Tweet
According to a note I read on a website, Showcase No. 22, the first appearance of Hal Jordan, hit newsstands the week of Feb. 20, 1958 making Hal 54 this week.
Reading that sparked me to pull out a few trades featuring him in the 1990s. Not, the best decade for old Hal, considering the whole going crazy thing, but I have to say when I went back and read the collections, the stories were actually decent.
I can say that now since Geoff Johns brought my favorite character back from the abyss with Rebirth. His Paralax retcon really does work well after rereading
GL: The Road Back
GL: New Dawn (fall of Hal and rise of Kyle)
Zero Hour
and Final Night
It's weird in my memory I would have ranked The Road Back and Zero Hour as the high mark of those four collections, but after returning to them and reading them again that notion is out the window.
Now, I can't stand "The Road Back." It's Hal at his wishy washiest, and while this arc set up GL: Mosaic, which I know is a favorite of many, this arc was just ham-fisted to me. Hated the interplay between Guy and Hal.
As for Zero Hour, it's not bad. In fact Jurgens' art has me really looking forward to when he takes over the Superman comic, but it kind of gutted a lot of what I liked about the DCU — JSA and pushing Hal further down the mad villain road, the mish-mash of Hawkman, losing Dr. Fate for awhile.
GL: New Dawn — While I still contend a character like Jordan wouldn't have broke on his own as originally intended before Johns injected the Paralax possession into the equation, the storyline worked for cleaning the slate, setting up an everyman hero and turning Hal into a Shakespearean galactic threat. Marz also did a nice job of making Marjor Force into one of the vilest characters in the DCU, which is what the villains are supposed to be.
Final Night is now my favorite of those four collections. Karl Kesel created a real sense of drama and doom with the storyline and let Jordan grab a bit of redemption to boot. Immonen's art was properly dark and moody, but the storytelling is as clear as day. Warners cartoon movie division should grab the plot from this and switch it up a bit. In 75 minutes, it might be hard to set up the whole fall of Jordan, but a good story could come out of the JLA attempting to stop a Sun Eater, maybe sacrifice Martian Manhunter or Firestorm instead of Hal.
Reading that sparked me to pull out a few trades featuring him in the 1990s. Not, the best decade for old Hal, considering the whole going crazy thing, but I have to say when I went back and read the collections, the stories were actually decent.
I can say that now since Geoff Johns brought my favorite character back from the abyss with Rebirth. His Paralax retcon really does work well after rereading
GL: The Road Back
GL: New Dawn (fall of Hal and rise of Kyle)
Zero Hour
and Final Night
It's weird in my memory I would have ranked The Road Back and Zero Hour as the high mark of those four collections, but after returning to them and reading them again that notion is out the window.
Now, I can't stand "The Road Back." It's Hal at his wishy washiest, and while this arc set up GL: Mosaic, which I know is a favorite of many, this arc was just ham-fisted to me. Hated the interplay between Guy and Hal.
As for Zero Hour, it's not bad. In fact Jurgens' art has me really looking forward to when he takes over the Superman comic, but it kind of gutted a lot of what I liked about the DCU — JSA and pushing Hal further down the mad villain road, the mish-mash of Hawkman, losing Dr. Fate for awhile.
GL: New Dawn — While I still contend a character like Jordan wouldn't have broke on his own as originally intended before Johns injected the Paralax possession into the equation, the storyline worked for cleaning the slate, setting up an everyman hero and turning Hal into a Shakespearean galactic threat. Marz also did a nice job of making Marjor Force into one of the vilest characters in the DCU, which is what the villains are supposed to be.
Final Night is now my favorite of those four collections. Karl Kesel created a real sense of drama and doom with the storyline and let Jordan grab a bit of redemption to boot. Immonen's art was properly dark and moody, but the storytelling is as clear as day. Warners cartoon movie division should grab the plot from this and switch it up a bit. In 75 minutes, it might be hard to set up the whole fall of Jordan, but a good story could come out of the JLA attempting to stop a Sun Eater, maybe sacrifice Martian Manhunter or Firestorm instead of Hal.
Comment