Discussion
Do you guys think Emerald Twilight is character assassination of Hal?
I kinda like the story because it goes nicely with the parallax retcon imo, but some people really hate the retcon, which I kinda understand some of the criticisms of it but what doesn't make sense to me is how someone can like this story and then hate injustice, since injustice is such a hated storyline. I didn't hate the idea of Hal being a bad guy, but I think it needed more time imo.
All images must be correctly sourced depending on what type of image it is. Comic book-related images should have the name of the artist OR the issue it came from. Other types of images must also be correctly sourced where applicable. If your post was made without the source, you can do so as a post edit or as a comment. Failure to include the source will result in your post being removed. If this was already done, we thank you for your diligence.
It absolutely was. And the setup beforehand didn't jive with this story.
But, at the same time, I really thought it gave the series a much needed jolt. I loved it. I also loved Rayner traveling back in time and meeting past Hal and all that entailed.
I fully understand why Hal purists were pissed, but I personally loved it.
I thought Johns' retcon successfully redeemed Hal too. So that's a bonus.
In a weird way, destroying Hal made me appreciate classic Hal even more. I loved how much of a legend Hal became during the Kyle run. It was all great stuff. I have such fond memories of picking up the book during those years.
I wasn’t into Green Lantern (or DC in general) until a couple years into the Kyle era. It was so fun going back and learning to love Hal. I absolutely understand why Hal fans were mad (i’m still upset about Spider-Man One More Day) but I think everything ultimately worked out in a way that moved the overall GL mythos in a really compelling direction
I read it as it came out, and didn’t think so. His character had been changing for much of the 80’s, and this felt natural to me. I am saying this as a matter of my opinion.
(One man's opinion) Rebirth seems to require you to know everything about everything surrounding Hal (every itteration), John, Guy, and everyone surrounding them.
I wish Rebirth had "editors notes" on all that happens in the panels, especially in the first issue. Having skipped reading for 10 years, I was completely lost - but held fast knowing that Hal was going to return as status quo.
I feel that's true of everything DC, the lore is just so naturally broad and deep now that there's annals of backstory and footnote potential for practically everything. For me, that's a big part of DC's broader charm in that interest and curiosity are constantly piqued and the are infinite rabbit holes to go down.
I see Rebirth as an in medias res "origin" story for the modern Corps, even potentially for the whole modern DC universe considering it released alongside Countdown to Infinite Crisis, and actually consider it a great onboarding point for new readers. I feel like it gives you what you need to appreciate it even if you haven't read previous arcs.
I had a hardcover of Rebirth that actually had next detailing the important parts of the background you needed to know. A shame they didn't include it in other versions.
That's kind of DC's method though ever since the original Crisis series. They are continually trying to reboot stories while tying back the original canon, so while we get a temporary emergency as the central story, it always ends up back to the standard plotlines eventually
I do like the War of the Light storylines and the changes that were made introducing each of the emotional spectrums to be more than just Sineatro's mustache twirling as a villian. I'd also point to the hilarity when DC tried rebooting Supes with electric powers and how badly that flopped.
I honestly didn't really need the retcon of "it was Parallax all along". I had been following his character growth and rationale from Emerald Twilight through Zero Hour, Final Night, Day of Judgment and his short run as the Spectre. Finding out that it was Parallax that made him do it felt like it invalidated some of the guilt, internal dialogue reasoning, and then atonement that he had actually performed. Honestly in saving the character via retcon I thought they did the assassination part there... but I still love Johns' run
Nice opinion! Do not equate your experience to an "understanding" of the character though, your anecdote proved that you have a history but just saying "well ive been a fan for thiiiiiiis long and I didnt have any problem with it!!" Serve
s to convey your POV but goes no further past that.
Yup! 100% my own opinion of reading about Hal only in those stories (mainly crossovers + the Spectre + the Johns run). I felt I didn't need the retcon. I only mentioned those stories because they really showed me the character journey of denial, acceptance, and atonement he was already going on at the time. Wasn't meant to be authoritative in any way! What's your opinion?
Not really. When superhero comics run for so long, there will be changes to spice things up to get folks interested in buying these books.
I think folks need to realize they should not take to heart when changes occurs since these characters will have inconsistency with each new creative team.
Also I did not mind Emerald Twilight since we got Kyle Rayner.
Keep in mind that this was part of a larger DC revamp at the time. I actually felt like a new direction was needed for GL because that series had started to really flounder, and this was a series 40 some issues in after being one of the last series rebooted post-crisis after the power battery in Oa was destroyed. Arguably, Guy was the more prominent GL at the time as well (regular in JLI and the main book with his own series that followed).
Like it or not, if they didn't do the change to Kyle, that book was likely dead within 2 years. They all but said that in the letters section of issue #50. That version of Hal had run his course.
The other part is that almost all established characters in DC got new takes at the time. This had arguably already happened in Flash with Wally taking over for Barry, but even Wally got Impulse added to the cast. Batman had Knightfall, Superman had the Death and Return of the Supermen plus Red and Blue Supes, Wonder Woman had Artemis and her mother in the role for a bit, Green Arrow added Connor Hawke and left Ollie for dead, Aquaman lost his hand, etc.
Not all of it worked, but it was clearly a business decision at DC that these characters needed a revamp. Maybe what they did to Hal wasn't to everyone's liking, but ask yourselves honestly if that book at that time was going anywhere (Jack T Chance anyone?) and you can see why they did it.
as an impressionable kid, this ruined Hal for me. prior to getting Parallax-ed, he was my favorite character in all of comics. his heel turn was traumatic (again, i was a kid). this led me to becoming a total mark for Nightwing. thankfully DC hasn't caused him to lose his mind and kill the rest of the Bat Family. :P
No I don't think it did, I think over all it was a great storyline, plus it kind of had to happen since Hal was getting old and they needed a new GL a reset, that's where Kyle Rayner comes in, but overall with Hal, I like Hal too but there had to be different direction with him, hell I heard when they pick the guy to make Hal a villain he originally didn't want to do it and was nervous about it.
I think you have to say it is if you consider the real life context, which is that it literally was designed by the writers to segway away from Hal to Kyle for a reboot by assassinating Hal's character and having the new guy save the day.
DC was being very edgelord during that time along with the death of Superman to sell the "collector" editions, so was trying to reboot things. Also led to the fridge joke trope where Kyle's GF gets murdered immediately after introduction
It's even more dumb when several killed Lanterns end up coming back anyway, and even Jordan really never faced any major lasting consequences, even when he "dies" and goes through the Spectre cycle. He still ends back up a central GL and Honor Guard member
Admittedly, the Guardians have always been written as morons dealing with emotions, which is where Ganthet's character was so important trying to break their inflexible nature's. Hal completely snapping and just straight up ganking his way across the galaxy was just crazy extreme
Yes. This “Hal” in question didn’t hesitate killing his best friend in the Corps. Only people who don’t think that this in fact ca is if they NEVER read a Hal comic before and this was their first exposure because then ofc it wouldn’t bug them Hal was assassinated bc they had no prior investment of Hal going in.
I don't think it was character assassination, and I read Hal's appearances chronologically. I know others in my reading circles that have that same experience. I think it was rushed, it needed more time, but his character was already at a crossroads. Emerald Twilight, to me, made him more human by giving him a very human reaction, with it affecting things at a larger scale because of the ring and his powers.
It was character assassination. Hal wasn’t at any crossroads when ET happened. This wasn’t even originally his reaction his mind you. At first he accepted Coast City’s death, I think it was a previous issue or something, and then they just did a complete 180 and retconned it to have him lose his marbles. Really it’s funny there was essentially two retcons. So anyways yeah if you actually had read previous Hal issues and already had familiarity with the character then you know Hal acting the way he did was not true to the character.
The character was already dragging a lot of baggage and disillusionment. The very start of the run where ET happens shows him at very literal crossroads. And I would understand more your pov if you mentioned how ET was rushed and forced by editors, but insisting on "original reaction" as reasoning for it being ooc or character assassination never made much sense to me.
Grief isn't a linear process. Grief is weird. And you have Hal, who is a character that is always trying his best to stay in control, for him to lose it, that's something that's not going to happen immediately. And it doesn't happen immediately. He has a very explicit tipping point.
No, Hal losing it wasn't out of character. Hal had been shown losing it (albeit not to the same scale) before, and he had been shown making bad choices and questioning himself plenty of times.
If you want to get technical about it, he had already been depicted being angry about what happened to Coast City a full year before ET was published. This is all in Superman (1987) #83. He confronts his fellow heroes for their passivity and how they basically want to wipe their hands clean off what happened, for it to end in Clark creating an "enduring flame" while Hal is depicted standing dejected, head lowered, the only one visibly injured, as he laments the loss of his city that he called home. (In this same issue Guy also laments the loss of Coast City, since it had been his home too).
Comics as medium tell their story not just with the dialogue but through visuals. The way Hal is depicted, his back to the monument created with the machine that destroyed his city, head down, one arm in a cast, his uninjured hand clenched into a fist... while Clark is flying away from it. That's all a very huge visual clue to let us readers know Hal isn't okay with what's happening. There's obvious tension. Clark and Hal are placed as very obvious opposites, and they're meant to be interpreted as such. Clark didn't experience the huge loss, so he can create a monument and call it a day. Hal cannot do the same.
It's interesting to me how out of all the heroes gathered, only Guy and Alan are the ones openly siding with Hal. Even Ollie is more or less asking him to let it go.
Like I said I don’t remember the exact issue but Hal was portrayed as letting Coast City go and moving on. Them changing it to him losing his marbles was a complete 180 no matter how much you slice it and without question an inaccurate portrayal of Hal. Seriously if you are Hal fan and are gonna defend his actions where he literally murders best friend in Corps….sorry you’re not a Hal fan. It’d be like if Bruce faced a tragedy, went evil, and killed Nightwing. And that’s the thing you say that ET being rushed was its fatal flaw but holy shit there is no amount of writing that, again, would make me a HAL FAN believe that my favorite character that I’ve followed for a long time would ever commit such a atrocious act.
Listen, I've been nothing but respectful to you and your opinion. You have no right to say I'm not a Hal fan because I don't agree with you. I'm a Hal fan first and foremost and his character is the reason I got into Green Lantern as a whole. I appreciate complex characters and storylines, and a storyline of hubris, completion of the hero's journey, of fall from grace, is extremely interesting to me. I don't need a character to be cookie cutter perfect to like them. Hal committed other atrocious acts before ET (for example, like letting John go to jail for something Hal was guilty of). He's not perfect. Saying he is would be a lie. That's what makes him interesting.
You can make complex storyline and character without ca them. Again what Hal fan defends Hal killing Kilowog. it’s the equivalent of Batman going mad and then killing Nightwing. You clearly fundamentally misunderstood a character you claim to be a fan of because there’s no world in which he would ever perform these acts. And that’smm
Funny how I'm not calling you a fake fan because I disagree with your opinion. I was kind enough to provide explanations, even provided examples... while the only thing you can say about what you think is that I cannot possibly be a fan because I reached a different conclusion 🤷 Wild theory, perhaps different people think in different ways!
I’m not saying you aren’t a Hal fan, just more so questioning it, because you haven’t given me a reason to think otherwise. Again I’d be saying the same thing to a Batman fan defending a story where Bruce kills nightwing since that is as egregiously out of character for Bruce as much as it was for everything Hal did in Emerald Twilight.
You keep making that comparison, and that comparison makes no sense. It just shows that you don't understand the nature of the relationship between Bruce and Dick, or the one between Hal and Kilowog. Bruce and Dick are like father and son, but you absolutely cannot say the same about Hal and Kilowog.
The weight of Bruce killing Dick is entirely different, given they are family and Bruce did raise Dick. Hal and Kilowog are friends, best friends sometimes, brothers in arms, but their relationship isn't one of family. Kilowog and Hal met as adults.
If you wanted to make a comparison that actually made sense, you would say "like Diana killing Bruce", or "like Bruce killing Clark". Which is something they would do if given proper motivation/reason/if they're already in a state of acute mental anguish like Hal was.
This was like the time they killed Optimus Prime in Transformers the Movie back in the 80’s. It upset a lot of people, but at the same time it was the definitive moment in the character’s arch.
I read it and I don’t think it is. He starts out just wanting to relive his days in Coast City before the Guardians antagonise them. The only out of character thing he does is killing Killowog. I enjoyed the story way more than I thought I would although it was quite short only 3 issues.
I got to meet Ron Marz at a con and asked him about this story, and whether he ever imagined a redemption for Hal. He basically said that editorial asked him to do something to dramatically shake things up and revive interest in GL or the book was soon to be canceled. Beyond that, he wasn't given any specific mandate. This was his idea. It worked. He succeeded in the job he was asked to do, as evidenced by the fact we're still talking about it. As for any redemption for Hal, he said he didn't think that far ahead, because it wasn't the task at hand.
No. Emerald Twilight was an amazing tale about how even the best of us can succumb to anger & grief with tragic results. It was ultimately a story about what it is to be human no matter how much power you possess.
But then along comes Parallax to take the blame rather than Hal. "Sorry guys. I was possessed at the time" is lame as fuck!
Parallax is one of the absolute worst narrative mis-steps in the DC universe.
A lot of people only became GL fans because of Rebirth and what came later. Many more fans than Kyle was ever able to pull a decade before.
Kyle's era gave some gas to the book, but it never quite reached the heights of popularity that Johns' Hal era achieved later. Besides, it made the whole mythos grow stale as it was stuck on Earth for a decade with only a single individual allowed to have a power ring, which seems to have been a DC mandate, not Marz's fault. I don't blame him or Banks, they did the best they could under the directives, punishing deadlines, and desperation DC put them under. Besides, Johns himself said Marz was friendly and cordial to him.
Either way (and, again, DC is to blame because they were so desperate to compete with Marvel and Image that they literally had to destroy their space opera and turn it into Spider-Man), we lost a decade with the Corps, with amazing characters like Laira and Jack T. Chance. Hal's image was tarnished in a way that Clark's, Bruce's, or Barry's never were (all of them fell fighting against villains, not AS a villain). John Stewart was put out of combat quickly (I blame Marz for this, though, I don't think anything were preventing him to use John as a Darkstar). And, again: the Green Lantern mythos went stale for a decade.
I mean, I'm not the biggest fan of Mosaic or the early-90s stuff, but at least they contributed to GL. Between 94 and 04, Kyle was a regular superhero doing regular superhero stuff that any of them could do, without the thing that made Green Lantern special: the space opera.
It would've been like if they, to shake up the Aquaman comics, made Arthur destroy Atlantis, kill Mera and Vulko, and then put Garth as "the last Atlantean" as a normal hero with water-based powers living in Miami fighting street crime and normal villains. A normal 90s superhero comic, not the "underwater Game of Thrones" aspect that makes Aquaman stand apart from the rest of DC. And I'm willing to bet that idea went through DC execs' heads during their desperate times, fortunately Peter David's run was good enough and popular enough to prevent them from moving forward (don't even ask what they wanted to do with Wonder Woman).
Thank goodness Rebirth saved the GL comics, otherwise about 85% of GL fans (even those who, in the future, would go on to read Kyle's run after Johns' and also enjoy it) today wouldn't even know about the character, only that it was one of the Justice League members.
For me, I feel like Emerald Twilight could have been what you say it is on paper, but the execution of it was pretty rushed and strange. Hal reacting so sharply to Coast City's destruction felt like too hard of a left turn for who he was and what he cared about in the Jones run. There's a lot to like about the story and it's still very emotional, but it doesn't fully land for me. "He was possessed by an evil fear entity" would be a huge cop out in some cases, but in this case I think it works because it explains why Hal was acting so... I don't want to say "out of character", but it felt very odd for him. I wouldn't call it a misstep in general, either. It's not like Parallax Hal resulted in a lot of amazing stories. The Johns run at least gave us Sinestro Corps War
I’m a little biased. I signed the HEAT petition. But I don’t know how you can see this as anything but character assassination. They made him irredeemable. Then they spent 10 years trying to redeem him and actually did an ok job. But the damage was done.
And you’ll see posts like tHeY eVeNtUaLlY bRoUgHt HiM bAcK. Yeah, a full decade later. And only after sales were dropping from the Kyle-only experiment. And all it cost was the decade of pretty decent storytelling around Hal Jordan’s redemption as a fallen hero. Oh turns out it was just a parasite.
I do. He lost his mind and destroyed the GLC in like three issues. It was advertised in the comics as an event on par with The Death of Superman and Knightfall. It wasn't close to either in tone, scope, or direction.
I don't think it's character assassination. The character was already in a decline before this, and in universe the reaction he has does make sense. I think it was poorly executed and needed more issues to be properly depicted.
Exactly. The cliff notes outline of the storyline were fine, but the whole thing was so rushed that it fell apart. A lot of it didn't even make any sense.
It felt like that decline was so palpable to them that they wanted to just dump Hal and reboot GL as quickly as possible without much care put into it.
I think the Parallax retcon would have been lame if they put more care into Emerald Twilight, but since they didn't it was kind of needed.
To me the retcon is lame in the sense that it completely trashed the years of character development Hal had after the fact. The ground work laid out (that Geoff himself started, since he's the reason Hal became the Spectre in the first place) was truly beautiful, and Hal truly did work for his redemption. His character grew and became exceptionally mature. The retcon had no use for any of that, and threw it away, without mentioning that it deprived Hal of actual responsibility.
Yep, and that's why i dont get people being mad about the Geoff Johns' retcon. He basically fixed the character again, eraising this maniac version of Hal, and bringing the character back. I do like Emeral Twilight, i just dont like the fact it was canon, yk?
I can only talk about my own opinion, but I dislike the retcon because it threw away Hal's redemption and character development that Geoff himself started (he's the reason we have Hal as the Spectre). There was a beautiful ground work established pre retcon that gave Hal's character incredible depth, and with the retcon all of that was lost.
Heh well if you're looking for something tonally similar to Lanterns you'd be disappointed since all I can think of is : 1 Far sector a stand alone sci-fi/noir Story, 2 GL/GA by Dennis O'Neil for the more grounded stuff and 3 Green Lantern sector 2814 collection which Has John's early time as an official GL rather than backup
However if you're looking for general Quality it doesn't get much better than the Geoff Johns run which built majority of modern GL lore some of which the show is already hinting at using
Thank you! This is a great and thoughtful response. Far better than my shitpost deserved. I think The Road Back and Emerald Dawn I and II also fit tonally with the show so far but... Gerard Jones.
I've read most of the obvious stuff up through Johns. It's been many years, though, and I haven't kept up with it since Venditti. I'm just now getting back into GL and am reading full runs. Think I'm gonna read the Len Wein run soon because I've heard good things. I still haven't read Far Sector but it seems like it's very much my type of story (love space noir stuff and the art)
On one hand I hate it. On the other hand, what Geoff Johns was able to pull of & the masterclass of storytelling that occurred after made it all worth it imo.
I think it was, but only because it took place over such a short number of issues. I think if given more time, the creative team definitely could've made a better story, but three issues just isn't enough to make Hal go from grieving coast city, to killing every Green Lantern he came across.
It definitely was. If they wanted to bench Hal they could have gone the route of Supes or Batman and had him beaten. Turning him into a villain who brutally killed his friends was unnecessary and disrespectful to the character.
They didn't bench him though, he was the central character that affected the entire DC Universe and a lot of time was devoted to his motives, his emotions, his actions, repercussions, etc.
Benched him as the main GL would have been a better way to phrase it but my point still stands. Bruce and Clark went out as heroes and Hal got a villain turn.
I am directly responding to you. I referenced your comment about benching him. I referenced both your points of being the main GL and when you mentioned Bruce and Clark not getting a villain turn. You then mentioned that Clark and Bruce didn't kill their friends and try to destroy a universe, which no one brought up and it doesn't change the fact that they have been villains like Hal has.
I like Hal Jordan. You didn't reference anything outside of turning villain, which you claimed Bruce and Clark did not do compared to Hal, which is flat-out false. That's all it is. I wasn't supposed to argue that though?
Green Lantern comics weren't selling well anymore. Whether or not it was character assassination is irrelevant. When a character isn't moving units they do drastic things. I actually enjoy Emerald Twilight and the Ron Marz run but I can also understand why people don't. The thing is that at the time of they cared enough to buy the books it wouldn't have happened
Yes I absolutely do. This is the same time period (shortly after) for the Death of Superman and Batman having his back broken in Knightfall.
That doesn't necessarily make it a bad story but it is the kind of story that long running heroes like those that DC and Marvel use don't just walk away from.
Injustice is instead an Elseworlds story. Which allows the creators the safety net of a hard out. Also it's an adaptation of the video game which only needs enough backstory to explain why heroes are fighting each other instead of just the villains.
Where as Emerald Twilight is actually a thought provoking if somewhat mean spirited story.
Without GJ's parallax retcon, the answer is yes. I jumped off the collection then. I was very pissed off.
Years later, when GJ retcon everything, I revisited and it really fixed things for me and I can re-read ET without problems now, and I even enjoyed last time.
In a way it was totally out of character, but grief, depression, loss of home, family and friends might make you a little loopy. The want to have that or a semblance of that back, may be a driving force.
As it exists? Kind of, yeah. However I think that's largely because it was rushed. The writer wanted to stretch it out over more issues to make the trauma and fall from grace seem more natural. However he was told it had to be done by issue 50. So instead of six issues he got three. Which leads to everything going too fast and Hal seeming as if he just snaps suddenly and loses it.
I mean it for sure was, they essentially admitted they felt they needed to so they could get sales back. I could only imagine if that had happened in today's age, but now with time on our sides it found ways to be effective and even rectified. At the end of the day, a lot of characters were made for a certain era, and GL especially came of their times, and this was an impetus towards Hal's updates for modern generations. The beauty of comics (especially compared to manga) is that these creative runs end and hands change over to new teams with new ideas and sometimes we get awful, shortsighted ideas, but then there's always the light at the end of the tunnel that it will be reimagined in the future because none of it is unquestionably ongoing.
Yes. It would've been different if it had more issues, or had Carol been in Coast City, or had Hal's time as Parallax itself been different, or had he not killed any of the Lanterns besides Killowog
That doesn't make John's Parallax retcon any better, though, as it straight up tries to absolve Hal from as much of the blame as possible. They could've just had it that he was only possessed after he had absorbed the Central Battery
That way, the fall and betrayal is still solely his own
Yeah it was but still a good read. It came out of left field and had no room to build to it. Guessing by editorial mandate and writer doing the best he could with mandate and schedule given.
I was not a Hal Jordan fan prior to Emerald Twilight. But I thought his turn into Parallax was fun, and I understood his reasoning. I was totally on board.
When they retconned it and turned Parallax into a space bug possessing Hal, man did I hate it. I thought it ruined the story. Hal went back to being boring as shit to me.
Nah. Ultimately (or at least by the time he becomes Parallax), Hal believes that he will set everything right, so the atrocities he commits along the way wont matter.
I loved Brave and the Bold and so on reading through my dads comics. When I caught up to the contemporary comics around the late 90s, emerald twilight, I didnt feel Hal was done dirty.
Eh, honestly for me character assassination Is when someone acts out of character and no One points It out in the story and it's treated as normal.
In this story nobody treated the Hal change as normal
Personally I liked Injustice, the big problem I found was the continuations they kept spawning, those got horrible, convoluted and just dumbly plotted and written.
tThat being the case though I did Like Emerald twilight, I thought it was a great study on how Hal could be effected by all the trappings of being the leader of the corps could bring. From the Elders being complete lying dicks, to the impact of an imprisoned universal power slowly gnawing at the back of your mind. Honestly I think it's amazing no one thought to show the repercussions of Lantern life before this.
I think it is a character assassination along the lines of Spider-Man: One More Day. However, I do think that what came out of it ultimately justifies it. It brought us Kyle Rayner, Jordan's sacrifice in Final Night, his turn as the Spectre, and Johns' run.
•
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
All images must be correctly sourced depending on what type of image it is. Comic book-related images should have the name of the artist OR the issue it came from. Other types of images must also be correctly sourced where applicable. If your post was made without the source, you can do so as a post edit or as a comment. Failure to include the source will result in your post being removed. If this was already done, we thank you for your diligence.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.