I was too young to be reading comics back then but having read Emerald Twilight, I can only say that it's an absolute turd of a story.
I was too young to be reading comics back then but having read Emerald Twilight, I can only say that it's an absolute turd of a story.
I'd qualify that for DC: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Lantern are the 5 foundational characters of the DCU. They were designed to be noble, inspirational. And pre-Crisis at least, Hal was right there with Superman and Batman in the nobility and self-sacrifice department. So removing these characteristics to generate controversy and short-term sales is just silly.
Except that it works. Unfortunately, our culture loves controversy. So at the last minute Hal is rewritten to become a bad guy. That's the direct market audience; writers and editors revamp characters to fit the stories they want to tell, and the controversy brings in the herd. And this continues - see Wally West now.
Last edited by Dr. Ellingham; 06-15-2019 at 11:46 AM.
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Perhaps they didn't care whether it made sense or not, as opposed to just going for the perceived shocking twist of the hero becoming the very thing he always fought against in the form of his former mentor. Which would explain why Hal killed Sinestro before he absorbed the central power battery's power, as in he became the next Sinestro, cause why not. lol It's garbage.
Another thing I disagree with is the narrative that Hal needed to be replaced because he wasn't selling and therefore noone cared about him. If noone cared about him, why did fans keep complaining about ET for a decade afterwards. Perhaps what they didn't care for was the type of stories DC were telling with Hal, not about the fact that Hal was the star of the franchise. Maybe people wanted to read the type of stories that Geoff Johns did in the 2000s or Grant Morrison is doing now, maybe they wanted the young brash hotshot Hal and not the disillusioned grizzled veteran he was turned into at the time, I don't know. I just think it's really convenient to blame it on the character when it could be so many other contributing factors.
I understand that part of your sentiment. As a (sort of) John Stewart fan, I find the behavior embarrassing and tiring. Yes, it's frustrating when your favorite character isn't treated exactly how you want them to be, but wearing people out with literally the same unsolicited rhetoric over and over and over and over again at any possible opportunity isn't the way to go. There's got to be a better way than annoying people.
Yeah, it kind of sucks that John Stewart wasn't chosen to lead Green Lantern when Hal went nuts. That seems like the logical thing to do from a narrative perspective. But from DC's point of view, they had already done something similar when Hal quit the Corps and John took over. DC wanted a big reaction, and to maximize that, they probably felt they needed to do something totally new instead of retread ground. I don't know if racial prejudice comes into play here, because Guy Gardner also wasn't used to lead the Green Lantern franchise.
Regarding Parallax, I think he's a really intriguing character with an excellent design. I think he's one of DC's better villains and probably Green Lantern's best. However, Hal Jordan's turn to evil wasn't earned or believable. The actual story was terrible, rushed, and just thrown together for shock value, but some really fascinating stuff came from it. Parallax can work really well, but you would need much better storytelling than what was done at the time.
I really hate Johns' idea of the yellow cockroach. That just sucks as a concept.
Last edited by Vampire Savior; 06-15-2019 at 04:20 PM.
The poster was just pointing out that other characters were treated the same way. John was just mentioned as one of those characters in his example. John Stewart wasn't the only one. Some just happened to disagree he was treated the worse. As I said, Hal Jordan got treated bad, but what DC did for him paid off.
I don't know whether this is some kind of joke or not. But yet John fans are the only one's who are considered petulant.
Um, no. Hal Jordan was brought back because Kyle's ongoing wasn't doing well in the market. Being brought back because he's great is rather subjective. Those black characters that you mentioned don't share the same costume capes. They're also a Marvel property, not DC. So yea, there is a difference. Hal Jordan and John Stewart are sharing the same mantle. Hal Jordan is a good example of "white privilege". It's easier for a white writer to identify himself with a white character than a black character. It's the reason why all three white Green Lanterns during the Johns era had solo books and played larger roles than the John Stewart character. Racial bias still exists in DC Comics.
Last edited by Sodam Yat; 06-15-2019 at 04:58 PM.
Well for me, at the time I had no idea who Sinestro was. Issue 50 told me he was a big villain who had been trapped in the Central Battery but that was all I knew. So the fact that we already had a villain in a vaguely similar mold went right over my head.
And wasnt Sinestro more of a mustache twirling villain back then, instead of the quasi-noble one he's become since?
Anyway, like I said, for me the appeal of Parallax was, and remains, the idea of a hero of Hal's caliber going bad. That's not just a villain, that's a threat to the very fabric of DC morality. It's taking the binary ethics of "white hat/black hat" and introducing the dangerous concept of heroes doing questionable things in the name of the greater good (which is far more common today than it was then, granted). Someone who knows everybody's secrets and all the passwords and weaknesses? That's scary, and the fact that Hal wasn't doing what he was doing for personal gain, that he (thought) he was still fighting the same good fight? I found (and still find) that to be a very compelling story. Every villain believes themselves to be the hero of their own story, but with Hal there was actually truth to it.
I wont defend the execution of ET, because it wasn't a well told story. But conceptually I still think Hal was at his most interesting as Parallax.
"We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe."
~ Black Panther.
Perhaps, but I myself came on board the GL train with Johns, so I got properly "introduced" to Sinestro that way (though I'd been aware of him before), and the Johns take onward seems to fit the Darth Vader bill. So, I suppose retroactively, it seems redundant to turn Hal into the figure when another long time figure can fulfill that function, at least to me. And hey, wasn't Darth Vader kind of a one-note mustache twirler in his very first appearance? He didn't get a backstory until the sequels.
I see your point about Parallax being interesting conceptually, but to me it's pretty telling that it is the posters who either disliked Hal or were never strongly attached to him/liked other Lanterns viewing it as interesting, while the Hal fans who like who like him for who he is (either long time fans who were around at the time, or who came later) can't roll with it at all. I think it'd be the same no matter who the character was, especially the big name ones. I'm sure there are some who see what was recently done to Wally as an interesting development, but they are pretty rare, the diehard Wally fans absolutely loathe it and are reacting as if this is Emerald Twilight 2: This Time It's Personal.
And, no matter how well thought out, would you be ok with them doing a similar arc with Superman in the main canon and having it be planned to stick indefinitely? And worse, have it be potentially on the table for adaptations? Having to relive Emerald Twilight in other media is a pretty standard fear for Hal fans from what I've seen.
Oh, I totally agree with you. Of course fans who like Hal as he is wouldn't want him changed like that, while the rest of us never cared to begin with. We have nothing to lose, but Hal fans do. I just happen to not care much for Hal, so that's the side I ended up on. I totally sympathize, because I've seen plenty of my own favorites dragged through sh*t, and your fandom matters just as much as mine. But.....end of the day, I find Parallax Hal more interesting so I wouldn't complain too much if they brought him back.
But I tell you this, if I ever ended up in control of the GL title/s, I wouldn't do it. Hal has too large a fanbase and doing Parallax again (or something similar) would be stupid dumb. But I wouldn't rule out an appearance by time traveling Zero Hour era Hal. Just one short arc. That's it.
99% chance of a great big firm f*ck no to that, of course. Supes is my boy! I admit my hypocrisy.And, no matter how well thought out, would you be ok with them doing a similar arc with Superman in the main canon and having it be planned to stick indefinitely? And worse, have it be potentially on the table for adaptations? Having to relive Emerald Twilight in other media is a pretty standard fear for Hal fans from what I've seen.
But there is that 1% chance of them actually doing it right (by my subjective standards) and I know exactly what single direction for "evil Superman" I'd be willing to accept. And it's somewhat close to Hal's fall as Parallax.
"We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe."
~ Black Panther.
No, you are the one refuse to judge characters objectively. If Hal is irrelevant they could just create a new GL to lead the franchise when Kyle's ongoing wasn't doing well in the market. Well it's a shame DC never has top-tier black characters as interesting as Marvel. Actually, Luke Cage, Atlas(hello, white male), Victor Alvarez all shared the same name. T'Challa and Shuri were Black Panther. And everyone knows who are the most popular ones.
About your "writers identify themselves with characters of same skin colors" point: First, Geoff Johns is not a white man. So your accusing him of mistreating John only because he is white is unsustainable. If what you said is true, Simon should be the prime GL now. Second, hey, have you heard a notable writer called Priest? Third, is the writer of Mosaic, which is seen as one of the best portrayal of John, a black male?
What kind of narrow mind would come out such a conclusion that people identify themselves with same skin colors instead of similar emotions and experiences, and accuse Geoff Johns as a racist writer? I guess you never read his Avengers or JSA run.
You just first exposed to John as a GL when you watched a cartoon over 20 years ago and couldn't accept the contrast of animation and comics and still refuse to accept the reality, which is they used John in the JL animation because he is black and they wanted to bring diversity to the show. John is not a victim of racial bias. Instead, he has today's popularity is totally because he is black which made him into the show.
Last edited by HAN9000; 06-15-2019 at 08:31 PM.
I wasn't reading comics in the '90s. When I was a kid in the early '00s, I knew Hal from old back issues and Super-Friends reruns, rather than because of anything he was doing in the comics themselves. I didn't love him either, I didn't hate him, but he was just "Green Lantern", a hero only a few notches above Captain Comet in my awareness. He certainly never came close to the level of awareness I had of Spider-Man, Batman or Superman. Then Justice League the Animated Series came out, and while it took me many more years of context to shake my initial reaction that John Stewart wasn't the "real" Green Lantern on some level, he was still the one I saw most of, the one I got the most used to. Hal Jordan was still in the back of my mind, but I didn't give him much thought until I read Final Night.
Final Night was the first story I ever read that made me fall in love with Hal Jordan. I had no idea who the guy with the crab-mask on his face was, but I recognized Hal as Green Lantern when I saw him, and his actions blew me away. I could infer that Hal had become some kind of super-villain, but I loved the idea that he saw his decision to become Parallax as morally consistent with his decision to become Green Lantern in the first place.
To be fair, I have still never read Emerald Twilight, and it is by all accounts terrible and poorly written. But to me the idea of Parallax, even the name "Parallax", implying that Jordan has acquired a perspective that he had previously lacked, is very interesting. I will sort of never forgive the decision to consign that meaningful name and set of decisions to being, arbitrarily, the name of a space monster that possesses people and makes them act against their own morality.
All of which said, I think a series where Parallax is the hero but is allowed to keep his own version of what that means, would be really interesting.
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