Grant Morrison's The Green Lantern: Finale Coming

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Great work, Rikdad, as always

I don't think Hal Jordan is going anywhere, but I think Morrison is smart enough to know that this will be the character's last hurrah headlining a solo GL book for a while and is treating it with the appropriate degree of nerd pomp and circumstance.

Looking forward to how he ends this.

[Bruce Wayne]

The new writer on GL is not a fan of Hal (https://bleedingcool.com/comics/the-...es-hal-jordan/). And given how they are trying to roll back many of the changes from the previous regime, it's likely they'll try and sideline Hal as the main Lantern.

[Rikdad]

Thanks, Bored, and I concur. Unless there was a big kill-off-Hal decision made that we don't know about, I doubt that Morrison began this run aware of the plans of his successors. Remember that Final Crisis brought back Aquaman and killed off the Hawks and all of that just disappeared the next month. It is more likely that what Morrison is saying here is about the whole medium, including Hal, John Stewart, Kyle, Aquaman, the Hawks, and everybody.

[Rikdad]

Thanks, HsssH. I'll take the scenes in Blackstars as the clearest comments that Snyder's work is simply depressing; it also seemed to apply to DCeased. And Morrison also pointed out that some of what he was poking fun(?) at there was even Morrison's own work and the schedule of rotating crises and reboots, but there's no doubt whose work the Depressoverse represents.

[Rikdad]

The new writer on GL is not a fan of Hal (https://bleedingcool.com/comics/the-...es-hal-jordan/). And given how they are trying to roll back many of the changes from the previous regime, it's likely they'll try and sideline Hal as the main Lantern.

Wow, that's a tremendous quantity of staying-on-message from Geoff Thorne re: Hal Jordan.

I doubt if when Morrison began Season Two GM knew the details of DC's plans for April 2021, but this could be a send-off for Hal regardless. Unlike the departure of Bruce Wayne in 2008, there isn't going to be a pre-scripted return for Hal unless the individual writers say so. However, I think that what Morrison is forecasting is the ruination of characters like Hal, and that actually would include John Stewart just as easily as Hal. Not that HJ and JS won't be onscreen, but that what is done with them will ruin what they were.

[Bad Witch]

I've never read green lantern before. Not even the earth one titles. Is this run like his batman run where you really need past knowledge of can you just jump into it?

[HsssH]

I've never read green lantern before. Not even the earth one titles. Is this run like his batman run where you really need past knowledge of can you just jump into it?

I think that you can jump in. As always Morrison does bring up some old characters, but it doesn't feel like you really need to know much about these characters to get what is going on. I think I'd compare it more to All-Star Superman than to Batman. Also, I'm not sure how it would feel reading it in one go, but reading it monthly I often had to re-read some older issues because Morrison would often reference something that happened 10 issues ago and I might not remember it that well anymore.

I doubt if when Morrison began Season Two GM knew the details of DC's plans for April 2021, but this could be a send-off for Hal regardless.

I think that it is possible that DC seeing that GL franchise was struggling and going in circles started looking for new direction couple of years ago. So maybe they said to Morrison that they are thinking in the future to focus a bit more on other GLs/John and they need a run that would fill the gap till they are ready to launch this new direction. This would also kinda explain why Morrison/Sharp, from the looks of it, had complete creative freedom.

[Rikdad]

I've never read green lantern before. Not even the earth one titles. Is this run like his batman run where you really need past knowledge of can you just jump into it?

A lot of the Silver Age references in this run aren't even from past Green Lantern stories so if you read the entire Silver Age run cover-to-cover first you'd still be hitting a lot of new characters. I think you can read this run without much knowledge of GL's past except to know that he has a group of blue bosses named Guardians from the planet Oa, and there's an antimatter universe where everything is evil and opposite. Beyond that, when you encounter the huge number of characters, go with the flow. I don't think you have to know any of them so much as keep track of them as Morrison brings them onstage.

[Bad Witch]

A lot of the Silver Age references in this run aren't even from past Green Lantern stories so if you read the entire Silver Age run cover-to-cover first you'd still be hitting a lot of new characters. I think you can read this run without much knowledge of GL's past except to know that he has a group of blue bosses named Guardians from the planet Oa, and there's an antimatter universe where everything is evil and opposite. Beyond that, when you encounter the huge number of characters, go with the flow. I don't think you have to know any of them so much as keep track of them as Morrison brings them onstage.

Thanks! I'll grab the trades and see how I like it.

[Bad Witch]

I think that you can jump in. As always Morrison does bring up some old characters, but it doesn't feel like you really need to know much about these characters to get what is going on. I think I'd compare it more to All-Star Superman than to Batman. Also, I'm not sure how it would feel reading it in one go, but reading it monthly I often had to re-read some older issues because Morrison would often reference something that happened 10 issues ago and I might not remember it that well anymore.



I think that it is possible that DC seeing that GL franchise was struggling and going in circles started looking for new direction couple of years ago. So maybe they said to Morrison that they are thinking in the future to focus a bit more on other GLs/John and they need a run that would fill the gap till they are ready to launch this new direction. This would also kinda explain why Morrison/Sharp, from the looks of it, had complete creative freedom.

Thanks to you as well. Sorry for double post I don't know how to multi quote and wanted to thank you as well.

[Johnny]

Wow, that's a tremendous quantity of staying-on-message from Geoff Thorne re: Hal Jordan.

I doubt if when Morrison began Season Two GM knew the details of DC's plans for April 2021, but this could be a send-off for Hal regardless. Unlike the departure of Bruce Wayne in 2008, there isn't going to be a pre-scripted return for Hal unless the individual writers say so. However, I think that what Morrison is forecasting is the ruination of characters like Hal, and that actually would include John Stewart just as easily as Hal. Not that HJ and JS won't be onscreen, but that what is done with them will ruin what they were.

You mean you believe they could purposely ruin Hal's credibility so they would have an excuse not to promote him as an important character anymore? If that's the case, they haven't promoted him for a long time now. He gets plenty of epic moments in TGL, yet that book is barely even advertised, Hal has been completely isolated from the core DCU, he rarely gets new merchandise or outside media appearances anymore, always gets shafted from promotional materials, etc. The point being they don't need to do something horrible to Hal in the comics to not treat him as an important entity to the DCU, since they've been doing that for a while now.

[Rikdad]

You mean you believe they could purposely ruin Hal's credibility so they would have an excuse not to promote him as an important character anymore?

No, not at all.

I think that the message that Morrison is delivering is that the handling of all characters is ruining them. Hal, John, Batman, Ray Palmer, Jon Kent… all of them. And it's not deliberate, but short-sighted.

Hal just happens to be the star of this series. Morrison shows the dead Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman of Earth-15 and the ruination of many minor characters to make the same point.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Exactly, I think Morrison is more lamenting the shabby treatment of all the DCU by corporate shenanigans that are focused on short-sited profits rather than the long-term health of these characters.

[HsssH]

You mean you believe they could purposely ruin Hal's credibility so they would have an excuse not to promote him as an important character anymore?

Rikdad will probably explain it better, but I think that Morrison's belief is that basically this is just how comics books industry (and entertainment industry in general) works these days. For example, I really doubt that people at DC/WB for last few decades were intentionally trying to ruin Superman, but argument can certainly be made (and in my opinion impossible to argue otherwise) that character was significantly damaged in that time period. And well, neither Hal nor John are Superman, they can be ruined much faster. And unlike with Superman there are lots of GL fans who'll celebrate their doom.

Edit: by the time I wrote my post two others responded first, I'm so damn slow.

[lefthanded]

I have enjoyed Morrison's work in the past, and kept trying his GL run, but keep bouncing off of it. I am not sure if its because each issue seems more like an acid trip, the art style, or even the font choice, but I struggle to find an attachment point for me.

Rikdad, I have enjoyed your Morrison post's (especially Batman RIP), so will read your writeups and try it again.