10 Most Hated Retcon Changes In DC Comics

6. Hal Jordan Is Unaccountable For His Actions - GL Rebirth

Green Lantern Parallax
Dc Comics

For some reason, even though DC possesses a veritable crop of genuinely brilliant and interesting Green Lanterns, every story just keeps coming back to Hal Jordan. The fifties-era space cop has starred in his fair share of memorable storylines over the years, but when he was resurrected in 2005's Green Lantern: Rebirth, praise was not exactly unanimous.

For starters, fans were frustrated by Joran's return because many felt his story had ended with his sacrifice as Parallax and his transformation into the Spectre. Moreover, other Green Lanterns like Kyle Rayner, Guy Gardner and John Stewart had risen to the task of replacing him, with the latter even commanding a sizeable following from the Justice League animated series that was airing at the time.

In truth, looking back at it today, it's easy to see Rebirth for what it was: a nostalgic exercise determined to supplant those other figures and make Jordan DC's premier Lantern. Again, controversial enough, but there was another retcon Johns introduced that didn't sit well with readers either.

Back during Emerald Twilight, Hal went a little bit off the rails. Driven mad by the destruction of Coast City, he attempted to remake it with his ring, only to incur the wrath of his fellow corpsmen, which he massacred. Jordan then took on the name of Parallax, but Rebirth changed it so that Parallax was an evil alien entity that possessed Jordan, making him completely unaccountable for the atrocities he committed during Emerald Twilight.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.