Hal Jordan likes to pretend to be the coolest person in the Justice League but he absolutely does not know how to use any social media. He laughs at memes that are 15 years old.
this man spends more time off planet than he does on earth, there’s no way he would know how social media works even if he tried
AfterGreen Arrow was evicted from the series,Green Lantern v2 began to get a whole lot better. Green Arrow already had a long residency as a feature in World Finest v1 since 1977 - so don’t feel too sorry for him. Denny O'Neil, who had been writing Green Lantern since it’s DC Explosion revival in 1976 (GreenLantern v2 #90), wrote another six issues after Green Arrow had been booted out of the series and then left DC to work for Marvel comics in 1980. In his last six issues of Green Lantern,O'Neil managed to return Hal Jordan to his roots - Carol Ferris was re-instated as a potential love interest, Thomas Kalmaku (AKA Pieface) was back to being his sidekick, and Hal Jordan was once again a test pilot for Ferris Airlines. Another element O'Neil brought back was Hal Jordan’s arch-nemesis Sinestro - most of O'Neil’s final six issues involved a running plot of Hal Jordan battling Sinestro (with a dash of classic Green Lantern villains Hector Hammond and Star Sapphire thrown in for good measure). Whether it was a good time for O'Neil to cut and run from DC was up for debate as he had previously killed off Batwoman (Kathy Kane) in the pages ofDetective Comics that very same summer.
Green Lantern v2 issues #130 to #132 had guest writers. Bob Rozakis wrote issue #130, Mike W Barr wrote #131 and Paul Kupperberg wrote issue #132. What’s noteworthy about these issues is that we’re starting to see more of Green Lantern’s classical villains appear (Sonar and Evil Star). Another interesting development was occurring: now that Green Lantern wasn’t tethered to Green Arrow, there was more room to explore the Green Lantern mythos, and that included the Green Lantern Corps. The Green Lantern Corps played a prominent role in a few of O'Neil’s post-Green Arrow issues, but more importantly, the Green Lantern Corps received a back-up feature in Green Lantern v2 #130. Written by Bob Toomey and drawn by Alex Saviuk, the Green Lantern Corps stories were some previously completed but unpublished work that finally had a chance to be printed. Fans loved the concept and demanded more Green Lantern Corps stories. [more about that later]
Green Lantern v2 #132 saw a price jump from forty to fifty cents - this involved an extra eight pages of story and this is when Adam Strange became a back-up feature. Written by Jack C Harris and illustrated by Rodin L Rodriguez, the Adam Strange back-ups would run until Green Lantern v2 #147 (but not before switching creative teams to Laurie Sutton as writer and Carmine Infantino as artist). There would be another price increase to 60 cents by issue #144, for an extra 2 pages of story in 1981.
Marv Wolfman became the regular writer for Green Lantern v2 at issue #133. DC comics acquired the talented Mr. Wolfman after he had just left Marvel comics due to a dispute with Marvel’s editor-in-chief, Jim Shooter. Building on the momentum of O'Neil’s ‘back-to-basics’ approach for Hal Jordan, the first thing Wolfman did when he started writing Green Lantern was to shine up all of Hal Jordan’s relationships that had gotten a little vague over the last 20 years. He aimed to bring Hal and Carol Ferris back together, get all the characters set up, give Hal some new friends and create a new support cast as a launching pad for more stories. Wolfman also continued with the hit parade of classic Green Lantern villain appearances: Dr Polaris, Goldface, and Black Hand all appeared during Wolfman’s run. Interesting to note that Wolfman tried to make Goldface THE arch-foe of Hal Jordan. He wanted a foe whose super-powers were less important than the threat of his very existence. Wolfman also brought back an old one-time Green Lantern foe, The Tattooed Man, only to have him killed off*. This was possibly one of the first times a Green Lantern foe had been killed off - fans were a little annoyed by that little stunt. Wolfman explained that the Tattooed Man was killed off because his powers weren’t unique. Wolfman introduces the Omega Men (and the Vegan Star System) in Green Lantern v2 #141 (this would spin-off into it’s own series).
Long-time readers will most likely remember Wolfman as the writer who 'humanized’ Hal Jordan. Wolfman believed that what made a series work were the characters - if they are interesting and if their problems are engrossing. He believed that a blend of good stories, good characters and situations, coupled with interesting action sequences was the key to a successful series. Wolfman and his editors (Jack C Harris,Len Wein,Cary BurkettandDave Manak) decided to infuse a stronger personality in Hal Jordan (more so than done in the past). Wolfman really tried to get to the 'root’ of Hal Jordan. Another interesting plot element that Wolfman likes to explore is the masked crime fighter versus the legal system angle (as seen in Green Lantern v2 #145 - #146) - Wolfman would further explore this idea in his 1983Vigilanteseries.
As you are also probably well aware, Marv Wolfman was the mastermind behind the Crisis On Infinite Earths event - a grand gesture intended to make DC’s continuity way less confusing. You begin to recognize that Wolfman was making a concentrated effort to establish a DC-wide continuity in his Green Lantern v2run:
1. Re-introduction of older characters to a modern audience. These include Space Ranger from Green Lantern v2 #136 - #137, and Bruce Gordon/Eclipso from Green Lantern v2 #136 - #138.Wolfman is a stickler for cohesion, and demonstrating that characters from the old DC anthologies were still an active part of DC continuity is a major part of crafting a sense that everything is tied together and occupying the same universe.
2. Integrating characters from another title into the storyline. The Gordanians make an appearance and the H.I.V.E. are mentioned. Both sets of characters are from the New Teen Titans series that Wolfman was also writing at the same time. Most fans don’t realize this, but Wolfman was writing New Teen Titans,Action ComicsandAdventure Comics while he was writing Green Lantern v2. Integrating characters from another series as a way to create cohesion within the DC universe.
3. Answers the age-old question: if Hal Jordan was facing a global threat, where were all the other heroes? During Green Lantern’s battle with Eclipso, Wolfman made a point to show the rest of the Justice League’s efforts in combating the threat. Trying to keep the idea that although all of these characters occupy different comic book titles, they all occupy the same planet.
4.Wolfman addresses problems about Green Lantern v2 not meshing with prior DC history (case in point: Green Lantern v2 #136-#137 contradicts 1978’s Showcase #100).Wolfman explains that someday soon they will straighten all of that out (pre-lude to Crisis on Infinite Earths?).
5.Wolfman later incorporates some pre-existing Guardians of OA history into Crisis on Infinite Earths. The scene where a rogue Guardian (Krona) tries to view the creation of the universe thus unleashing the anti-monitor already existed prior to Crisis on Infinite Earths being written - Wolfman just retconned it slightly without altering anything major to meet the story’s needs. The Guardians of OA would come to play a major part in post-Crisis DC continuity (see: Millennium event)
The last issue of Wolfman’sGreen Lantern v2 run was issue #151 - after which he plotted issues #152 and #153 (while Gary CohnandDan Mishkin scripted) and became co-editor with Ernie Colon shortly thereafter. Wolfman dropped the series because he was too busy with the Teen Titans,Action Comicsandthe new horror/adventure series that he was planning.Wolfman left the series sending Hal Jordan in a new sci-fi direction (banished from earth by the Guardians of OA), his view was to get Hal off of Earth - Wolfman reasoned that Hal should be the Green Lantern of his entire space sector, not just the planet Earth. Green Lantern v2 #155 was the last issue pencilled by Joe Staton(Keith Pollard took over pencilling chores afterwards) - Staton would return as regular Green Lantern penciller two years later.
What was Wolfman’s impact on Green Lantern during his two year run? Green Lantern’s sales were very good when Wolfman took over, but dipped quite badly after the Space Ranger story arc. Sales of the series started climbing again after the introduction of the Omega Men. Sales for Green Lantern v2 were really high as of issue #147, so Wolfman left the series in pretty good health when Mike W Barr took over as regular writer.
WhileWolfman’s excellent writing, characterization and new direction for the series during this time period is definitely worth noting, I’d say the biggest development during this two year period was the Green Lantern Corps taking a more prominent role in the Green Lantern mythos. The Green Lantern Corps appeared in Green Lantern v2 #127(whileO'Neil was writing) and there seemed to be a pretty good response from the fans, so the Corps started to get a little bit more exposure in the series.
In 1981, a 3 issue mini-series written by Len WeinandMike W Barr was published titled Tales of the Green Lantern Corps that mainly focused on the Corps as a single unit (this included Hal Jordan). Various Green Lantern stories in the past had featured alien Green Lanterns in one-off team-up stories, but suddenly it was made aware that the Green Lantern Corps consisted of a diverse race of aliens with it’s own culture. The critical and sales impact of the Tales of Green Lantern Corps mini-series had a notable impact on Green Lantern v2 - lead stories began to have more alien Green Lantern Corps members and, as a result, more Green Lantern Corps members (Ch'P, Salaak, Arisia, Galius Zed, etc…) were introduced in the pages of Green Lantern v2. The Green Lantern Corps were so popular with the readers that the Adam Strange back-up feature was removed (#148) in favor of more Green Lantern Corps back-up features appearing instead. Paul Kupperberg (who was fresh on his stint from DC’s Ghosts) was writing said back-up tales and Don Newtonand/orCarmine Infantino was illustrating. Incedentaly, Kupperberg/Infantino also worked together on 1982’s New Adventures of Supergirlseries.
*In possibly THE most obscure spin-off ever, the Tattooed Man received his own Vertigo mini-series in 1993: Skin Graft: The Adventures of a Tattooed Man written by Jerry Prosser and illustrated by Warren Pleece.
During his time as an editor at DC comics from 1987 to 1989, Mark Waid was instrumental in many great DC projects (he and Brian Augustyn are credited with creating DC’s Elseworlds spin-off franchise), but his contribution in ensuring that DC’s competitors weren’t dominating the Christmas anthology market during the late 80s is often overlooked.
Case in point: Christmas with the Super-Heroes #1and#2 (1988 and 1989, respectively).
I won’t delve too much into Christmas with the Super-Heroes #1 (mainly because I couldn’t find a house ad for it), but it was a 100 page reprint of DC’s most popular Christmas stories. A large majority of the reprinted stories first appeared in DC Special Series v1 #21 (1980), so you’re not really getting anything new here. Remember that 1968 story where the Teen Titans battled Scrooge? Yeah, it’s in here. That DC Comics Presents #67 (1983) story where Superman teams up with Santa? Yep - it’s in here, too. I’m not entirely 100% sure of what Waid’s role in all of this was (he’s the editor so I guess he selected the stories to reprint?) but Waiddid include a nice little anecdote about a Christmas where he just chilled with his comics - so there’s always that.
Thereal focus of today’s article is the surprisingly awesome Christmas with the Super-Heroes #2 published in 1989. First, I’m going to tell you that it was also edited by Mark Waid. Second, I’m going to tell you that it was another anthology - but that it contained ALL NEWmaterial!Mark Waid somehow managed to get contributions from PaulChadwick(ofDark Horse’sConcrete),Dave Gibbons(ofWatchmen),Eric Shanower(ofFirst Comics’Oz),John Byrne(ofSuperman),Bill Loebs(of Aardvark-Vanaheims’ Journey: The Adventures of Wolverine MacAlistaire), and Alan Brennert into one anthology book. That alone, folks, is worth the price of admission. All of the stories seem to be about super-heroes helping out their fellow man (except for the Dave Gibbons story which, for some reason, seems to be about the nature of Batman and Robin’s relationship/conflict expressed in allegorical terms).
The three things that really stand out in this issue are:
the completely silent Enemy Ace story by John ByrneandAndy Kubert,
the pre-Crisis retro story in which Hal Jordan (Green Lantern) and Barry Allen (Flash) are hanging out in the JLA Satellite and decide to go help some folks on Christmas Eve; and
the Deadman story where Kara Zor-El Supergirl makes her last pre-Crisis appearance (4 years after Crisis On Infinite Earths, no less).
I think the Deadman/Supergirl story was my favorite story of all - it was cleverly written by Alan Brennert and it left you with one of those self-satisfying “Aha” moments at the end as all the pieces fell into place. I recall that a lot of fans were hopeful that this would lead to the return of Kara Zor-El Supergirl to the DCU (or the next best step: acknowledging that she existed), but alas, no dice. The Green Lantern/Flash team-up was a great read, as it brought back the old nostalgic feelings from when Busiek was writing Justice League of America in the early to mid-80s. Hell, the whole book was great - read it if you ever get the chance. The book also contained another Waid anecdote as he recounts what he was doing the night John Lennondied.
Mark Waid would leave his editorial position at DC comics later that year and return in 1992 to write The Flash (which would ultimately propel Waid to stardom). Roughly fifteen years later Waidwouldwhistle-blow on the whole comic book industry’s mistreatment of freelance writers (which obviously caused some waves). And now you know the rest of the story. ;)
If you take anything away from my OceanHawk nonsense, let if be the knowledge that Shayera introduces herself by way of dropping down from a few stories in the air and saying, “You’re the one who threw all that trash out of the ocean, right? Baller move.”
(Hal in the background, like, “People died, Shayera.”)
Beyond his art, Neal Adams is rightfully remembered as an eternal champion of creators’ rights and for the part he & his work played in the Comics Code revision of ‘71 but his contribution to John Stewart’s creation is – I think – a rather underrated aspect of his career, especially as it’s such a great reminder of the kind of person he was. Taken from an interview conducted and transcribed by Allen W. Wright over at the Green Arrow: Bold Archer fansite, here’s Neal discussing John’s beginnings (x).
