: The Green Lantern Appreciation 2021

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I think his point is that we shouldn't have to defend Hal from stupid takes. Fact that Guy and Simon are treated badly doesn't really make it better.

Every character is subject to bad takes. This has been the case for decades. Comics fans squabble and complain and piss and moan. It's what we do. Hal Jordan fans are not unique in this regard.

There's not a single long-running character at either DC or Marvel that hasn't had their fair share of smack, derision, and bad writing thrown their way. Comics fans are a notoriously thin-skinned crowd who tend to take things personally when their fellow fans talk shit about their favourites. That's totally normal.

There's nothing wrong with wanting Hal Jordan to remain the main focus of the GL franchise. It's totally understandable. Nobody's asking you to be happy that Hal's not the main GL, but we don't need to be overly sensitive about it either.

If someone talks smack about any character you love, go ahead and defend them, but have fun doing so. Don't take it personally and enjoy the back and forth. There's bigger things to be upset about in the world than whether or not everyone agrees that Hal Jordan is awesome

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Stupid takes from your average person is one thing, stupid takes from a creative is another - especially a creative working with a franchise whose stupid takes are about the main character of the franchise. Everyone has a right to an opinion no matter how wrong it is, but an intelligent person wouldn't broadcast it and then be surprised when it comes back to bite them. I'll wait for the dollar bins.

Where has Redjack acted surprised that Hal fans have gotten upset? From everything I have seen, he's been perfectly forthright and honest about it.

He's very active on Twitter and loves talking smack about superheroes. With everyone being online these days, this kind of stuff is going to happen more and more.

[Johnny]

There we have it again, Hal fans are overly sensitive for not wanting him to be insulted for no reason. To make this perfectly clear, my previous comment was not referring to Mr. Thorne's personal take on Hal Jordan's character, it was meant to point out the apparent double standard that tends to be applied to characters like Hal in general.

Let me put it this way, Ron Marz recently compared Hal to Chuck Yeager and while he added that he liked that version of Hal best, he felt Yeager worked best in the 60s. I responded that we have a lot of billionaire playboys, demigods, brilliant scientists or inventors in comics and some of them start to feel like a product of their time as well, yet noone treats them like that and always choose to go for the fighter pilot instead. I was not being disrespectful, I did not bring up Emerald Twilight or anything regarding his opinion on Hal, all I did was suggest that similar logic could be applied to other classic characters as well. I was blocked for it. If you suggest there could be some contradiction going on in regards to the logic applied to certain characters, you're either called overly sensitive or blocked for it.

[SiegePerilous02]

Every character is subject to bad takes. This has been the case for decades. Comics fans squabble and complain and piss and moan. It's what we do. Hal Jordan fans are not unique in this regard.

There's not a single long-running character at either DC or Marvel that hasn't had their fair share of smack, derision, and bad writing thrown their way. Comics fans are a notoriously thin-skinned crowd who tend to take things personally when their fellow fans talk shit about their favourites. That's totally normal.

There's nothing wrong with wanting Hal Jordan to remain the main focus of the GL franchise. It's totally understandable. Nobody's asking you to be happy that Hal's not the main GL, but we don't need to be overly sensitive about it either.

If someone talks smack about any character you love, go ahead and defend them, but have fun doing so. Don't take it personally and enjoy the back and forth. There's bigger things to be upset about in the world than whether or not everyone agrees that Hal Jordan is awesome

I think the issue is that defending Hal can stop being fun because the detractors are always saying he's inherently outdated and boring and maybe we're borderline terrible people holding back progress for having him as our favorite? And that he was never popular to begin with.

Personally, I'd be fine with Hal taking a bit of a break because we had a couple great years with him by Morrison and Sharp. it's just that him taking a break is usually followed by a surge of people saying he sucks and the focus should be on another GL. If Hal stepping aside for a little while wasn't accompanied by that nonsense, it might go over a bit better. Same with other media stuff.

[liwanag]

Hal is the only Lantern you can have that "playful smack talk" about though. You'd never have a podcast interview with a comic creator where the host is casually calling any other GL the most boring character on Earth. It's not about Redjack's or any creator's personal opinions specifically, it's the essential hypocrisy accepted across the board about how certain characters can be casually treated like they're not worth it and you can freely mock them without any worries, while other characters people don't dare to say anything other than glowing praise about. It's just tiresome to see Hal fans being treated like they're some selfish overly sensitive jerks for not wanting their favorite to be treated like some useless entity that should be swept under the rug. I've said this time and again, I will give this run a chance, I just wish there wasn't so much totally unnecessary baggage to it. But I guess it's not much different than the Kyle run that started under way more controversial circumstances. Anytime they replaced Hal there's been some kind of controversy attached to it, when it really doesn't need to be like that at all.

thanks johnny.

[Frontier]

I guess it's hard for me to get the thought of Hal as outdated when his personality and archetype seem to work fine in modern adaptions (the movie aside).

[Mutatis_Mutandis]

I think Hal as the Chuck Yeager archetype is already a pretty reductionist take on the character. Morrison's run has shown that Hal is actually a combination of many character archetypes (and heck, this isn't even something Morrison invented; you just have to look into the character's history to pick up on this), and can't really be reduced to that kind of single one-dimensional take. And even then, you can take elements of what made a test pilot an appealing figure in the 50s/60s and update it for a modern context.

If we're talking about "outdated", Batman - a rich white guy who comes from old money and beats up the mentally ill - immediately comes to mind.

[EmeraldGladiator]

That Future State changed Vendetti story has me feeling the DC is hedging it's bets on the new GL direction. Reminds me of reading somewhere if the Emerald Twilight Kyle move didn't work DC's contingency plan was Alan Scott, which is why they de-aged him (as Sentinel in the GLCQ). If Kyle went bad, young Alan was the back up plan. I think the Jo/Hal splurge will either be part of a Corps book that is coming or will be held in reserve if this new direction flames out like Bendis' Legion. I hope John's book does well, and I would love a Corps book picking up that teased storyline but DC will want to give the other book a head start. Sort of like they did when they lead Green Lantern find it's legs for a few months before releasing Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps, which was more in service to existing fans where as Jessica's and Simon's GL book was more about getting new readers.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

There we have it again, Hal fans are overly sensitive for not wanting him to be insulted for no reason. To make this perfectly clear, my previous comment was not referring to Mr. Thorne's personal take on Hal Jordan's character, it was meant to point out the apparent double standard that tends to be applied to characters like Hal in general.

Let me put it this way, Ron Marz recently compared Hal to Chuck Yeager and while he added that he liked that version of Hal best, he felt Yeager worked best in the 60s. I responded that we have a lot of billionaire playboys, demigods, brilliant scientists or inventors in comics and some of them start to feel like a product of their time as well, yet noone treats them like that and always choose to go for the fighter pilot instead. I was not being disrespectful, I did not bring up Emerald Twilight or anything regarding his opinion on Hal, all I did was suggest that similar logic could be applied to other classic characters as well. I was blocked for it. If you suggest there could be some contradiction going on in regards to the logic applied to certain characters, you're either called overly sensitive or blocked for it.

I am sorry, I am confused as to the context of this. Where were you blocked?

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I think the issue is that defending Hal can stop being fun because the detractors are always saying he's inherently outdated and boring and maybe we're borderline terrible people holding back progress for having him as our favorite? And that he was never popular to begin with.

Personally, I'd be fine with Hal taking a bit of a break because we had a couple great years with him by Morrison and Sharp. it's just that him taking a break is usually followed by a surge of people saying he sucks and the focus should be on another GL. If Hal stepping aside for a little while wasn't accompanied by that nonsense, it might go over a bit better. Same with other media stuff.

I feel similarly, but that's the nature of the game with these corporately owned characters whose destinies are determined largely by forces that have little to do with artistic merit.

It sucks that GL fandom has been pitted against each other since the '90s and so few GL fans are comfortable simply letting each GL get attention without fearing that their favourites are going to get dumped on.

Unfortunately, that's the reality right now. All we as fans can do is try to step back and try to be empathetic to everyone and not let every negative comment made by someone upset you.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

If we're talking about "outdated", Batman - a rich white guy who comes from old money and beats up the mentally ill - immediately comes to mind.

How I wish that were true, but pop culture has not yet fallen out of love with rich white billionaires doing whatever they want.

I would have thought the last few years would have broken that spell, but alas, it hasn't...

[Johnny]

I am sorry, I am confused as to the context of this. Where were you blocked?

Twitter. He was responding to some Top Ten GL stories list that had Emerald Twilight on it and he referred to some guy who was mad about him "ruining Hal" or something. Then if I remember correctly Phil Jimenez chimed in and Marz tweeted him the Chuck Yeager comparison, which I responded to and was then blocked for. Doesn't matter, I didn't take it personally or anything, maybe he was already annoyed and thought I was another HEAT member or whatever, but I don't hold it against him, I was just surprised since I think all I did was present the same logic to other characters that he applied to Hal.

[SiegePerilous02]

I think Hal as the Chuck Yeager archetype is already a pretty reductionist take on the character. Morrison's run has shown that Hal is actually a combination of many character archetypes (and heck, this isn't even something Morrison invented; you just have to look into the character's history to pick up on this), and can't really be reduced to that kind of single one-dimensional take. And even then, you can take elements of what made a test pilot an appealing figure in the 50s/60s and update it for a modern context.

If we're talking about "outdated", Batman - a rich white guy who comes from old money and beats up the mentally ill - immediately comes to mind.

I don't really like reducing Batman to that either, but yeah he does stand out among the iconic JL as having the most potentially outdated concept.

Twitter. He was responding to some Top Ten GL stories list that had Emerald Twilight on it and he referred to some guy who was mad about him "ruining Hal" or something. Then if I remember correctly Phil Jimenez chimed in and Marz tweeted him the Chuck Yeager comparison, which I responded to and was then blocked for. Doesn't matter, I didn't take it personally or anything, maybe he was already annoyed and thought I was another HEAT member or whatever, but I don't hold it against him, I was just surprised since I think all I did was present the same logic to other characters that he applied to Hal.

What did Jimenez say? He's drawn Hal before and is a an of Liam Sharp's work, so I'm curious what his stance on Hal is in general.

Marz may have gotten HEAT flashbacks and blocked you. I'm sure you were respectful though

[Johnny]

What did Jimenez say? He's drawn Hal before and is a an of Liam Sharp's work, so I'm curious what his stance on Hal is in general.

That he was always a bigger fan of the Corps in general than of Hal in particular, whom he still found to be a tough pill to swallow. And that he was more of a Kyle guy.

[SiegePerilous02]

That he was always a bigger fan of the Corps in general than of Hal in particular, whom he still found to be a tough pill to swallow. And that he was more of a Kyle guy.

Ah bummer.

At least I don't think he's blasted the character much in general.