Hal Jordan: The Green Lantern Appreciation 2022

[Frontier]

How does everyone feel about Hal becoming Parallax?
Myself, I can understand it after Mongol destroyed his city, his family and basically his earth life. When you have all that power and you couldn't stop it nor would you be able to avenge it, as a Corps member.
Can you blame him for what he did? I mean, everyone has a dark side and it takes extraordinary things to bring that out, see Injustice as an example.
Now what the writers did to him as Parallax is up to debate but I feel him becoming Parallax was the right road, given what Mongol did.

I don't like what it turned into and that some post it at the most interesting and most ideal version of Hal.

[Triniking1234]

How does everyone feel about Hal becoming Parallax?
Myself, I can understand it after Mongol destroyed his city, his family and basically his earth life. When you have all that power and you couldn't stop it nor would you be able to avenge it, as a Corps member.
Can you blame him for what he did? I mean, everyone has a dark side and it takes extraordinary things to bring that out, see Injustice as an example.
Now what the writers did to him as Parallax is up to debate but I feel him becoming Parallax was the right road, given what Mongol did.

I liked it but that story arc went down when I just got into DC comics so I had no attachment to Hal although I would've preferred if Parallax was a more Punisher-esque character. It was better than what they did for Monarch.

[Refrax5]

How does everyone feel about Hal becoming Parallax?
Myself, I can understand it after Mongol destroyed his city, his family and basically his earth life. When you have all that power and you couldn't stop it nor would you be able to avenge it, as a Corps member.
Can you blame him for what he did? I mean, everyone has a dark side and it takes extraordinary things to bring that out, see Injustice as an example.
Now what the writers did to him as Parallax is up to debate but I feel him becoming Parallax was the right road, given what Mongol did.

There was something interesting about it and the uniform was great, but the sheer level of deaths he caused in Zero Hour really pushed him past the point of redemption and made the space bug retcon necessary. They just went too far with it. I would like it much more as an Elseworlds version of the character. On the other hand, I do think Hal's fall into darkness and his redemption added some depth to him.

[Johnny]

Once characters start doing evil **** and try to justify it they're no longer the same characters, they're no different than the villains they fight. Parallax isn't Hal Jordan, and I'm not referring to the space bug retcon. Hal Jordan isn't the kind of person who will start murdering his friends because he went through a traumatic experience. Hal Jordan isn't Anakin Skywalker, he's not a character who was specifically created with the intention of turning heel, he turned heel because the DC regime at the time wanted to be "edgy", did not see him as important enough of a character and wanted shock value for the sake of boosting sales and bringing in another character to replace him with. On top of it there's nothing original about Parallax as a concept. He is little more than bootleg Sinestro, the former greatest GL who got corrupted by his power and went sideways. Been there, done that.

The people who like Parallax and still insist it "made Hal so much more interesting", "did a lot of good for his character journey" or "makes sense" are mostly those who simply want the character out of the picture so their favorite GLs can get the spotlight and beat him up, while conveniently stealing his content, friends, villains and stories at the same time. When all is said and done, that's really what this has been about. In the past I could give people the benefit of the doubt about this, nowadays it's been increasingly difficult to do so. The notion that making a founding Leaguer a murderer, then killing him off and having him gone for a decade somehow "did a lot of good" for his character is insulting to my intelligence. No it didn't "make sense".

[HsssH]

That honestly makes me glad. I always thought Morrison's run was canceled early so its nice to know they ended with the length they wanted.

Second season was cut from 12 to, I think, 8 or 10 issues because Didio wanted it to wrap up in time for 5G relaunch. But once he was fired and plans changed it was changed back to 12 issues.

[krazijoe]

Once characters start doing evil **** and try to justify it they're no longer the same characters, they're no different than the villains they fight. Parallax isn't Hal Jordan, and I'm not referring to the space bug retcon. Hal Jordan isn't the kind of person who will start murdering his friends because he went through a traumatic experience. Hal Jordan isn't Anakin Skywalker, he's not a character who was specifically created with the intention of turning heel, he turned heel because the DC regime at the time wanted to be "edgy", did not see him as important enough of a character and wanted shock value for the sake of boosting sales and bringing in another character to replace him with. On top of it there's nothing original about Parallax as a concept. He is little more than bootleg Sinestro, the former greatest GL who got corrupted by his power and went sideways. Been there, done that.

The people who like Parallax and still insist it "made Hal so much more interesting" or "makes sense" are mostly those who simply want the character out of the picture so their favorite GLs can get the spotlight and beat him up, while conveniently stealing his content, friends, villains and stories at the same time. When all is said and done, that's really what this has been about. In the past I could give people the benefit of the doubt about this, nowadays it's been increasingly difficult to do so.

Meh, he is my favorite Lantern, hands down. I saw this as a semi logical outcome due to what happened, but killing everyone? I don't know about that but becoming Parallax and then the evil making it easier to inhabit him due to what happened makes sense. Eventually his natural willpower will force out the evil, but didn't really write it that way. There should have been more display of his internal conflict...

[Johnny]

Meh, he is my favorite Lantern, hands down. I saw this as a semi logical outcome due to what happened, but killing everyone? I don't know about that but becoming Parallax and then the evil making it easier to inhabit him due to what happened makes sense. Eventually his natural willpower will force out the evil, but didn't really write it that way. There should have been more display of his internal conflict...

But the "evil making it easier to inhabit him" is adding the space bug/outside influence concept to it. Originally Hal wasn't possessed or influenced, he just went crazy and that's not what he would do if no space bug is influencing him no matter what "existential crisis" he was going through in the early 90s.
You previously mentioned Injustice, and unlike many people I actually liked Injustice and I don't mind Superman's portrayal there because it's made abundantly clear that's not "our" Superman. The same way "our" Superman will never act like this, I can't see "our" Hal Jordan going Parallax either. Obviously Superman is far more valuable to the DC brand than Hal Jordan will ever be so I'm not making a direct comparison and DC can do all the Elseworlds stories of evil Hal they want, but doing that to the main Hal Jordan? That was a decision with a clear agenda, which is why there was so much backlash for it.

[Gaius]

Yeah, I think BMP kind of showed the main use for Parallax in a modern story is for folks remove Hal from the equation and make their personal fav the main GL.

[Johnny]

Well it's not like you need to make Hal evil to replace him anyway, he just doesn't need to be featured in whatever the outside media project happens to be. But to include him solely for that purpose clearly seems to make a statement that you want to make sure he's not around. It's amateurish, it reeks of creative bankruptcy and people who do that clearly don't want him to present a threat. After all making him a villain is very different from not featuring him at all because it gives more people the impression that "He is the Lantern that goes evil" and before you know it that's the main thing he becomes known for. It's difficult to believe this kind of thing isn't deliberate, but I still try to convince myself it's not.

[sifighter]

Do you think she, the red lantern, would fight Hal? She’s most likely alive present day so Hal vs an Alan villain legacy would be cool. Plus more magic lantern powers vs our usual space corps would be neat to see.

[Frontier]

Do you think she, the red lantern, would fight Hal? She’s most likely alive present day so Hal vs an Alan villain legacy would be cool. Plus more magic lantern powers vs our usual space corps would be neat to see.

I think it's probably more easy setup for a rivalry with Jade.

[sifighter]

I think it's probably more easy setup for a rivalry with Jade.

Yeah but which one are we first likely to see is the question. I’d be fine with John or Kyle fighting her as well, maybe even Jo as like an antagonist for our newer green lantern.

Plus I like the idea of expanding the completely separate lanterns based on magic and having them up against the Corps.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Yes. Of course it wasn't explicit, but Thaal's hurt feelings over being ghosted and his jealousy are a bit intense for a "bro." At the end, there was no real distinction between the strong feelings Carol and Thaal had for Hal, in terms of how it was treated. And yeah, them all riding off together on a rainbow certainly has connotations.

Yeah, it'd be a little crazy to expect a children's cartoon made a few years ago to explicitly show characters engaging in a three-way

[Bored at 3:00AM]

How does everyone feel about Hal becoming Parallax?
Myself, I can understand it after Mongol destroyed his city, his family and basically his earth life. When you have all that power and you couldn't stop it nor would you be able to avenge it, as a Corps member.
Can you blame him for what he did? I mean, everyone has a dark side and it takes extraordinary things to bring that out, see Injustice as an example.
Now what the writers did to him as Parallax is up to debate but I feel him becoming Parallax was the right road, given what Mongol did.

There was a lot of potential to Hal as a more antogonistic character, but unfortunately, all that potential was squandered on shitty writing. Marz was given a plot cobbled together by editorial and given three issues to execute it. And everything that followed was the same "I just want to make everything right" one-dimensional characterization repeated over and over again, with only brief flashes of something more.

[sifighter]

How does everyone feel about Hal becoming Parallax?
Myself, I can understand it after Mongol destroyed his city, his family and basically his earth life. When you have all that power and you couldn't stop it nor would you be able to avenge it, as a Corps member.
Can you blame him for what he did? I mean, everyone has a dark side and it takes extraordinary things to bring that out, see Injustice as an example.
Now what the writers did to him as Parallax is up to debate but I feel him becoming Parallax was the right road, given what Mongol did.

Not sure really, I started reading comics around the time they made Hal the Spectre and then when they revealed Parallax in Green Lantern Rebirth. So for me it was kind of this nebulous thing I would hear about that got retconned.