Hal Jordan: The Green Lantern Appreciation 2023

[Mutatis_Mutandis]

Yeah, Powell is talented, but it feels like a boring choice. He also seems a little too preppy and frat boy for Hal in my opinion. I'm not sure who I'd pick.

Agreed.

Jensen Ackles would be a great Hal Jordan.

I can see it, he certainly looks the part, and I think he can skirt the line between being cocky and obnoxious, while also being heroic, and exuding a slight air of melancholy.

j9ac9k and Refrax5 are right on the money. For pop culture analogues I would also point to Poe Dameron and Captain Kirk, specifically Pine's Kirk in ST Beyond or Shatner's Kirk in TOS.

The easiest way I've described Hal is that he's a mix of two American archetypes; the roguish charm, impulsiveness, and swagger of a hotshot pilot/astronaut; and the fierce independence, love of justice, and loneliness of an Old West gunslinger. Whether young or old he is the quintessential space ranger.

This is absolutely spot on.

[Mutatis_Mutandis]

What is younger Hal's vibe supposed to be? Obviously it can't be all establishment like it was in those really old Hsrd Heroes ones. But it also can't be the older statesmen with a bit of gruff from those Twilight times and after. But also it can't be like Ryan Reynolds did because he was kind of ...gross. The Grant Morrison Liam Sharp books kind of made him a weird mix of the Captain Kirk from the old timey Star Track shows (not the new time travel ones) and that Mel Gibson cop from the deadly weapons movies
Are any of those how you see him?

Morrison's Hal was much more of a mix of Cool Hand Luke, the man with no name, and Justified's Raylan Givens than Kirk.

It's always a joy to read posts by NathanS.

Also wanted to echo this sentiment.

[Frontier]

Not to keep on the Kirk bent, but I think Paul Wesley would be a solid Hal.

I have to say that with the exception of the Abin Sur sequence, the Knight Terrors issue didn't do much for me at all. Dragging up Martin's death at this point as a source of trauma for Hal feels like the umpteenth bis repetita - King did this exceptionally well but that was because it had less to do with Martin's death than themes about determinism and free will. But at this point, with everything the character has gone through, including facing zombie Martin during Blackest Night (or am I misremembering this? - nonetheless I think my point would still stand broadly), why would one of his secret terrors be watching zombie Martin rise from a coffin? As he told Beelzebeth during the Morrison run, "I've relived my dad's death and every betrayal a thousand times...I don't do inner demons and I don't do regrets."

A more interesting approach would have been to see Hal unfazed in the face of most of what Insomnia had to throw his way. It might not make sense for other characters but it does make sense for Hal, this is a man who has been to the far reaches of space, encountered innumerable horrors, has been the Spectre, has had the literal embodiment of fear possess him and fought it off. I don't mean to say he should be too "cool" or "badass" to be above having any fears or insecurities, but his experience with "fear" should be something far more interesting. The Abin Sur sequence at least made sense if we consider that Hal is currently depressed due to whatever happened that made him quit the corps. The rest of it just felt very generic and uninspired.

I want to say more about some of the problems I'm having with Adams' run so far (which, so far, reminds me of one of my least favorite Bronze Age runs - the Wein run), but maybe later. I enjoyed the first issue in spite of not being a fan of the "Maverick" characterization of Hal, but the second issue didn't really do much for me sadly.

I could be wrong but I think some of the Night Terrors is just dredging up really old fears/concerns, even stuff the characters have mostly gotten over by that point.

[HsssH]

Pretty much every older hero has some trauma or fear and it has been mined over the years. It is hard to say anything new on that front.

[NathanS]

Sooooooo, you know that thing on what the conversation around Hal was like in the 90s (at least as I saw it) thing I've mentioned? Yeah, yeah it end up being... big. So, gonna put it out in parts over a period of days.

Okay so I keep touching on it but its been noted by some that Hal… changed in his revival in Rebirth. How big this change looks varies form person to person and some would argue its not there, and others would go so far as to say what was created in rebirth and the following volume 4 was an all new character. Being Mr. indecisive I can land in many spots in the middle of the two extremes. But I would say the take on the character that emerged from Rebirth has its roots in the work being done, and the conversation around Hal in the 90s.

Even before Emerald Twilight happened some had a feeling Hal had been derailed. Certainly his writer for Volume 3, Gerard Jones felt that way. And of course once Emerald Twilight hit, the question was, when had it all gone wrong? What had lead to a character that had lasted for 25 or so years to being seen as so undesirable that doing something as drastic as making him a mass murderer was seen as ‘okay’? The Hawks and old Ray had been far less consistent sellers, yet they hadn’t been killed off or smeared in such a way. (though of course with hindsight we know dark days were ahead for the Hawks, though if it is better to just be shelved or what happened with Hal is up to debate.) and they knew the thought of this being done to say Batman or Superman was nil. (Yes, yes we get a lot of injustice Superman these days, its still outside the main canon and decades off from when this was happening.) So the rushed nature of it, the comment at the top of the letter page of GL v3 #50 talking about Hal’s character not changing, and being a hard character to write about…

It added up to the whole thing being hard not to see as an active slight on the character. Less “telling a great tragic story” and more “Hal as the old and busted model that needs replacing for the young sleek sexy modern version.” That Hal was so bad they could do anything to him and could and did tear down the very version of GL that had build up around him just to get him out of the way. (And didn’t John get caught in the collateral. Oh boy!)

Though, to be clear Dooley would in later letter pages argue that in fact it was a perfectly natural line for the character to go down and in fact some people do agree. Now I think we’ve certainly meet the “the only time I’ve found Hal interesting is as Parallax” where that internist feels far more… theoretical than in practice, like its trying to find a polite way to say “I'd like him out of the way as much as possible”. But there are very much fans of Hal as Parallax people invested in that take, who like Hal and his stories but find his journey leading him to the place of a broken man doing questionable things fascinating. Hal may not have as many takes on him as Superman or Batman, but he still has enough to make some fractures in his fandom over what version of him people like. The feeling on his Parallax arc is just the largest and most obvious of the fractures. Though I don’t think we have many people super big on the Parallax period here. Still I feel it would be wrong to act as if they don’t exist.

But back to the main thrust most people at the time saw ET as judgment on Hal as a character. I think this is sometimes lost on newer fans coming in, and why it can be touchy wound for some who went through the period when it was in play. That it was the higher ups giving Hal a thumbs down. That he was so bad as a main character he was only fit to be broken and left on the margins, haunting as an occasional cosmic baddy and otherwise left on the shelf. This came from both those who railed against the judgment and those who were all for it. Hence the great argument put forward that Hal was boring. That it was a deserved fate for a character that could cut in the kiddy silver age but was just no longer good enough now that writing standards were higher. Things would have always been touchy even if he had just gone down a hero. I mean see The Flash Fandom prior to Barry’s return. It was better, but there were still hard feelings lurking around. Things would have always been touchy even if it was a carefully crafted narrative that was meant as closing of a chapter on part of a character's life and entering a dark chapter made with nothing but pure love and a feeling this was story worth telling. But that for most people on both sides of the debate it was seen as a judgment of Hal, a declaration he was a poor character and a fossil, yeah hard feelings all around.

But we need to start with well the very start of the 90s, before ET, before the question of ‘how did we get here’ rose like a cry, before volume 3 came out, we need to start at the Dawn. Emerald Dawn.

[j9ac9k]

I don't think it was a case of "Hal was so terrible DC had to go scorched earth on his whole legacy." I think it was more a case of "Green Lantern is a pillar of the DCU, so let's repeat the success of "Death of Superman" and "Knightfall" but this time, so the fans know we mean it, we'll turn Hal evil! It was the reasoning behind them scrapping the first proposal for "Emerald Twilight" after all - it didn't go far enough and had to top those previous two events. If anything, they knew Hal was important enough that an event like this could be a big seller. And while I don't think they thought Hal was terrible, nobody there loved him enough to save him. The IP - the name "Green Lantern" was the most important thing. Which is why they got rid the all other ring bearers - not because DC thought they were terrible characters either, they were just chasing sales.

[NathanS]

Well there is truth to this, though honestly Guy did fine and arguably had his best writing in the wake of ET, so really just Hal and John that got hit really bad. That's not how it was seen and well again this is what the editor told us at the very end of ET:


So yeah they did not help in stopping the whole thing from being seen as a referendum on Hal. And again that's what the conversation in the fandom was. Do some digging and the talking point around ET and Hal in the wake of it was "is Hal a bad character or not" with "ET happened because he was a boring character" as like number one on the list of evidence given by the "yeah Hal sucks side" And those were the main sides, 'Hal sucks so good he was replaced' or 'no so it was bad he was replaced.' Oh you very much had other opinions on the fringes, the "Hal was a great character and this was a great turn for him." group existed. As did some others I'm sure, but those were the main voice in the conversation.

[Frontier]

I don't think it was a case of "Hal was so terrible DC had to go scorched earth on his whole legacy." I think it was more a case of "Green Lantern is a pillar of the DCU, so let's repeat the success of "Death of Superman" and "Knightfall" but this time, so the fans know we mean it, we'll turn Hal evil! It was the reasoning behind them scrapping the first proposal for "Emerald Twilight" after all - it didn't go far enough and had to top those previous two events. If anything, they knew Hal was important enough that an event like this could be a big seller. And while I don't think they thought Hal was terrible, nobody there loved him enough to save him. The IP - the name "Green Lantern" was the most important thing. Which is why they got rid the all other ring bearers - not because DC thought they were terrible characters either, they were just chasing sales.

I wonder how different things would've been had they not stuck with Kyle and brought Hal back sooner like they did with other replacement heroes, but I guess to them Kyle was the same as Wally at the time.

[j9ac9k]

Well there is truth to this, though honestly Guy did fine and arguably had his best writing in the wake of ET, so really just Hal and John that got hit really bad. That's not how it was seen and well again this is what the editor told us at the very end of ET:


So yeah they did not help in stopping the whole thing from being seen as a referendum on Hal. And again that's what the conversation in the fandom was. Do some digging and the talking point around ET and Hal in the wake of it was "is Hal a bad character or not" with "ET happened because he was a boring character" as like number one on the list of evidence given by the "yeah Hal sucks side" And those were the main sides, 'Hal sucks so good he was replaced' or 'no so it was bad he was replaced.' Oh you very much had other opinions on the fringes, the "Hal was a great character and this was a great turn for him." group existed. As did some others I'm sure, but those were the main voice in the conversation.

You're talking about different things, so I'm not clear what you're getting at. I was just talking about my opinion on the why DC created "ET" rather than the fan discourse. And yes, most of those conversations happened after "ET" - when Hal fans expressed their displeasure, some defensive Kyle fans and others who never cared for Hal felt annoyed by the complaints in a "why would you care so much about this character I couldn't care less about?" way and doubled-down on the "Hal was boring" and "Hal was too perfect" stuff. Like Dooley said, (that was Dooley, right?) most people weren't really thinking about Hal. I'd also take his words with a grain of salt, as he's putting a spin on things to justify "ET" and with the intent of getting people to buy the new book while not pissing off any fans.(any more than they already were)

And Guy's success or not post ET isn't really relevant, as the point is that nobody was allowed to be GL. I only mentioned that to show that it wasn't about "getting Hal" as much as it was about trying to sell the new guy. (and while the others were fallout from "ET" there was no reason to throw them out with the bath water if their intent was to simply get rid of Hal, is all I'm saying)

[Refrax5]

Well there is truth to this, though honestly Guy did fine and arguably had his best writing in the wake of ET, so really just Hal and John that got hit really bad. That's not how it was seen and well again this is what the editor told us at the very end of ET:


So yeah they did not help in stopping the whole thing from being seen as a referendum on Hal. And again that's what the conversation in the fandom was. Do some digging and the talking point around ET and Hal in the wake of it was "is Hal a bad character or not" with "ET happened because he was a boring character" as like number one on the list of evidence given by the "yeah Hal sucks side" And those were the main sides, 'Hal sucks so good he was replaced' or 'no so it was bad he was replaced.' Oh you very much had other opinions on the fringes, the "Hal was a great character and this was a great turn for him." group existed. As did some others I'm sure, but those were the main voice in the conversation.

That letter always grated on me. It pretty much read as, "Sorry, but the character sucks" and their comments about Hal never changing were pretty ridiculous since he had a lot of changes to his status quo and his personality evolved a lot. It just always seemed like such a BS line of reasoning.

And I say this as somebody who likes Kyle Rayner and enjoyed a number of stories with Hal as Parallax.

[NathanS]

Yeah as I said, things were going to be rocky no matter what. But when the face of the company to the readers steps in to declare "man what a bad charterer!" oh boy did that not help no matter your feelings on the quality of the story itself and what came after. On a lighter note, and speaking of Hal's chaotic life, recently this old video got re-uploaded and boy is it a nostalgia trip coming from the ore-ribirth era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5UqP8HvByc

[HsssH]

I wonder how different things would've been had they not stuck with Kyle and brought Hal back sooner like they did with other replacement heroes, but I guess to them Kyle was the same as Wally at the time.

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.

[Frontier]

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.

Yeah, I think Kyle held the title longer than anyone not named Hal.

[Refrax5]

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.

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.

[Johnny]