The Comic Cave is a regular feature where we spin the Wheel of Comics and see what graphic novel story it brings up for us to deep dive into! This week we take a look at Green Lantern: Rebirth, the six issue event that rehabilitated and relaunched an iconic hero, and launched one of the most popular runs in their history.
There was a time when the name Hal Jordan was not looked upon kindly. The new Green Lantern was created in the late 1950s and was a completely new take on the classic Green Lantern character. He was part of the origin of the Silver Age of comics, and would become a founding member of the Justice League of America alongside Barry Allen, a new version of The Flash, and revamped and rebooted versions of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. This was the birth of what would become Earth-1, the primary universe in DC Comics. Hal was a cocky test pilot who was given an alien power ring that would allow him to conjure anything his mind desired out of his own willpower turned into light. Part of an interplanetary space corps, he was one of more than 36,000 Lanterns who protected the universe.
But that all changed for Hal Jordan in the 1990s. As part of the mega storyline that began with The Death of Superman, Hal Jordan fought alongside a resurrected Superman and his allies against the alien despot Mongul, and the evil Cyborg Superman in his home of Coast City. However, during the battle Coast City was destroyed, killing millions. Having the hero of the Green Lantern series face the horror of losing his home city in another series entirely would have an affect on Green Lantern, but not in the way everyone expected. The original plan for Hal Jordan involved a split amongst the Green Lantern Corps, with new Guardians of the Universe coming into power, and Hal taking the old ones into hiding. However, thanks to some changes in creative teams behind the scenes a new choice was made.
Instead of leaving Earth peacefully, Hal Jordan goes a little crazy as he tries to bring Coast City back using his ring, and when he can’t he turns on the rest of the Corps, seeking out more power. Hal heads to the planet base of the Corps, Oa, leaving several Lanterns dead in his wake as he defeats them and takes their rings. Arriving on Oa, Hal kills his long time enemy Sinestro, who the Guardians try to use to stop him, and Hal takes the power of the entire Corps into himself, becoming Parallax. The end result is that our hero becomes a villain, and a new Green Lantern is created, Kyle Rayner, the only Green Lantern in existence. And this is how things would continue for years, with Hal as Parallax seeking more power, acting a villain, until he sacrifices his life to re-ignite Earth’s sun. But death is never the end in comics, and after he dies Hal’s soul joins with The Spectre, the angel of God’s wrath, and he becomes an avenging force for good.
This was the state of things for Green Lantern fans when Geoff Johns began work on Green Lantern: Rebirth: Hal was a ghost who was hated by most people, Kyle was the main Green Lantern, and John Stewart had been able to become a GL once again. Things had changed a lot, and most people thought of Hal Jordan as a fallen hero, someone who may have died doing good, but was beyond redemption. Johns, however, set out not to only bring Hal back to life, but to make him a worthy hero once more.
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Green Lantern: Rebirth begins out in the vastness of space, where Kyle is helping aliens on a remote planet on the edge of the universe. The aliens keep saying one phrase over and over again, ‘Parallax is coming’. Back on Earth, Hal, as the Spectre, is doing his best to do good, trying to reign in the often cruel nature of the entity he’s bonded with. He even tries to take in a baseball game with his friends John Stewart and Guy Gardner, another former Lantern who now has alien powers instead. However, The Spectre won’t let him rest, and he’s forced to flee. Meanwhile, Kyle Rayner flies a ship through the heart of the sun, before crashing down to Earth. He’s found amidst the wreckage by a couple of hikers, wounded, but protecting a coffin.
Soon, strange things begin to happen around the world. Coast city mysteriously reappears, with all of the roads and streets intact, but only a single building standing: Hal Jordan’s old home. Guy Gardner’s alien biology goes out of control, resulting in an explosion in his bar that destroys everything except a statue of Hal, and leaves Guy with a mutated, horrific body. And in Star City, a former villain of Hal’s breaks into Green Arrow‘s home, looking for Hals old ring, an encounter that sees Hal appear as The Spectre, who mutilates the villain. All signs seem to be pointing to something bad happening around Hal Jordan, and the Justice League are preparing for the worst.
As the League engage with Hal, however, John Stewart seems to go crazy, attacking his allies. And on the Justice League Watchtower, a Green Lantern ring flies onto Guy Gardner’s hand, healing him, before he too attacks his friends. Even Kilowog, one of the few alien Lanterns left, appears on Earth trying to kill Kyle Rayner, though fortunately the Guardian Ganthet comes to his aid. During all of this, Hal Jordan finds himself trapped inside his own mind, fighting with both The Spectre, and Parallax, his evil self.
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How do you redeem someone like Hal Jordan? Hal Jordan destroyed the Green Lantern Corps. He killed several of his friends. He destroyed the timeline itself at one point. He proved himself to only care about power, and that he’d hurt whoever he had to to get it along the way. How do you come back from all of that? Well, Geoff Johns suggests that you might not have to, if that wasn’t really you doing it. It might sound like a cop-out on paper, the idea that the hero wasn’t in control isn’t an original one, but Johns executes it in such a clever and creative way in Green Lantern: Rebirth that not only does it work, but it creates the basis for a huge expansion of the Lantern mythos that has changed DC forever.
Over the course of the book it’s revealed that Parallax wasn’t just the name that Hal Jordan took when he gained power, Parallax is a living thing. The story reveals that in the beginnings of the universe a creature was born, the living embodiment of the emotion of fear: Parallax. Parallax was connected to the emotional spectrum, to the yellow light of fear, and tore a bloody path through the universe until the Guardians of the Universe imprisoned him within their central power battery. This would be used to explain the old Green Lantern weakness of yellow. You see, it wasn’t the colour yellow, it was the connection to fear. Parallax has corrupted the rings somewhat by being inside the central battery, and a Lantern who knows fear could not affect the colour that represented it.
But Parallax wasn’t just asleep inside the battery. He was looking for a way out. He found the strongest Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, and began to sink his tendrils into him. This was why Hal began to go grey at a young age, and when he felt the destruction of Coast City it was enough for Parallax to exert power of Hal, making him afraid. And so Hal lashed out, under Parallax’s suggestion, and stormed Oa, where he took the power of the central battery into himself; along with Parallax. And from here Hal Jordan was possessed by a cosmic being, and all of his crimes can be laid at the feet of this fear entity.
Johns’ new spin on what Parallax not only offered Hal Jordan an out, but it expanded the lore in interesting ways. Fans loved this, and the readers accepted it, quickly seeing Hal Jordan as a hero once again. And as Johns would continue to spin his epic saga over the next several years, we would learn more about these entities. Each colour of the spectrum would be connected to an emotion, each would gain their own Corps, and each would have an entity like Parallax. The Green Lantern mythology became so much richer for this change, this simple explanation for why Hal should be forgiven. The existence of these entities and their respective Corps has become an accepted and standard part of the DC Universe now, and it’s not surprising to see a Lantern of a different colour to turn up in almost any title.
But it wasn’t just Hal Jordan who was reborn in this book. Guy Gardner became a Green Lantern once again, and would go on to have one of his best periods as part of the Green Lantern Corps book that would soon begin. The Corps in general would have a rebirth, getting their own mini before launching into a series that showcased dozens of amazing new and returning characters that would fill out the ranks of the GLC. But Johns also knew that if Hal was coming back, fans would want another character to return too, and rather than waiting to bring him back later, brought him back in this very book too. Sinestro, Hal’s greatest villain, returned. It was revealed to have been a fake Sinestro that died by Hal’s hands in 1994, and with the iconic alien back he would feature in several of DC’s biggest stories over the next several years, including headlining his own event, The Sinestro Corps War.
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In a lot of ways Green Lantern: Rebirth is something of a masterclass on bringing an old character back to life and revamping their mythology for a new age. It’s respectful of what came before, and whilst it changes what we knew about those older stories it doesn’t wipe them away. Those events happened, Hal became Parallax and destroyed the Corps, but now it actually makes sense and becomes part of a richer tapestry, rather than being a blemish on the series. It’s a trick that would be tried by Johns again in a few years following the return of Barry Allen in the Final Crisis event. However, Flash: Rebirth never quite managed to capture the scope and awe that Green Lantern: Rebirth had, and the return of Barry Allen would prove to be more of a detriment to the Flash mythology than a blessing for a number of years.
The art of Green Lantern: Rebirth is created by Ethan Van Sciver, with several people working on the inking, and Moose Bauman on colours. The art on the book is great, and was a big draw at the time. Van Sciver’s art style includes a lot of detail, and fits somewhat into the ‘blockbuster’ comic style that would be used in a lot of big name crossover events. Van Sciver gave the book a sense of scope that helped to tie the book’s visuals to the overall tone of the story that Johns was telling. It very much felt like you were reading something big and important with this story, and you could tell that it was something special just by flipping through it.
Ethan Van Sciver’s involvement with bringing Hal back and the revamp of the Green Lantern series would see him contribute covers to several of the big stories that involved the characters. However, over the years since Van Sciver has been all but dropped from DC, and other major publishers. Van Sciver is a major figure in the Comicsgate movement, with his YouTube channel often being used to attack diversity in comics both on and behind the page, including claims that queer created comics are grooming children. He’s spoken out in defence of underage attraction, whilst also making numerous homophobic and transphobic comments on social media (including directly towards myself in the past before he decided to block me). Sadly, knowing who Van Sciver is today does detract from the enjoyment of the book somewhat.
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Retcons are never going to go away in comics, they’re used a lot. When they stand out it’s often because they’ve been done badly, because it messes with established lore or character, but sometimes it can stand out for the exact opposite reasons, and Green Lantern: Rebirth is a prime example of this. It may be one of the best examples in comics. I’ll be the first to argue that perhaps Geoff Johns’ work hasn’t maintained this quality to this day, but this was easily one of his best eras, and it was never a better time to be a Green Lantern fan.
Green Lantern: Rebirth was released by DC Comics from October 2004 to May 2005.
Next time on The Comic Cave – Wolverine: Weapon X by Barry Windsor-Smith.