9 Storylines That Defined Popular Comic Book Characters

There was a point in canon that Hal Jordan, the most famous Green Lantern, went insane and murdered a considerable number of people. Many fans were understandably upset by the beloved Lantern turning out to be, you know, a murderer.

DC tried to retcon this at multiple stages, especially by having Hal sacrifice himself to make up for the atrocities, but it hadn't gone over well with fans. Maybe because DC has apparently not learned that fans don't like it when you mess with characters and proceed to kill them or even negate their very existence.

The series resurrected Hal and revealed/retconned the reason for his insanity - that he was controlled by a different villain and wasn't in control of his actions. It even explained that the hair on his temples hadn't gone white from age, but stress from being controlled, because they wanted their characters to be younger.

Aside from hair color explanations, Rebirth did have many legitimate changes in the Green Lantern series. It forced Hal to regain the trust of his former friends and partners in the Corps, and even built upon the Lantern mythos by introducing now well-known concepts like the emotional color spectrum.