Hal Jordan: The Green Lantern Appreciation 2023

[HsssH]

Yeah, once upon a time, the GL legacy was viewed as Alan to Hal to Kyle much like the Flash legacy was Jay to Barry to Wally. And I'm not knocking John and Guy, who are both great characters in their own right. But they weren't really seen as Hal's successors in the way Kyle was back then. Honestly, I think that the Justice League cartoon is the primary reason for John rising to prominence and finally being seen as one of the main GLs. Before that, he and Guy were kind of seen as the "other" Green Lanterns.

Now, John and Hal are seen mostly as equals and Kyle has sort of faded into the background. It's weird how these things change so drastically.

I sometimes wonder how things would be if Kyle was adapted instead of John.

[Johnny]

He was adapted, he was the first GL introduced in the DCAU and they even gave him Hal's origin. They didn't put him in the Justice League because of how he looked like. That's really what it boiled down to, as much if not more so than character dynamics. And it's understandable and made business sense, but the DCAU screwed over Kyle fans even more than Hal fans, which is ironic because Hal is the one people usually think was hurt by being excluded from that show, when really it was Kyle. They at least did adapt Hal in a bunch of other things afterwards, Kyle is still M.I.A.

[skyvolt2000]

I'm likely wrong, but to me it always looked like Kyle was the second most succesful replacement after, obviously, Wally. So there was less motivation to roll things back.

In terms of issues Kyle's run was 131. That is the second longest run for a GL not named Hal. It is also the longest solo for a POC (Catwoman and Nightwing notwithstanding) and longest for a Hispanic character at DC and only POC with 100 solo issues.

So there is a long significance with that run.

I would say love of the Silver Age did in Kyle (and Wally).

They didn't put him in the Justice League because of how he looked like. That's really what it boiled down to, as much if not more so than character dynamics. And it's understandable and made business sense, but the DCAU screwed over Kyle fans even more than Hal fans, which is ironic because Hal is the one people usually think was hurt by being excluded from that show, when really it was Kyle. They at least did adapt Hal in a bunch of other things afterwards, Kyle is still M.I.A.

An early draft that never made it to animation had Hal on the team with Vixen. I want to say McDuffie said that was the first pitch for the series that they did.

Remember when it came to the DCAU-who got used had to be approved by others not Timm or McDuffie or anyone who did the shows. Because in the minds of the higher up if you had a project in the works you couldn't be in the cartoons. Nevermind Smallville's later seasons.

It's why Aquaman was taken out of the JLU show and Firestorm was taken out and Booster Gold was put in that Booster Gold centric episode that always referenced Plastic Man but never showed him.

I want to say there was some rumor about a Green Lantern movie with Hal being played by Jack Black. But that wouldn't explain Hal's tv absence from 1986-2011. Were they working on that movie for that long?

And that wouldn't explain the toy absence either. We got Huntress and Black Lightning in Total Justice line.

[Johnny]

Right, and there were other early drafts with Black Lightning too, but whatever the reasons for not settling for those characters, in the end they shafted both Hal and Kyle, with the former hardly surprising given DC wouldn't even allow him to be GL in the comics let alone somewhere else, while the latter was both the only GL in the comics and already introduced in the DCAU. Producers or network executives look at the core JL roster and see 5 white guys, one white girl and one green alien, and even though by that point Wally and Kyle were firmly established, they were still two white dudes who were just younger than their predecessors, so one of them had to go. Hence why Kyle wasn't adapted, despite that DC was heavily invested in him at the time.

[NathanS]

And Kyle was not Hispanic till 2002 and the lat 31 issues of his run. Justice League animated came out in 2001 when he was still purely white. (as I note later I can't really give Kyle credit for being Hispanic representation prior to that being added any more than I would give Hal crdit for being Jewish rep prior to 2015 and Darkseid War Green Lantern or Dick Grayson credit for being Romania before that was added to him in 2001 in Gotham Knights #20.)

[j9ac9k]

And Kyle was not Hispanic till 2002 and the lat 31 issues of his run. Justice League animated came out in 2001 when he was still purely white. (as I note later I can't really give Kyle credit for being Hispanic representation prior to that being added any more than I would give Hal crdit for being Jewish rep prior to 2015 and Darkseid War Green Lantern or Dick Grayson credit for being Romania before that was added to him in 2001 in Gotham Knights #20.)

Fwiw, Hal was referred to as half Jewish during his Spectre title - not sure what issue. Also not sure if that was the first time it came up.

[NathanS]

Hmmm I'm 99% sure that's wrong, but I'd have to do a close re-read of the Specter stuff I suppose its possible I've missed it in the past.

I mentioned it last time but the 90s kicked off with a story that was already causing controversy over how Hal was being written, namely the addition of him drunk driving. There were a lot of reasons some people where not cool with this. (To be clear not everyone had an issue with it, and some liked the story and defended it, we’ll touch on the defense in just a sec. Some though it was it was fine to have Hal mess up and even hurt his friends as part of a “growing up” style origin story, but a DUI was just, the wrong way to get there. He’s pilot, more than that he’s a test pilot. How the hell was he ever allowed to be a pilot ever again, much less a test pilot after getting DUI? Or that breaking the law like that and being undisciplined was out of character for Hal. His flaws came from being too unbending about law and authority.

The other stances were not wanting something so real in superhero comics, and wanting Hal to be just a stand up hero. Some people very much like DC silver age style heroes with basically no real flaws and are just sort of living embodiment of what society sees as right and just. So well Hal had in fact spent a good portion of his run getting rounded out as a character and picking up some minor flaws here and there, well as we’ll discuss not everyone was happy with that, and this very firm feet of clay was a lot more overt. Oh and keep the “Yeah before this Hal was a perfect shining pardon with no flaws and little depth, what of it, I LIKE that!” faction in mind. They will be coming back later. But also keep in mind they are just a faction.

Emerald Dawn is well the Dawn of a lot. How to interpret Hal from the Broome/Fox stuff varies, but overtly making Hal have arguments with the Guardians and in ED II even doubt them with zero outside promoting (I.E Ollie in HTH) had never really been done before.




So as noted going into the 90s some already had a feeling that at some point things had gone off the rails for Hal. And as also said Gerard Jones was one of those. We have an interview where he blatantly says as much, but honestly all you really need to do is read his Secret Origins for Thomas.



In a quick overview of why people might have felt things had gone off the rails even before ET, let’s look at the last two decades as they looked like when zoomed out and what the current state of GL was. The 70s were hard, the first two years saw the HTH shoot GL and GA into critical relevancy, right before they lost their shared book and landed in back-ups. And as noted and we’ll talk about more, HTH was not without its controversy. For half a decade Hal lived in a backup, and the second half, mostly just existed and Hal spent most of it as a…. truck driver. And the 80s was pure chaos. Hal goes from finally being back in his traditional status quo as a test pilot for Ferris well dating Carol, to exiled in space, and then back to Earth. Only to quite being GL and get mopey, John becomes the main GL, Crisis happens and now Guy is back and also a GL, and then Hal is back as a GL, but the Guardians are gone and a bunch of GLs are all hanging out on Earth, and then the damn central battery is blown up and only Hal, Guy and Ch’pp are GLs. Oh And the whole Arisa thing happened in there. Lovely.

All that leads us to Action Comics Weekly. Now the evidence does suggest being placed as one of the two non-rotating features goes Englehart’ statement that GL was being picked because it was seen as a popular feature that could bring in readers, but it was easy to see GL losing its book as mark against it from the outside. And its opening issues saw John and Hal’s lives being torn apart by tragedy. The killing of Katma Tui, John encouraging Hal to take diamonds from an abounded mine in South Africa, which will lead John as the known GL, despite not having a ring at the moment, imprisoned, and also framed for murder of Carol, and Hal finding no one in the Hero community that wants to give him any emotional support at all. Well things leveled off after that, you can see where the idea that Hal’s time after the 60s had been a lot of misery, especially recently would come form.

So going into volume 3, the volume that changed everything for Hal, who had he been? What had marked him out as a character that people would already be responding to, consciously and subconsciously? To get there we need to go back to when he was a Hard Traveling Hero.

[Mutatis_Mutandis]

Hmmm I'm 99% sure that's wrong, but I'd have to do a close re-read of the Specter stuff I suppose its possible I've missed it in the past.

I mentioned it last time but the 90s kicked off with a story that was already causing controversy over how Hal was being written, namely the addition of him drunk driving. There were a lot of reasons some people where not cool with this. (To be clear not everyone had an issue with it, and some liked the story and defended it, we’ll touch on the defense in just a sec. Some though it was it was fine to have Hal mess up and even hurt his friends as part of a “growing up” style origin story, but a DUI was just, the wrong way to get there. He’s pilot, more than that he’s a test pilot. How the hell was he ever allowed to be a pilot ever again, much less a test pilot after getting DUI? Or that breaking the law like that and being undisciplined was out of character for Hal. His flaws came from being too unbending about law and authority.

The other stances were not wanting something so real in superhero comics, and wanting Hal to be just a stand up hero. Some people very much like DC silver age style heroes with basically no real flaws and are just sort of living embodiment of what society sees as right and just. So well Hal had in fact spent a good portion of his run getting rounded out as a character and picking up some minor flaws here and there, well as we’ll discuss not everyone was happy with that, and this very firm feet of clay was a lot more overt. Oh and keep the “Yeah before this Hal was a perfect shining pardon with no flaws and little depth, what of it, I LIKE that!” faction in mind. They will be coming back later. But also keep in mind they are just a faction.

Emerald Dawn is well the Dawn of a lot. How to interpret Hal from the Broome/Fox stuff varies, but overtly making Hal have arguments with the Guardians and in ED II even doubt them with zero outside promoting (I.E Ollie in HTH) had never really been done before.




So as noted going into the 90s some already had a feeling that at some point things had gone off the rails for Hal. And as also said Gerard Jones was one of those. We have an interview where he blatantly says as much, but honestly all you really need to do is read his Secret Origins for Thomas.



In a quick overview of why people might have felt things had gone off the rails even before ET, let’s look at the last two decades as they looked like when zoomed out and what the current state of GL was. The 70s were hard, the first two years saw the HTH shoot GL and GA into critical relevancy, right before they lost their shared book and landed in back-ups. And as noted and we’ll talk about more, HTH was not without its controversy. For half a decade Hal lived in a backup, and the second half, mostly just existed and Hal spent most of it as a…. truck driver. And the 80s was pure chaos. Hal goes from finally being back in his traditional status quo as a test pilot for Ferris well dating Carol, to exiled in space, and then back to Earth. Only to quite being GL and get mopey, John becomes the main GL, Crisis happens and now Guy is back and also a GL, and then Hal is back as a GL, but the Guardians are gone and a bunch of GLs are all hanging out on Earth, and then the damn central battery is blown up and only Hal, Guy and Ch’pp are GLs. Oh And the whole Arisa thing happened in there. Lovely.

All that leads us to Action Comics Weekly. Now the evidence does suggest being placed as one of the two non-rotating features goes Englehart’ statement that GL was being picked because it was seen as a popular feature that could bring in readers, but it was easy to see GL losing its book as mark against it from the outside. And its opening issues saw John and Hal’s lives being torn apart by tragedy. The killing of Katma Tui, John encouraging Hal to take diamonds from an abounded mine in South Africa, which will lead John as the known GL, despite not having a ring at the moment, imprisoned, and also framed for murder of Carol, and Hal finding no one in the Hero community that wants to give him any emotional support at all. Well things leveled off after that, you can see where the idea that Hal’s time after the 60s had been a lot of misery, especially recently would come form.

So going into volume 3, the volume that changed everything for Hal, who had he been? What had marked him out as a character that people would already be responding to, consciously and subconsciously? To get there we need to go back to when he was a Hard Traveling Hero.

Great post, FWIW, I think volume 3 did start out strong and The Road Back sort of acknowledged the past while setting things in the right direction again. I think it began to steadily lose direction somewhere around the 20-25th issue though, especially once Hal is back on Earth. Then the portrayal of Hal really does become a stodgy, boring "elder statesman" hero of sorts. I might be misremembering but didn't Jones say in an interview that he wanted to write Hal one way but the instructions from editorial - especially Dooley - were that Hal be written as the same character as HTH? But even in HTH, I thought he was more interesting than in the second half of the first 50 issues of volume 3.

[StarSpangledMan]

It's always a joy to read another post by NathanS!

Y'all:

[StarSpangledMan]

Art by George Kambadais

[HsssH]

It's always a joy to read another post by NathanS!

Y'all:

I remember he said the same about Aquaman Andromeda. Won't be shocked if his next project is something else as well, but please support it for Green Lightning.

[Frontier]

It's always a joy to read another post by NathanS!

Y'all:

Agreed .

I didn't know he had an idea for a GL book.

[Hypo]

https://twitter.com/almosthomefree/s...61969598238720

[Frontier]

I like Hal and Jess' relationship .

[j9ac9k]

Agreed .

I didn't know he had an idea for a GL book.

He also sees Hal as having some thicc-ass thighs... (I'm not even going to start about the boots...)