In every installment of “If I Pass This Way Again,” we look at odd comic book plot points that were rarely (sometimes NEVER!) mentioned again after they were first introduced.

Today, based on a suggestion from reader NES Boy, we look at a fascinatingly odd part of Hal Jordan's origin as Green Lantern.

As you likely all know by now, Hal Jordan became the superhero known in Green Lantern in Showcase #22 (by John Broome, Gil Kane and Joe Giella) when an alien named Abin Sur crashed on Earth and uses his green power ring to find a deserving replacement for himself (as I just wrote about the other day, Abin Sur actually had chosen an Earthling to fill-in for him before years earlier). He finds Hal Jordan and he brings Hal to him...

First off, I think it is important that every time that this origin is shown that we spend a moment to consider the fact that Hal Jordan's costume was literally taken off of the back of a dead alien. "Seems about right that I would just put this dead alien's skintight outfit on." The book later establishes that the ring can do practically anything, but nope, Hal can't have it create a new costume for him, he has to just wear the dead guy's clothes. Makes sense to me!

Anyhow, the more important thing and the point that NES Boy made to me is that note how Hal came to call himself Green Lantern. It wasn't something that Abin Sur said. It was not the name of the Green Lantern Corps. It was just something that Hal came up with on his own.

Later in that same story, we see Hal recite the Green Lantern oath for the first time...

Once again, this is just something that Hal came up with out of nowhere by himself. This is not something Abin Sur told him. This was just Hal riffing.

Isn't that fascinating? Two of the most notable aspects of the Green Lantern Corps, their oath and their VERY NAME were not present in the original story.

In fact, it went even FURTHER than that! In Green Lantern #10, Hal tells his friend Tom (who discovered Green Lantern's secret identity) the secret of HOW he came up with the oath!

He then tells him a long and elaborate story and at the end of it, Tom has figured out how the story led to the specific oath that Hal had coined...

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='When did they drop the whole Hal came up with the name thing?']

Even when Green Lantern got his own ongoing series and he met the Guardians of the Universe, they seem surprised to know that he's calling himself Green Lantern...

However, just five issues later, Hal Jordan meets Tomar-Re, another Green Lantern who, of course, refers to himself as a Green Lantern...

The next issue, Hal officially meets the Guardians of the Universe (they wiped his mind after his first meeting with them) and they tell him a story of a previous Green Lantern who went rogue, Sinestro, thus establishing that the name "Green Lantern" predated Hal getting the ring...

I honestly don't recall the first time that the Green Lantern Corps oath was established to pre-date Hal joining the core. I think it might not have even been before the last decade or so.

Thanks for the suggestion, NES Boy!

If anyone else has a suggestion for an interesting plot point that was introduced and then almost instantaneously ignored, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!