How do the 00's rank amongst your Favorite Green Lantern decades?

[tib2d2]

Typically your favorite era of a character tends to be when you first started reading comics. But how about the 00's for Green Lantern? It certainly was an exciting and creative time for the GL's, how did you like that decade compared to other decades?

[Jekyll]

My absolute favorite! Hands down!

[WillieMorgan]

There's no question that, from 2004 onward, the GL franchise grew from strength to strength in a manner that seemed unthinkable immediately prior to that.

By the height of the New 52 era, admittedly a decade later but made possible through the building blocks laid down by Johns' work from GL: Rebirth onwards, we had five different GL titles to choose from. That's FIVE titles. That's unprecedented in the entire history of the franchise and a really strong indicator of how solid things were back then. Events like Blackest Night were essential reading for ALL DC fans, not just GL fans.

It was a golden decade for the Corps and only extreme peevishness would ever claim otherwise.

[tib2d2]

There's no question that, from 2004 onward, the GL franchise grew from strength to strength in a manner that seemed unthinkable immediately prior to that.

By the height of the New 52 era, admittedly a decade later but made possible through the building blocks laid down by Johns' work from GL: Rebirth onwards, we had five different GL titles to choose from. That's FIVE titles. That's unprecedented in the entire history of the franchise and a really strong indicator of how solid things were back then. Events like Blackest Night were essential reading for ALL DC fans, not just GL fans.

It was a golden decade for the Corps and only extreme peevishness would ever claim otherwise.

I couldn't agree more. It might not be on the top of everyone's favorite decade list due to the emotional tie that we all have with the era we first started reading comics or the first time we were introduced to a character. I would never disparage that, so hopefully it ranks high with the majority of GL fans!

[j9ac9k]

I started reading right after Crisis, but I agree that the Johns "Rebirth" era was by far my favorite. I loved Englehart's GLC series and the Hard Traveling Heroes days, and all the stuff in between (which I hunted down in all the back issue bins I could find) but the franchise was becoming a little tired from uninspired writing and DC's lack of interest by the time "Emerald Twilight" happened. Rebirth gave me what I was always hoping for GL and then some - which was modern, exciting stories that seemed to matter and weren't just killing time or taking up space on the shelf.

[WillieMorgan]

I couldn't agree more. It might not be on the top of everyone's favorite decade list due to the emotional tie that we all have with the era we first started reading comics or the first time we were introduced to a character. I would never disparage that, so hopefully it ranks high with the majority of GL fans!

I think it will do.

It sounds weird saying this in a later period where I think most fans find the Emotional Spectrum concept tired and overused, which it definitely ended up being by the way, just how exciting it actually was seeing it all develop and fall into place back in the day. I remember seeing a picture of the different coloured lanterns together in an issue and thinking 'That's awesome! Why didn't someone think of this earlier?'. We ended up getting a bit burned out on the concept but it was thrilling to see it unfurl at the time, at least for me it was.

[Starter Set]

The franchise sure was strong back then.

[phantom1592]

It sounds weird saying this in a later period where I think most fans find the Emotional Spectrum concept tired and overused, which it definitely ended up being by the way, just how exciting it actually was seeing it all develop and fall into place back in the day. I remember seeing a picture of the different coloured lanterns together in an issue and thinking 'That's awesome! Why didn't someone think of this earlier?'. We ended up getting a bit burned out on the concept but it was thrilling to see it unfurl at the time, at least for me it was.

When I see things like the 00's era and what not, I'll admit it all blurs to me. I'm not sure exactly what issues we're talking about and where it ends...

I'll admit I hated the emotional spectrum from the very beginning. Sinestro war was interesting... but I wasn't even a fan of that. Something about taking the #1 big bad who's ring is the exact opposite of the heroes... who is their walking nightmare... become 'one of a herd' annoyed me. Sometimes big bads are better WITHOUT a whole bunch of people just like him. To make it worse, Sinestro on his own really isn't THAT scary, so he ended up being one of the LEAST scary monsters with a yellow ring... I wasn't a fan... but it was a cool story.

After that, Hal pretty much abandoned Earth and the long lost rogues i wanted to see... to tell the same story over and over again with a different color every time. Pink, blue, red, orange black,... As a huge Hal Jordan fan, I was just... bored by the time they hit Orange, and i ended up dropping the books somewhere between orange and violet. They turned 'the most 'powerful weapon in the universe' into something generally mundane and 'one of many'...

So no, on a whole, i didn't find it exciting to see develop. I disliked it out the gate. I loved the way the run started with Hammond, Shark and Manhunters... finding the lost lanterns... it was great. but once the color wars started it really started to drag for me.

[Vampire Savior]

I'm not a big fan of the 60s because I tend not to care for Silver Age comics. There were a lot of really interesting ideas, though.

The 70s...were pretty interesting. It had Neal Adams art, and he's my favorite Green Lantern artist, so that decade is very notable for that alone. Mike Grell is also really cool.

The 80s rocked and that is easily my favorite decade of Green Lantern comics. There were a lot of classic Tales of the Green Lantern Corps shorts that really expanded the mythos, and while I'm often not terribly fond of legacies much of the time, I thought John and Guy really added a ton to Green Lantern. The cast in general opened up a lot, with Katma becoming a much more important character, and additions of mainstay GL's that are classics now, like Kilowog, Salaak, Arisia, and Ch'p.

After the 80s, I think the 90s is my next favorite. Gerard Jones' early work with Pat Broderick and M.D. Bright is really strong, and his Mosaic series is notable for me. It was very offbeat but fit into the grand scheme of GL very well at the time. I don't really agree with a lot of the decisions that brought about the Kyle Rayner era, and many that went on during that time, but the early Kyle stories written by Ron Marz were generally a lot of fun. The status quo got old during Winnick's run, and it was well beyond time for a change when Ben Raab was writing the GL book.

The 00s...they started off pretty weak with generally boring Kyle Rayner stories. Then Geoff Johns came on, and for as much acclaim as he gets, I found I didn't really like his run. I don't like the concept of the Emotional Spectrum, the Corps Wars got old fast and he just kept doing them, and as a result, Green Lantern kinda' started resembling something else near entirely to me, even if many of the GL characters were present. To be totally fair, though, had I been reading during the time the Kyle run was being printed, I likely would have thought that doesn't resemble GL at all, too. All in all the 00s are one of the lower ranking decades for me, though the 10s weren't great, either.

[Johnny]

From a commercial standpoint it was the biggest the franchise has ever been. From a critical standpoint, it was good quality storytelling until Johns ran out of steam sometime post-Blackest Night. What's undeniable irregardless of personal opinion of that era though is the fact that Green Lantern truly felt important at the time. There was a huge level of excitement about it that hasn't really been felt since.

[Vordan]

It was the Golden Age for GL, the height of his popularity as a character. Anyone who would claim otherwise is a contrarian. When the GL title is outselling Batman you know something specula is happening. And there were plenty of other titles for non-Hal fans to choose from.

[Dr. Ellingham]

It was the Golden Age for GL, the height of his popularity as a character. Anyone who would claim otherwise is a contrarian. When the GL title is outselling Batman you know something specula is happening. And there were plenty of other titles for non-Hal fans to choose from.

This is true. Lots of incredible firsts in the 2000s:

A GL comic topped the sales charts - in the era still dominated by Batman and X-Men, at that
GL became the third pillar of DC for an extended time
GL maintained multiple spin-off titles for almost 10 years
GL became the first JLAer to warrant a live action solo film outside of Superman and Batman
GL got his first animated feature

That's a lot of heady firsts. Not to mention all the high-profile crossovers and events like Blackest Night, which saw GL expand into a multi-spectrum CRAZE of t-shirts, rings and action figures. Also that era gave us great animated material like JLU, The New Frontier, Brave & The Bold, etc.

All that said, as someone who started reading comics in the 1980s, and can recognize lots of great things from each era, my MVP vote goes to the 1960s team of Schwartz, Broome and Kane. They generated the mythos, its history and central characters, along with almost every important element to Green Lantern.

And 90% of it was drawn by the incomparable Eli Katz. ("Gil Kane", as he is known to those not quite as steeped in arcane comics minutiae.)

[married guy]

The 90's are the GL pinnacle for me.
I thought Kyle Rayner injected new life in the book and the title was top notch up till the end of Winick's run.
From there, Geoff Johns hit it outta the park. It all got a little silly later with the emotional spectrum thing done to death.
I'm rambling, sorry.
90's for me - closely followed by the 00's then the 80's.

[daBronzeBomma]

I'll go ahead and say it:

That run from 2004 - 2011 was the apex of the franchise.

The comics were absolutely killing it, John's had done for Green Lantern what Miller had done for Batman: taken the character to new heights and dare I say: dominance. GL briefly overtook Superman and was legitimately challenging Batman as the new Omega Hero (the Alpha of Alphas).

Then the 2011 movie happened.

Had the Ryan Reynolds movie been a smash hit like 1989's Michael Keaton movie was ...

Then Green Lantern is the Top Dog at DC, the Batman is dethroned, and the possibilities are endless.

Instead, the stink of the movie's failure wiped out the toy sales of the GL:TAS cartoon, causing it to be not renewed on TV.

And then the GL franchise came back to Earth, so to speak, in terms of power and popularity.

What could have been ... <sigh>

[Johnny]

It's sad that WB not only struggles to capitalize on the DCU gold mine they're sitting on, but they keep devaluing and destroying entire character brands in the process. What was the point for GL to even have the kind of success it had in the 2000s when all it took was some dumb decisions by incompetent studio executives to ruin all the work that Johns and the other GL creators did during that time.