In this feature we examine comic book stories and ideas that were not only abandoned, but also had the stories/plots specifically "overturned" by a later writer (as if they were a legal precedent). Click here for an archive of all the previous editions of The Abandoned An' Forsaked. Feel free to e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.
Today, we take a look at the fall and retcon-heavy redemption of Hal Jordan!
I'm of two minds when it comes to possession as a plot device. While it is obviously abandoning a story, does it really count as FORSAKING it, too? I think it turns on whether the possession was just something like temporary insanity, in which case I don't think it is forsaking the previous story (for instance, I would call the revelation that Scarlet Witch was overpowered by Life-Force when she went nuts an instance where the original story was not forsaked, but rather just given some context that wasn't available originally - that's why I had that one as Abandoned Love and not Abandoned an' Forsaked). However, when a retcon of a possession is used to say that the person's actions were literally not their own (not a case of "too much power corrupting" but specifically "Another being controlling your thoughts") I think that that is a big enough of a retcon to count as forsaking the original story.
Anyhow, when last we left Hal Jordan (in part one of this look at the fall of Hal Jordan), he had just seemingly snapped at the destruction of Coast City (and the Guardians giving him crap over trying to recreate Coast City with his ring) and had gone off to get more power from Oa.
So on the way, he kicked the ass of any Green Lantern that tried to stop him, and he got more brutal the closer he got to Oa...
Now on Oa, Hal discovered that the Guardians had revived Sinestro to stop him. They had a knockdown dragout fight in Green Lantern #50 that ended poorly for Sinestro...
Hal's friend and fellow Lantern Kilowog tried one more time to stop Hal. It went poorly for Kilowog...
Hal then absorbed a bunch of power from the central battery and became a new being...
He next appeared during Zero Hour where he coldcocked Superman from behind...
The other heroes stop his plan and he ends up on Oa again with Kyle, where he bemoans what he has done so far, even if he still insists that he was right to have done it...
Hal showed up once more to fight Kyle and then, during the crossover Final Night, Hal sacrificed his life to restart Earth's sun, thus dying as a hero. A few years later the now-dead Hal Jordan became the new Spectre.
That was the status quo until Green Lantern Rebirth. In the third issue, writer Geoff Johns (with artist Ethan Van Sciver and Prentis Rollins) explained that Hal had not actually gone insane to begin with...
(Yes, even his gray hair was retconned!)
And at the end of the fourth issue, Hal comes back to life and is now a hero again...
So yeah, Hal never killed Kilowog, he never did all that weird stuff in Zero Hour, that was all the evil yellow fear monster Parallax.
Green Lantern Rebirth has a lot of other things in it unrelated to Hal that are ALSO good fodder for Abandoned Love. I guess I will do a third part in the future!
If YOU have a suggestion for a story that was both abandoned AND forsaked, drop me a line at bcronin@comicbookresources.com.