These days, comic book readers know Parallax as a giant fear-powered space bug that acts as a parasite to those that wield the emotional spectrum. However, this is a retcon (one of the greatest retcons of all time, it must be said) and is not the original story. At first, it was decided that Green Lantern Hal Jordans day was done and that he should be re-positioned as DCs premier supervillain. The resulting fan furore aside, new GL Kyle Rayner proved to be a breath of fresh air, with his time as last of the Green Lanterns offering some classic (and today sorely overlooked) moments (particularly his interactions with other superheroes). Green Lantern Issue 0, then, was the story where Kyle truly became Green Lantern proper. Taking place on the dead world of Oa immediately after the events of Zero Hour (which had seen Parallax attempt to erase the universe and re-write history), Kyle Rayner and an unstable Hal Jordan finally get some face-to-face time. Jordan is, at times, the Jordan of old. Mournful and saddened by his actions (especially in the moving panel where he sees the skull of Kilowog, whom he had earlier murdered), Hal appears to have regained his sanity at times, before veering wildly off into irrational diatribes and block-capital sermonizing. In one scene, the villainous Parallax allows the real man to shine through, as he kneels over the body of his fallen friend. Its not supposed to be like this. What happened to Coast City, all those people...I should have stopped it. I should have saved them. Im a hero, thats what Im supposed to do. So I tried to change everything that happened Coast City, The Corps, everything. Unless I can do that, I cant be a hero. Ill be...Ill be...One of the bad guys. The pair bond a little, after which Kyle returns Hals power ring and the classic GL jubilantly returns to active duty, albeit briefly. Sadly, his fragile mind snaps once again and Hals evil persona, obsessed with undoing the damage he had done, attempts to hunt Rayner down for good. At the end of the story, as Oa erupts into a ball of green light and Kyle emerges as the (apparent) sole survivor of the battle, you cant help but feel totally saddened by the Hal Jordans desperate attempts to repair the timeline and erase his regrets from existence. Theres a real sense of pathos there. Who amongst us has never had a regret? How far would we go to undo that regret forever? The ultimate tragedy of Hal Jordans swansong, then, was not that he was turned into an evil being of almost godlike power, but that ultimately, at the end of his emerald twilight, the greatest of the Green Lanterns was simply all too Human...
I am a professional author and lifelong comic books/pro wrestling fan. I also work as a journalist as well as writing comic books (I also draw), screenplays, stage plays, songs and prose fiction.
I don't generally read or reply to comments here on What Culture (too many trolls!), but if you follow my Twitter (@heyquicksilver), I'll talk to you all day long!
If you are interested in reading more of my stuff, you can find it on http://quicksilverstories.weebly.com/ (my personal site, which has other wrestling/comics/pop culture stuff on it).
I also write for FLiCK http://www.flickonline.co.uk/flicktion, which is the best place to read my fiction work.
Oh yeah - I'm about to become a Dad for the first time, so if my stuff seems more sentimental than usual - blame it on that!
Finally, I sincerely appreciate every single read I get. So if you're reading this, thank you, you've made me feel like Shakespeare for a day! (see what I mean?)
Latcho Drom,
- CQ
