Hal Jordan: The Green Lantern Appreciation 2022

[NathanS]

Hal has such a strong supporting cast back then.

Sort of? The blocks were there but in the Silver Age they honestly weren't used a ton. Carol fell into the background well before Hal left Coast City. Jack Jordan tended just to be there with no real personality. Jim and Sue mostly had the one bit of 'her being lead to believe Jim is GL.' he had a sort of lucky care free laid back personality I suppose and it's clear all three brothers loved each other. Tom never really rose above 'Hal's pal' in the Silver age even before Hal left Coast City. The real periods where Hal has a supporting cast and they are getting used are Marv Wolfman's run, Lein Wien's run, kind of Englehart's but so much of his is focused on the GLC of Earth being each other's supporting cast. And the first two are very short runs. Wien last like 15 issues before his writer block gets him to leave and Wolfman lasted 18 before his work load pulled him off and he kicked Hal into space and without any supporting cast.

Having just finished the ACW period re-read I don't hate it as much as I have and there are clear attempts to give Hal a good supporting cast... but the "okay first five issues is Priest.... wait, no, it's Peter David as the writer for ten issues, nope, back to PRiest for like the last 15-20. This means it's very stop-and-go. Peter has just finished laying a lot of groundwork for where he wanted to take Hal and the series when he's yanked. Preist sets up a big supporting cast REAL quick when he comes back in with The Gremlins. And he's still building stuff with them through his run and into Secret Origin and the second of GL specials but when Volume 3 starts up they dump them.

Hal starts getting a new status quo and cast together around issue 25 of volume 3... and then like 20 issues later they make sure almost all of them are in Coast City to get blown up despite Hal not living in Coast City at the time.

So yeah Hal's always had potential with supporting casts... but they never last that long before something behind the scenes means he gets pulled away from them.

[Frontier]

I wish they'd do more with Tom and Carol.

[Johnny]

I wish they'd do more with Tom and Carol.

I wish they'd do more with Hal.

More regularly that is.

And without writing him poorly or involving Parallax.

I wish too much, don't I.

[Frontier]

I wish they'd do more with Hal.

More regularly that is.

And without writing him poorly or involving Parallax.

I wish too much, don't I.

We're in the same boat .

[Johnny]

We're in the same boat .

What do they say, the real test is how you handle the bad times? Since I wasn't a GL fan during the previous bad times, guess now it's that time for me.

[silly]

Sort of? The blocks were there but in the Silver Age they honestly weren't used a ton. Carol fell into the background well before Hal left Coast City. Jack Jordan tended just to be there with no real personality. Jim and Sue mostly had the one bit of 'her being lead to believe Jim is GL.' he had a sort of lucky care free laid back personality I suppose and it's clear all three brothers loved each other. Tom never really rose above 'Hal's pal' in the Silver age even before Hal left Coast City. The real periods where Hal has a supporting cast and they are getting used are Marv Wolfman's run, Lein Wien's run, kind of Englehart's but so much of his is focused on the GLC of Earth being each other's supporting cast. And the first two are very short runs. Wien last like 15 issues before his writer block gets him to leave and Wolfman lasted 18 before his work load pulled him off and he kicked Hal into space and without any supporting cast.

Having just finished the ACW period re-read I don't hate it as much as I have and there are clear attempts to give Hal a good supporting cast... but the "okay first five issues is Priest.... wait, no, it's Peter David as the writer for ten issues, nope, back to PRiest for like the last 15-20. This means it's very stop-and-go. Peter has just finished laying a lot of groundwork for where he wanted to take Hal and the series when he's yanked. Preist sets up a big supporting cast REAL quick when he comes back in with The Gremlins. And he's still building stuff with them through his run and into Secret Origin and the second of GL specials but when Volume 3 starts up they dump them.

Hal starts getting a new status quo and cast together around issue 25 of volume 3... and then like 20 issues later they make sure almost all of them are in Coast City to get blown up despite Hal not living in Coast City at the time.

So yeah Hal's always had potential with supporting casts... but they never last that long before something behind the scenes means he gets pulled away from them.

I am really interested in Coast City getting attention. It seems like most stories happen in Gotham. It would be nice to see the Qwardians and Manhunters hiding in plain sight in Coast City.

[andersonh1]

I think at this point it's hard to picture Hal happily settling down on Earth again and having a series of adventures there as the main basis for a series. So much of his time has been spent off-planet in the last decade of real time (with the Morrison series even making a point that he didn't like to go back there much, having seen so much beyond Earth) that it would feel like a retrograde move to return the character to Coast City, fighting the old cadre of villains. I think he should touch base there from time to time, but I can't see him spending extended amounts of time there at this point in his life.

[silly]

I wish they'd do more with Hal.

More regularly that is.

And without writing him poorly or involving Parallax.

I wish too much, don't I.

No you don't Johnny.

[silly]

https://www.cbr.com/green-lantern-co...n-should-read/

I'm glad Earth One was included.

[HsssH]

First place is surprising to say the least. It is more like a pointless filler than a must read.

[ironman2978]

First place is surprising to say the least. It is more like a pointless filler than a must read.

I honestly would have had a few other GL stories on the list: The Last Wiil & Testament, GL/GA: Hard Traveling Heroes, WillWorld, "Emerald Knights" (Kyle meeting a time displaced Hal Jordan), New Frontier or Justice


Honestly I am glad Earth One made the list too. It is a good introduction to the GL universe while being an alternate universe.

[Gaius]

I wouldn't really put much stock in that list. I mean it seems to skip just about everything in between Hal's debut and Emerald Twilight.

[NathanS]

To be honest I'm kind of glad Hard Traveling Heroes is starting to fall off the list of Hal must-reads given I'm really not a fan of how O'Neil handled him there. Though yeah some pre-rebirth stuff would have been nice. (Now if only we could get ET off the list... hell I'll say there was potential there but that story doesn't really pull it off. And once they gave Hal as Parallax the one goal of 're-write all of history' their hands were kind of tied with the chachter. you get Zero Hour out of that and then... well if his one goal is to do Zero Hour again you can't just keep redoing it. Maybe Marz had some good ideas for him but the Silver Surfer cross-over being warmed over Zero Hour, but without him even erasing history but it still being treated as awful didn't inspire a ton of confidence.)

[NathanS]

I wouldn't really put much stock in that list. I mean it seems to skip just about everything in between Hal's debut and Emerald Twilight.

To be fair... a lot of people do. Part of it is that it was only like... 2012 we got most of his late 80s stuff reprinted. 2020 for most of his 70s stuff. His Gerard Jones stuff is all purged for VERY understandable reasons. Hal's history prior to ET has been mostly overlooked by all but his most dedicated fans. Beacuse so much of it was inescapable. With the exception of Hard Traveling Heroes which again well super well done and very important to the history of the medium is not a great showing for him as a character.

It's part of the way it was easy to paint him as dull. The most recent series at the time of ET had him as an old man often wondering about his place in the world as that's what Kevin Dooley saw him as. And well today such characterization would be likely held up as a novel, even deep, at the time to most younger readers it was just DULL. And first impressions are hard to shake. hilariously it was Hal with a clear flaw that helped make him seen as 'dull and flawless' because it wasn't as in your face as say Guy's ego.

[Refrax5]

What do they say, the real test is how you handle the bad times? Since I wasn't a GL fan during the previous bad times, guess now it's that time for me.

I was reading GL in the 90s when Hal was dead and DC seemed committed to keeping him that way. This is nothing in comparison.