Thoughtnami: Re: Green Lantern
I’m out of the loop when it comes to that title, so I have to ask this question:
In the rebooted New 52, before Kyle Rayner becomes a Green Lantern, does Hal Jordan still go crazy after Mongul and Hank Henshaw (the cyborg Superman) destroy Coast City and kill a whole lot of Green Lantern Corps,…
Honestly, it’s easier just to ignore the new timeline when looking at Green Lantern. There’s not nearly enough time for anything to have happened, which means that what’s currently happening doesn’t make any sense at all. My go-to example for this is how all four seem to still be considered veterans… even though how much times the New 52 claims has gone by wouldn’t even allow for Hal to be considered a veteran, much less Kyle.
Issue 1 started off exactly where the old universe left off: Hal fired because he killed Krona in order to free the Guardians from the entities, which he was only able to do because his experience being Parallax granted him limited immunity to its influence. Meaning that unless that entire situation was reworked to fit into New 52 canon (which, given an interview I’ve read from a writer about how it’s being handled, is unlikely), Hal was Parallax at some point. All of them had to have felt Parallax’s influence before in order for War of the Green Lanterns to work at all, so therefore Rebirth had to have happened, and by extension, some version of Emerald Twilight and Final Night.
And it gets even more complicated, because the existence of the Sinestro Corps means the Sinestro Corps War had to have happened. For that to have happened means Sinestro had enough time to become a villain (which Secret Origin implies to have happened about a month or so after Hal first became a Lantern, though I’ll need to check the issue that shows his backstory in the recent run to be sure), get the Qwardian ring, form the Corps, and pretty much annihilate the Qwardians. These kinds of things take time.
So then we have the question of Kyle. If he’s a Green Lantern, that means that Hal had to have been Parallax, right? Maybe? Was he even the torchbearer? He had to have been, or else there’s really no reason for Ganthet to have gone out of his way to find him. This would indicate that Hal became Parallax, destroyed the Corps, and Kyle had time to restore it as Ion. But wait! If I recall correctly, it was by absorbing Hal’s corpse’s spare Parallax energy and restoring it (after some prodding by Spectre!Hal). So now Hal’s Spectre days have to be true, or else all the times he gave Kyle advice that led to him making decisions like that can’t have happened. The situations themselves may not have happened, but then what was Kyle doing all that time he was a Green Lantern? Sure, he might’ve had other adventures, but what would they be?
And if the Corps was dismantled, how would Guy have been affected by Parallax? He didn’t have a ring at the time; it was his Vuldarian DNA (that probably doesn’t exist in the timeline the New 52 is working with) that it latched onto. Unless, of course, it outright possessed him like it did Barry Allen in Brightest Day. But it couldn’t have done that because it was tangled up in Hal’s soul at the time, fighting with the Spectre. Come to think of it, Guy was an Honor Guard for over a year (he was forbidden from shore leave for that amount of time), which would further detract from what time the New 52 grants.
And what about what John was doing at the time? No friendship with Ollie means Hal never went on that infamous road trip with him, means Appa Ali Apsa never went along for the ride, means no Mosaic for John to watched over. I admit to only bare-bones knowledge about John’s career as a GL, but what else did he do? Xanshi had to still have happened, given the role it played in Blackest Night, but what about his time with the Darkstars?
At one point in Kyle’s time in the main GL title, a time travel mishap quantifies the time between his becoming a Lantern and Hal’s early days as being about 10 years. That’s, what, double the amount of time DC is insisting its stories have happened in? And that timescale is still rather pushing it in regards to believability!
The short answer is that it’s best to ignore the New 52 when it comes to the Green Lantern stable of books. It’s not as if it’s had much of an effect -Kyle’s backstory was changed to be less accidental from what I understand and Guy’s was simplified to an extent that I am personally insulted by.
Sorry for puking such a huge response out at you; this is a bone I’ve been worrying at for awhile now. It keeps me up at night :(
It’s cool. In fact, it was quite informative, and I learned a lot from it. I appreciate it, thank you.
