10 Unbelievable Retcons That Changed Comics For The Better

There has to be one controversial choice and here it is. The set up for the story is that Coast City, Hal’s home, is destroyed with all seven million inhabitants killed. Hal goes a bit insane (understandably) and recreates the entire city as a projection from his ring, including his girlfriend and parents.

The Guardians, the leaders of the Green Lanterns, are not happy about this, and bring him back to Oa to reprimand him for using the ring in such a way. That goes over about as well as a Baby Ruth in a pool, and Hal, in his anger, starts and wins a war against the Green Lantern Corps, now calling himself Parallax.

After the event where he tries to rewrite time, Hal sacrifices himself to save the solar system in the mid-nineties. All this was because DC wanted to end the Silver Age versions of their characters to put all new, all different characters in.

Things were fine until 2004, when DC Comics decided that they wanted to bring back Hal Jordan as a Green Lantern with the Green Lantern: Rebirth series. It was then that Geoff Johns retconned the whole Parallax fiasco to be Hal Jordan being possessed by a giant space-bug comprised of yellow fear energy.

It also explained the reason that Green Lanterns couldn’t affect yellow objects for a bit, but, more importantly, It reinvented the whole of the GL mythos with multiple Corps, an emotional spectrum and stories that would become instant classics for years to follow!