Grant Morrison's Green Lantern Series Has One Major Flaw: Hal Jordan

Grant Morrison is returning to DC after a few years away from the company, taking the reins on The Green Lantern. The art is being provided by Liam Sharp, and the concept behind the book sounds exactly up their alley. The problem is that the book is focusing on the wrong Green Lantern – Hal Jordan.

Okay, let’s get this part out of the way: the prospect of having Grant Morrison on a Green Lantern ongoing series is great. Morrison is known for the broadness and scope of his ideas in super hero comics, pushing the boundaries of what characters can do within the stories. Plus, his handle on some of the most iconic DC heroes has become the standard for the characters moving forward. Seeing him explore the Green Lantern corner of the universe, something he hasn’t done as much of, is definitely exciting.

Morrison has already made it clear that this won’t be all space odyssey stuff, though. In an interview with IGN, the writer explained, “Instead of the big, epic, 12-part stories, we’re focusing down on the everyday life of a space cop. Basically, it’s no more apocalypse-ending storylines. The basic concept is that [Hal Jordan] is like a space cop that patrols a sector of the universe where anything can happen. We’ve made it more like a police procedural.”

And, man, that’s a cool premise. It grounds the sheer weirdness of such a concept, allowing readers to immediately understand the (for lack of a better term) humanity within the alien worlds and settings. Morrison and Sharp also revealed that the book will primarily take place around the cosmos, in strange locales that won’t feature characters or things we’ve seen before.

And again, great! That all sounds really cool. Especially with Sharp on art, this book has the potential to be Top Ten in the DC Universe. Pull-list material, easy. Here’s the problem.

The book is going to be about Hal Jordan, and Hal Jordan sucks.

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Emerald Twilight

Hal Jordan first appeared in Showcase #22, written by John Broome and with art by Gil Kane. Hal was among the first wave of Silver Age reinventions of Golden Age super heroes. Following the success of Barry Allen assuming the role of the Flash, Green Lantern was given a similar reconstruction. Now a space faring protector of the universe (specifically the corner of the cosmos that contains Earth), Jordan eventually joined the Justice League and became known as the greatest Green Lantern of all time.

Eventually ending up in the hands of Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams, Jordan's title became a team up book with Hal co-starring alongside Green Arrow. Their drive across the United States might have been as subtle as a giant green brick, but it was still effective at exploring real life issues within the world of talking gorillas and trick arrows.

Since then, Jordan has been defined by that straight edge, at least in part. He’s the conservative to Green Arrow’s liberal, in a more meaningful way than Hawkman yelling has ever been. Hal Jordan is the pilot son of a proud military family, a bit of a hot head, but one with his heart in the right place. He’s a good sorta guy, the mid-grade burger of protagonists. A reasonable (if not particularly exciting) character. The ultimate example of the pretty standard straight white male protagonist.

VIA: Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #18 (Venditti/Marion)

But if you’re doing a big book about space and the insanity that you can find out there, it’s more compelling to have an interesting personality there. Hal Jordan isn’t that. And we know that because we justhad a massive run of comics about him.

Hal Jordan was the focus of years of Geoff Johns run on the Green Lantern books, including getting a heavily revamped origin story and character exploration. And one of the underlining themes of that book is that Hal Jordan is basic. He is not a deep thinker or philosopher. His ultimate want in the universe isn’t world peace, it’s a burger. He’s a simple man who wants simple things. And while that kind of humble humanity can rise to the occasion and punch out the god of death sometimes, that doesn’t make for a very compelling lead character.

Also, he went crazy because his city blew up, killed a bunch of his friends, turned into a super villain, killed a bunch more people, tried to rewrite history, got shot in the chest by Green Arrow(!), used his powers to bring Green Arrow back to life, exploded himself to restore the sun, became the Spectre for a bit, then got brought back to life when we found out he went crazy because a giant yellow space bug was mind-controlling him.

This isn’t the main point, but jeez that is a lot to get through with Hal Jordan. There is a ton of baggage that intrinsically comes with the character, even in the modern age, when most of that was somewhat retconned (but also,,, not?). DC continuity has always been tricky, and Hal Jordan is downright confusing. He’s just not worth the effort. He’s not interesting enough on his own to justify everything that comes with him.

But let’s say, hypothetically, that stuff never comes up. Okay. Fine.

Hal Jordan still shouldn’t be the main character of this book.

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The Problem With Hal Jordan

While talking about the book with IGN, Sharp described Hal Jordan as “…a loner and a drifter and he’s an unreconstructed man.” Morrison followed that up by saying, “We’re doing Hal Jordan where, you know he’s a good cop, but is he really a good guy? And we’re looking into his relationships and how he deals with people… If you’ve got a job as a space cop, it’s hard to be stuck on the planet Earth. He has other lives on other planets. We’re gonna be looking into a lot of things that I don’t think we’ve seen a lot with Hal Jordan before.”

But we’ve literally just seen that. The Geoff Johns run on Green Lantern, including the Rebirth story that brought Hal back, ran for over seventy issues. From 2005 to 2011. That run lasted almost as long as it’s been since it ended. And while part of that book benefited from the expansive cast, it was still very much Hal Jordan’s book. The basic idea behind that series is also exactly what Morrison and Sharp are describing their new story as. Hal Jordan going to new planets, having difficulty adjusting to Earth, trying to tell if he’s really all that good of a dude.

VIA: Green Lantern Rebirth (Johns/Van Sciver)

We’ve seen that before. We’ve seen that with Hal Jordan! It didn’t even end ten years ago! Do we really need another series about the character?

Why not focus the book on John Stewart, who’s been going through some crazy stuff lately and could probably do with the win? Or if you want to explore if someone can be a good guy while not being a good person, do it about Guy Gardner! His whole thing is that he’s kind of the worst even though he’s a hero. Plus, unlike white bread Hal, it makes perfect sense why Guy would rile up any and every alien he comes across. How about Grant Morrison reaffiliate himself with Kyle Rayner, a character he helped define in his landmark JLA run from the 1990s? Following his most recent events, he needs the win just as bad as John. Any of those three each would be better than Hal, and way more interesting. But the best would be to continue the buddy-cop adventures of the newest Green Lanterns, Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz.

VIA: Green Lanterns #29 (Humphries/Pansica)

Morrison has never really gotten the chance to write either of the characters, so seeing his take on them would be interesting for that alone. Morrison and Sharp partnership seems like the perfect vehicle for the kind of story want to tell. Their relationship has been explored well in other books, but their natural differences would create plenty of problems around the galaxy. It creates natural conflict for the story, and has the added benefit of letting us get away from Hal Jordan.

Getting these two at the center of the procedural series makes for a natural fit, and an interesting experiment for Morrison. Based off the past work of both the writer and the artist, we can presume the book is going to be good. But centering it around any of the Green Lanterns other than Hal Jordan would make it a more compelling, interesting book.

Or just make it about Kilowog and wait for the Eisners to pour in.