In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, discover whether Batman was originally going to be possessed by Parallax in Green Lantern: Rebirth

Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and sixty-eighth installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends. This is a special installment sort of tied into the new Black Adam movie.

NOTE: If my Twitter page hits 5,000 followers, I'll do a bonus edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed that week. Great deal, right? So go follow my Twitter page, Brian_Cronin!

COMIC LEGEND:

Batman was originally going to be possessed by Parallax in Green Lantern: Rebirth

STATUS:

True

In late 2004 headed into 2005, DC released Green Lantern: Rebirth by Geoff Johns, Ethan Van Sciver, Prentis Rollins, Mick Gray, Marlo Alquiza, Moose Baumann and Rob Leigh (Rollins was the main inker for the series, with Gray splitting #5 and then Van Sciver, Alquiza and Gray splitting #6 up between them).

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The main purpose of the series was to do a sort of "rescue" of Hal Jordan, who has turned into the villain known as Parallax before sacrificing his life to restart the Earth's Sun afteri it had been extinguished in the crossover, Final Night. A few years later, Jordan, stuck in limbo because of the evil he did as Parallax (but not in hell because of all the many heroic actions he did in his life) became the new host for the Spectre (after its longtime previous house, Jim Corrigan, was finally allowed to have his final rest). So Johns had to find a way to get Hal to be A. no longer the Spectre B. no longer dead and C. no longer a villain.

By the penultimate issue of the series, Johns had done just that...

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And by the end of the series, the Green Lantern Corps had been revived, period...

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Johns revealed that an evil cosmic entity known as Parallax had possessed Hal and turned him evil. Hal was split from the Spectre (since the Parallax influence broke things up), and it turned out that his body was still alive in the middle of the sun, just waiting for him to break free of the Spectre and take back his body, and redeemed as a hero. However, there was one superhero who had a problem with that...

RELATED: Did DC Nearly Dramatically Change Doctor Fate's Iconic Golden Helmet?

WHAT WAS THE IMPORTANCE OF BATMAN IN THE STORY?

Back when Hal was Parallax, a number of the Justice Leaguers were willing to cut Hal a little slack, as he had seemingly had a mental break when his hometown of Coast City was destroyed in an alien attack, killing millions. Hal became obsessed with using his powers to fix things, and thus he believed that anyone he killed on this mission was okay, because if he succeeded, then everything would be back to normal, including any of the people that he had to kill along the way. However, one of the heroes who could not cut Hal any slack was Batman, and after Hal returned, Batman confronted him...

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Hal then punched the Dark Knight, evoking a scene from the Giffen and DeMatteis Justice League run where Batman had laid out Green Lantern Guy Gardner with one punch...

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As an aside, I don't think the use of "One Punch" worked here, because the whole point of "One Punch" is that Guy wanted to fight Batman and Batman knocked him out with a single punch. Here, Hal sucker punchs Batman and knocks him to the ground. That's not "one punch," that's "he got off one punch before Batman decided to not continue the fight because they were in the middle of a crisis." Which is fine, but it isn't "one punch."

In any event, at the end of the story, Batman questions the convoluted story of Hal's return to heroism...

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but ultimately, he begrudgingly accepts it...

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Obviously, in the years since, Batman and Hal have slowly but surely become friends once again. In any event, though, Batman's reaction was a big deal for Geoff Johns in this series, and originally, it was going to be shown in a whole other way...by having Batman be possessed by Parallax!

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WAS BATMAN ORIGINALLY GOING TO BECOME PARALLAX IN THE STORY?

In the trade paperback collection of the series, Johns shared his original pitch for the series, including his outline for each issue of the story.

In the general pitch, he explained that since Batman was the most vocal hero against Hal, that he would have Parallax infect Batman once it was torn from Hal Jordan, and Batman would become Parallax, which would be interesting, though, because Parallax as Batman wouldn't have access to any powers like it did with Hal or other characters...

Green Lantern - Rebirth

In the outline of the series, Johns explains that Jordan would use only non-powered heroes to hunt down Parallax Batman (because they don't want Parallax to be able to possess, say, Superman or Wonder Woman), and when they confront then, Parallax Batman SHOOTS ROBIN! Obviously, Robin survives, but Batman and Hal have a moment where Batman apologizes, as now he went through the same thing as Hal and he knows it wasn't the real Hal...

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It's interesting that they ended up not doing that.

Later, Johns had Hal's 1990s replacement as Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner, briefly become possessed by Parallax...

That, too, was just a brief thing.

Thanks to Geoff Johns for the fascinating information!

And yes, that's Batman as a Yellow Lantern in the header. Since it never happened in the comic, there's no art to use for a header of Batman as Parallax. This seemed like the next best bet.

SOME OTHER ENTERTAINMENT LEGENDS!

Check out some entertainment legends from Legends Revealed:

1. Was There a “Nude” Cheat Code in the Original Tomb Raider Video Game?

2. Was TaleSpin Sued Over the Voice of King Louie?

3. Did the Host of Family Feud Marry One of the Contestants That He Kept Kissing?

4. Was the Band Toto Really Named After Dorothy’s Dog, Toto?

PART TWO SOON!

Check back soon for part 2 of this installment's legends!

Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com