I love this arc, more for Hal Jordan’s trajectory as Parallax following the emerald twilight, his anti-hero antics, his eventual sacrifice in Final Night, his penance as the Spectre, and finally resurrection in Rebirth and the Geoff Johns era. One of my favorite character arcs ever!
I absolutely agree with you! Finally! Someone who understands the mythology. Absolutely, Emerald Twilight I feel is often degraded among fans. But, on the grand scheme of things the arc enabled all the plot threads to be established during the Geoff John’s Era. Without Emerald Twilight there is no Final Night and without that one there is no Day of Judgment where Hal Jordan becomes The Spectre. Why is it that nobody credits Emerald Twilight for its outstanding pacing in carving out perhaps, the most controversial acts among perhaps the greatest and most definitive of all the Green Lanterns have ever done? Emerald Twilight should be credited to enabling Johns and Sciver to develop the Green Lantern Mythos today. Oh, and fun fact it was Ethan Van Sciver who came up with the concept of the Emotional Electric Magnetic Spectrum of all the colorful rainbows presiding of the various Lantern Corps throughout the enriched mythos.
I loved this arc too until Green Lantern Rebirth. The retcons completely destroyed Hal Jordan's complex character and introduced a fear entity possessing him which made zero sense. Especially since "Parallax" was supposed to have trapped in the Central Power Battery for eons but it was destroyed once or twice beforehand😒
I'm not crazy about Emerald Twilight, but i love the character development he gets in Rebirth as a result. Hal isn't fully trusted by his fellow Lanterns whom he massacred, but he does everything in his power to re-earn their trust and prove that he is worthy of the mantle
That is such a ridiculous sentence haha, I haven't gotten into the story yet but wtf, how are they supposed to trust him, he who killed everyone. It's like telling Batman to trust the Joker.
@@Jay9966 he used to be their friend and some buy the Paralax thing and others don’t. Its like if someone acts out because of their mental illness, how much of that was them and how much of it was because of the disorder?
That scene in final night, where hal used his power to save the sun, while reciting the green lantern oath and it finished with a massive green light will never stop send shivers down my spine
I love DC in the '90s. Who'd thought of how to kill Superman? Who'd thought that Batman could be outsmarted and got his back broken? Who'd thought that Diana will lose her mantle as Wonder Woman? Who'd thought Hal Jordan willpower turns into rage and no longer a GL?
I started reading DC comics when Hal was already Parallax and Kyle was Green Lantern, and Emerald Twilight has always fascinated me. I've always wondered what it must have been like to be a fan reading Green Lantern at the time this story happened, and over the course of just a few issues watch the long-standing hero of the book turn into a full villain and be replaced by a new protagonist. Fascinating video, as always!
Emerald Twilight was my jumping on point for Green Lantern and it was amazing. I had an understanding of GL, so i understood the magnitude of what was happening. Kyle will always be my favorite GL just for that reason alone.
@@stevenstokes464 I didn't like HAL turning into a villian,not at all.But,I really liked Kyle and bought the title he was in,it was very different. In brighest days....
I owned all the issues of Green Lantern before Emerald Twilight. Emerald Twilight for a long-term Green Lantern fan was total garbage. The story literally had no build up, came out of nowhere and indicated the writers had never read any of the issues that came before it. It is the Last Jedi of Green Lantern comics. Total garbage
As someone reading Green Lantern at the time, the real problem with Emerald Twilight was how abrupt it was. There were a few months between the destruction of Coast City in Reign of the Supermen and the start of Emerald Twilight, and in that span we get very little indication of Hal taking it particularly hard. Which, realistically, isn't all that surprising: it had been years since he'd regularly operated out of Coast City and none of his close friends were killed. Heck, the issue immediately before Emerald Twilight begins is a light-hearted team-up romp with Green Arrow, so the tonal shift was extremely jarring. So, ultimately, it's up to Ron Marz to sell Hal's entire descent into supervillainy in three issues. With the final issue mainly being the big slugfest with Sinestro, and the middle issue showing how he gets through the rest of the Corps, that means there's exactly one issue to show how Hal goes from zero indication to the reader of his suffering to being ready to commit genocide. And Marz legitimately does as good of a job as anyone could, but it blatantly reads like a nightmare brief from editorial, and the best writer in the industry couldn't have pulled it off without problems. I'm not sure how I feel about Rebirth, ultimately. I think it was a deeply questionable editorial dictat that nonetheless led to some pretty good storytelling (much like Emerald Twilight, frankly). But externalizing Hal's rage and subsequent actions was pretty much the only way DC could have brought him back. It's not just that what he did was so heinous: it's that it was too much out of nowhere to deal with as a legitimate part of his character arc. It's not that you *couldn't* tell the story of how an upstanding hero like Hal Jordan gave into his fear and rage and went down the path of villainy, but DC *didn't* tell that story in anything approaching a convincing fashion. And that fundamental failure ensured that previous attempts to revive the character in some fashion, either with his heroic sacrifice in Final Night or his turn as the Spectre, were doomed to failure. His villain turn was both too significant to ignore, and too messy to contend with. It had to be retconned in order to give the character a decent shot at working again.
Goated comment your insight is absolutely true in every sense of the word hence part of the reasons that’s wrong with comics in general & they’re lack of build up before the big battle
I got into this right after the Death and Return of Superman. I didn't know much about the GLs, but I loved this arc. So visceral. Whenever Marz brought back Hal over the next few years it was always a highlight and a big deal - Zero Hour, Parallax View (63-64), Final Night and finally #100 & Emerald Knights (101-106). I was so glad Johns brought him back with his legendary run.
My first exposure to Hal Jordan was Zero Hour, but I eventually got interested in Green Lantern because of Kyle Rayner on the JLA comics. I have since read quite a bit of the build-up and aftermath of Emerald Twilight. It was a really good story.
Yeah it seems like a cop out to me. It is much better to me that a hero just has a breaking point because they are people in the end even if they could bench press a 747, personal loss hits harder than a nuke.
Absolute cop out that completely cheapens his fall, death and redemption. I do like the fact that the lanterns have those cosmic beings surrounding them - Ion, Parallax, Proselyte, etc - but there could have been a different way to do that.
They could have just said he slowly grew bad with power. At first killer the lanterns was a mistake but after awhile Hal was consumed with power. Instead of having a dumb parallax.
I really believe Emerald Twilight made Hal Jordan an interesting character. A guy who has for decades been, let's be honest, *really* wishy-washy far a guy with incredible willpower, finally *wants* something for himself. Jordan hit a point where his morality and that of the Guardians were too far apart, and he can no longer accept their leadership. Decades of friction pour out in a single moment, and for just a moment, all restraint is gone. He finally gets to show his will, independent from the will of the JLA or the Guardians. He proves himself worthy of the name "Green Lantern" in the same moment that he destroys the entire thing. Forget Authoritarian Superman or Batman but he's Evil now, Parallax is what actually happens when a hero goes "bad." Hal regrets his actions pretty much for the rest of his life, but he can't go back. In that instant, he's not a hero anymore.
The Greatest expression of “free will” was demonstrated when Jordan broke free from the Guardians domination, destroyed the Lanterns trying to suppress him, and liberated the universe from the domination of the Guardians. Its a dark freedom. But it’s still a strong example of free will in action.
Wonderful vid! Kyle is my favorite Lantern specifically because he is so much of an everyman and that they used his career as an artist to make him use the ring in more creative ways than any of the other Lanterns.
I liked emerald twilight. It was a nice tragic story as Hal spirals into a position where he could become a villain. I wish they spent more time doing it though as his one issue snap felt rushed. Had they spent time for him to grieve and stew before the whole “I am coming for you” moment it might have felt more organic.
This was the era of comics that i first started really reading as a kid. I have the trade paperback of the first kyle rayner arc and it holds a special place in my heart.
I had some back issues of Green Lantern but I never cared for the character until Kyle took over. As a kid, Kyle, Superboy, Steel, Wally West Flash, and Damage were the comics that got me into DC. When Barry and Hal took over the Flash and Green Lantern again I lost interest in them.
One of my favorite GL stories and along with day of judgement and rebirth the definitive Hal Jordan story. The evolution of Hal Jordan from hero to villain to anti hero to back to hero is incredible. And the creation and introduction to Kyle Rayner is awesome as well. Ron marz GL RUN IS so underrated
Hoping with the new GL series coming to the new DCU, we get a fair bit of people interested in more Green Lantern stories. I’ve always enjoyed the comics & therefore the DCAU was always my go to for seeing them come to life. I never knew EXACTLY where the retcon to Parallax becoming an alien parasite originated so I am glad I was able to get that told to me with this great story. Always love your videos Owen!
Originally it was known as the yellow entity in one of the last few issues of Green Lantern Corp where Sinestro was imprisoned in Oa Power Battery for crimes of mass genocide. Sinestro depowered all Lantern rings so Hal went inside the battery and it was revealed Sinestro had discovered the yellow impurity which led to the cause of the shut down. Sinestro’s next appearance was in the Emerald Twilight story and with the yellow impurity,that was where Geoff Johns got the idea from for his Parallax retcon in GL Rebirth.
It should’ve been a complete failure, but Marz really created something special with Emerald Twilight. Not only did it introduce me to GL, but it gave me Kyle Rayner who was MY Green Lantern and one of my favorite characters in all of comics. If not for this giant risk, I would’ve never fallen in love with the GL mythos. Excellent job, Owen. Truly.
Feel bad that after Hal came back, Kyle's role was reduced. Though at the very least, Hal coming back led to stories that impacted all of DC and the GL mythos. Which is more than i can say to most characters coming back which are cheap and end up doing nothing to service the stories. Plus, Hal coming back was a way to redeem in the eyes of many given how hard he was screwed over. Anyways, i myself read some of Kyle's first stories and really liked it. Never finished though so i should probably get back on that train (or...construct? HAHAHA)
I'm glad you said that cuz it's just like when you talk about like the Green Lantern rebirth run bringing Hal Jordan back like what was the whole point of umbral Twilight and everything that led up to the return of Hal Jordan. Because to this day it pushed Kyle Rayner out the door honestly they gave more storylines to Hal Jordan and not the other Green lantern's that they created overtime at least you know during the emerald Twilight at least they did something with the the other Green Lantern characters but with Hal Jordan returning it does cheap and everything and DC just keeps on giving storylines to him instead of the other lanterns kind of makes it what was the whole point of all of this
I got into Green Lantern just as Hal came back. It was bizarre and wonderful, because there was so much history there, and so much more growing with each issue.
The writer part of me immediately sees how exactly I would have done Hal's story in just three issues, without turning him into an evil person but still making a huge change for Kyle Rayner to come in and take over. Here's my pitch: "Set in the aftermath of Coast City's destruction, Hal attempts to bring it back through the power of his ring and begins to relive his past life, while having conversations with people through hindsight. He speaks with his mother, his friends, and a former girlfriend named Jennifer from his college years but avoids his father. His mother and friends are the easiest to speak to. Hal recalls some of his best memories being with his mother during his childhood. Although she is proud of the man he has become, she wishes for him to settle down and raise a family. As for his friends, he recalls the good memories and comes to believe that the superheroes he has fought alongside with, like Oliver Queen, became his surrogate family, which his mother points out is only a substitute for what he might be truly desiring. After making peace with his mother and friends, he is met by Jennifer, who brings back the regret he has in breaking up with her so suddenly after she helped him recover from his father's death, realizing that those feelings were never truly resolved. He imagines what their life would have been like, seeing an alternate reality where he is a father and husband, making him feel even more regret. However, she points out that if they hadn't broken up, he wouldn't have become Green Lantern. He responds that it did little for Coast City, but she tells him that dwelling on what-ifs never helps and that everyone must live with the consequences, no matter who made them. She forgives him and tells him to do the same for himself before vanishing, telling him her wish is to see him move on. Finding the strength and will within, Hal finally confronts his father, who berates him for failing to save Coast City and Hal admits that it is his failure, that he can't bring back the dead or live in a fantasy world where everything is alright. He turns the tables on his father and calls him out on ignoring him as a child, or being there for him when he needed a father. Although his father refuses to acknowledge this, Hal forgives him and makes peace, just as the power in his ring runs out. Afterwards, Hal is contacted by the Guardians, who order him to return to Oa and face disciplinary action. He accepts and is brought before the council, who acknowledge that Hal was going through mental stress and PTSD, so they won't imprison him. Instead, they decide to suspend him from Lantern duties for a little while, take his ring, and return him to Earth. Once there, he pays a visit to Jennifer but from afar, seeing that she has moved on, married, and has kids. He smiles at the family and decides to go back into the military. A little while later, he meets a woman and begins to date. When his suspension is up, Hal refuses the ring when it comes to him, having found peace. In Los Angeles, Kyle Rayner finishes a date with his girlfiend, Alexandra DeWitt, and returns home to find the ring waiting for him, telling him that he has been chosen to become the new Green Lantern of Sector 2814."
Would anyone say that this story is comparable to X-Men's Dark Phoenix Saga? Since both have beloved, fan-favourite characters (Hal and Jean) turn evil due to the actions of a cosmic force?
I would say its way more the fall of Anakin Skywalker, elite pilot and famous space cop, turning on his organization, killing his friends, adopting a different costume and persona, and Green Lantern did it first.
Emerald Twilight was my introduction into the Green Lantern mythos. And until this very day it's one of my all time favorite story arcs. I was glad that Johns brought the character back in the mid 2000s but I didn’t like how it was done. And that lame retcon of making Hal being possessed by Parallax when it made no sense from a canon/ continuity perspective as well as Hal's heroic deeds as Parallax.
Hal, John and Jessica may be my favorite GL, but I really enjoy Kyle Rayner and his stories from the 90's. In fact, many of elements in Kyle backstory (ex: he being the last member of cosmic team, he suffering a tragedy in his first arc) were the inspiration for a O.C I made some recently: This character is called Spectruman, the alter ego of Marcus Dumon, a 15 old student who is choosen by Percyon, a dying alien warrior and the last member of the Star Knights (a GL Corps/Nova Corps type of group that were extinct), to recive his cosmic power and continue his legacy and become a protector for the universe. Basically Spectruman is mix of sci-fy concepts of Green Lantern with teenage drama from characters like Spider Man or Invincible. In the first arc, Marcus is establish as well meaning average kid who just wish to do good for others and honor his father memory, a firefighter who lost his life in the line of duty. Marcus not very good at sports, he's not the best student in the class and isn't very talent compare to his friends, causing him to be bit pessimistic and have sort of inferiority complex. While his friends and family (compose by his mother and sister) try to help, he rejects and close himself from them, beliving he needs to do things on his own and that their help will just make him feel more uncapable and that his mother don't trust in him, with the grief for the lost of his father, resulting in him having that "man of the house" mentality, this idea that he needs to do everthing by himself. His relationship with other becomes more difficult after he become Spectruman, as Marcus let the fame as local hero get over his head, with his heroic actions and power giving him a feeling of safety against insecurities, that he start to spend way to much time as Spectruman and forgetting to be there for his friend and family, resulting in big argument between him and his mother. It's only after his first fight with his school bully-turned-villain Cold Bones (basically the Hot Streak to Spectruman's Static Shock), in which many people would get injure by the collaterall damage, including one of Marcus's friends, who is put into a coma, that Marcus realize his mistake. At first he becomes very afraid and even more insecure, feeling that he's truly uncapable of anything. Marcus is only able to overcome his shame and guilty after interaction with his mother, with the two making amends and his mother telling Marcus that he doesn't need to worry about impressing her or anyone else or be a "perfect version of himself", that he's good by just being himself and capable to solve his problem, but to always remember that her and his friends will always be there if he needs. In the end Marcus learn to accept his flaws and move forward, as well that asking help from others is nothing to be ashamed, that his love and connection for his friends and family don't makes him weak, it what gives him reason be stronger.
The GL Corps has become like the mutants in Marvel Full of amazing, creative, heart warming and fascinating supporting characters... That gets brutally and pointlessly culled every 2 years when someone wants the book to be edgy again.
A latecomer to your channel; I wanted to make a comment. I have been a lifelong Green Lantern fan, and I followed and supported the title from issue 1, all the way through the introduction of Kyle until they finally brought Hal back as a Lantern. This was truly some of the best DC storytelling of all time. Thank you for this awesome summary. Thanks for the memories. And yes, I own just about all of them. I bought several copies of #51. Maybe they'll be worth something someday. Cheers.
Kyle was my Lantern as a kid. I was in that era of Jean Paul Valley, Conner Hawk, Kyle Ryner, Conner Kent. The 90's were a fun time and I miss many of those characters.
Ah yes. I am not a big DC fan, but the green lantern corp(Hal Jordan especially) have always been a standout from DC alongside the flash and blue beetle families. This story of Jordan's fall, sacrifice and redemption is just...phenomenal and one of the best from DC imo!
@@Jose-se9pu I’m fine with it tbh. It’s basically the equivalent of when Wally West killing everyone in HIC. It was a bad decision to begin with and made the hero into a big murderer. The retcon in GL rebirth helped preserve what happened and made it more interesting imo
@@AlienIOIandroktone him doing that wasn’t really earned so honestly don’t mind that decision to kinda retcon . Atleast we got some of the greatest green lantern stories because of it
I like where Rebirth brought things, like with all the other Corps and sources of their power, but the story itself always felt like if Return of the Jedi ended with like "Darth Vader was actually just posessed the whole time, he's cool now don't worry about it"
This is the VERY BEST summary of this historic event on TH-cam. I am 74 and a Hal Jordan fan. I hated what they did to Hal Jordan. It would have been better to kill him off at the time. But comic sales drive storylines and my hero Geoff Johns brought back Hal and Barry Allen. I like Kyle Rayner, but "weomen in refrigerators" says it all. In the end comic sales dictate all. You can thank my generation for the very best superhero movies out there today. You are welcome!
Everything about Ron Marz's approach towards Hal Jordan's downfall was handled so brilliantly. Seeing a hero reach his breaking point in such a way is one of the reasons why i love this storyline so much. What annoys me is how Geoff Johns butchered the complexity of Hal's arc by making it so that he was possessed by Parallax, the redemption was already achieved by his sacrifice in Final Night. While i love Hal as the status quo Green Lantern, Rebirth is a horribly written story with no emotional weight and a complete disregard for Marz's writing.
Thank you for this overview! I knew a little bit of this from having looked into the origin of the term 'Fridged' in relation to support characters (usually women, but not always) getting harmed or killed simply to motivate the main character, but I didn't know its place in the larger story of what's happened with the Lantern Corps. This was a really awesome overview of that.
You deserve to have a million subs man. Your videos are so good, the quality, research, and overall commitment to your channel are 100 times more than many other creators. I will always be liking and sharing until the wheels fall off, and I’ll be back on Patreon as soon as I get a new job. Keep up the great work!
Death of Superman, The breaking of the Bat, and Emerald twilight, peak 90's entertainment. Have loved your DC coverage but would love to hear what you have to say about Frank Miller or Ann Nocenti's Daredevil runs.
I love this story, I know lots of boring purists don't like it, but to me it's amazing, Hal's heel turn was perfectly executed and I love Kyle as a Lantern
I tracked down vintage copies of GL 48-50 some years ago, after buying the Rebirth graphic novel. As a 90s kid, I missed out on the whole Parallax arc because I wasn't into comics at that time. By extension. I missed out on all the major arcs of that time, like Knightfall and the death of Superman, but the flashbacks in GL Rebirth spurred me to find the original issues from the 90s. At a comic con last year, I met Ron Marz. He's a super nice guy. I told him how I was only 7 years old at the time the original issues came out.
This is also how bruce Tim and Paul dini were treating Nora freeze in BTAS, of course this got over ruled by the director of Batman and Mr Freeze Sub zero boyd Kirkland who disliked the girlfriend in the refrigerator idea and decide to have Nora be cured and revived.
My introduction to this arc was unorthodox. I had bought a TPB for the Green Lantern & Green Arrow series when I getting into the comics, so when I found some old, second-hand TPB in the comicshop when I came back it immediately caught my attention: Emerald Dawn, Emerald Dawn II and Emerald Twilight. Oh boy!
Honestly after the guardians callousness and self righteousness and all the atrocities we later find out the committed, it almost seems cathartic that Hal wasted them. The rest of the corps, not do much. Though Ganthet tried
Its really refreshing to hear someone talk about Emerald twilight and the Kyle Rayner era that came after positively for once, as its often lumped into DC's era of big status quo changes without proper planning in the 90s. As someone who started reading Green lantern during the Geoff Johns era, its hard for me to really understand what it was like to read the comics at the time they came out, so I try to be understanding. I know to people who read the comics as they were current it might have been a lot more frustrating. As someone who's looking back on them in retrospect though, I love them. I love Kyle, Hal's fall as Parallax, the events that he took part in afterwards, and both Kyle's journey afterwards and Hal's eventual return, its some of my favorite stuff out of DC and I'm not sure I'd even like green lantern nearly as much as I do without it.
I started a bit before Hal's Fall, so most GL's books I've read were from Kyle's Era, I didn't have that much attachment to Hal. Hal grew on me more as Paralax, until he eventually used his new powers to save the sun. Kyle was and still is my favorite lantern because he was executed so well, he was a rare character in comic books that has constant character progression and he usually keeps that progression. He had a lot of potential from day one, with his creative use of the ring. Each new arch showing more and more constructs in very creative situations. Something you won't ever see happen with Hal, John or any other Lantern, unfortunately. Upon Hal's return the story grew too much in scale practically doing away with most classical GL villains, and focusing more on more members of the corp. Making it hard to develop the story in this manner.
Great video! So glad to see more Green Lantern and specifically Kyle Rayner because he’s my favorite lantern! Would love to see more future videos focusing on 90’s/early 2000’s Justice League characters
Kyle was GL when I was a kid. I knew about Hal, but he had become the Spectre. By the time I was old enough to care about comics, John Stewart was the GL of Justice League. He remains my favorite GL. Geoff Johns helped me come to love Hal. But I feel like I was born at a unique time for Hal and the Green Lanterns.
First Lantern story I ever read. It did a great job of establishing Jordan, the mechanics of ring and battery, as well as the corps and the guardians - only to tear it all down in the end.
People dislike the retcon with Paralax becoming a separate entity. But personally I liked it far more than how Marvel did it with Dark Phoenix. With Paralax, the entity fully explains why Hal became psycho. Of course you may not like that it cheapened his actions, but that would be people looking at this the wrong way. If Hal's behavior was atypical already back then, who the heck cares about his actions when they didn't make sense originally? Parallax's existence fixes that. In Marvel's case, the Cosmic entity retcon actually killed everything that made Jean a good character. The Phoenix power was what saved Jean from being the most boring X-men character in the original team. Taking that away from her and making it possible for anyone to use that power made it all irrelevant.
I've read comics since the 80s. Kyle is my favorite Lantern by a country mile. This is my absolute favorite GL storyline. The "Girls in refrigerators" trope was started by a woman who sucked at writing and wanted to make waves in order to get themselves jobs.
First off thank you for this video! GL is without a doubt my favorite hero, and Kyle by far is my favorite GL. Ron Marz did incredible work building the mythos, followed up by other writers. It's a little hard to believe Emerald Twilight is nearly 30 years old at this point, I remember all these issues coming out, and it was such a wild time to be a comics reader. I started reading just a few years before this, with issue 25 of that volume. Hal and Guy were having a fight to determine who would get Earth as their sector, with the loser leaving the Corps. It was an exciting issue to be sure, but what followed (at least for young teen me) was a little disappointing. Hal seemed lost and directionless, John was off doing some weirdo Mosaic stuff on Oa (which ended up being great when I finally read it, but there was no way I was ready for it back then). Guy wasn't even in the Corps anymore, as he was sporting Sinestros yellow ring at the time. So I get why they needed Kyle, and he ended up bringing so much to the table! Truly a hero for my age group: Generation X. And Hal was much more interesting as a villain wanting to change history than a hero suffering a midlife crisis. I know there was pushback at the time, with Marz even receiving threatening letters, but for a lot of us, Kyle was "our" green lantern, in a way Hal, John, or Guy never could be. When I first read GL Rebirth, and the first few issues if Johns run, I was again disappointed. Not because they brought Hal back, but because they brought him back without consequences. As you stated, the retcon of Parallax was meant to "Exonerate" Hal from killing many of his fellow Lanterns, but I never saw it that way. In the universe it might have been a separate entity controlling Hal, but we the readers never saw that. We saw Hal doing it. Even Kilowog forgave him, acting like nothing ever happened. I think Johns even went on record as saying no one wanted to see Hal face his actions, earn forgiveness, and endure a redemption arc. They wanted him to be forgiven, and start out a hero again. Not true, at least for me. It would have been far more interesting so see Hal taken to task, be held accountable for his actions, and earn back the trust and respect he squandered, rather than see it swept under the rug as it was. Again, this is just my take as a reader who was there and of the right age at the time. Please take it with a grain of salt, and forgive my rambling. This storyline was one of my favorites, and impacted me quite a bit as a young reader...
One of my all time favourite arcs. One of the best story arcs of this character. Mars story that was followed by the post-rationalisation done by Geoff Johns with the “rainbow rings” saga.
Its the kind of epic storytelling many people only dream.of. its the kind of long term narrative to see a beloved hero fall from.grace, do an unbelievable face heel turn, and then work his way to find redemption and forgiveness. Mad respect to.the writers for having the guts to.pull the trigger on this idea, and to do so in a way that makes sense and to have it pay off in such a.great way.
A great analogy for Emerald Twilight/A New Dawn would be Star Wars, with Hal becoming Parallax being similar to Anakin becoming Darth Vader, and Kyle being Luke; their encounters with each other mirroring the Luke vs. Vader duels. Also, Alex’s death at Major Force’s hands was Kyle’s Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru moment.
GL: Rebirth was one of the first DC miniseries I read when I was getting into comics in the early/mid 00's. I never read the original Parallax arc but I knew the broadstrokes. Now that I know the full story, I really wanna sit down and read it and Rebirth again. In fact, that whole Geoff Johns era of GL was crazy good. I might read it all again
I liked that they gave Hal a redemption arc. the whole thing with Paralax helped introduce me to the whole Green Lantern Universe and due to the whole wider implications for larger DC, it helped me finally understand what the DC universe was. I was sort of interested in it from the side from sort of knowing the tv shows but not being able to see all of them. Also just having difficultly knowing which books or things to get to get started and get a good idea. I happened to pick Rebirth and I was kind of familiar with Spectre because I had seen him hang out with The Flash, so that helped. And seeing all this stuff tie together kind of all worked out kind of nice and gave me a neat character to follow and get started with. I know it might be a bit of a cop out getting Jordan off the hook for all the stuff he did...but I honestly don't think I have a counter or answer for that...I'm just glad and thought it worked out nice and I liked the stories it generated with the Blackest Night Event and introducing those other Lantern Corps. Those were pretty cool and fun....yeah. 👍💚
For me I think Secret Origins and Rebirth were the stories that helped introduce me to the wider Green Lantern lore. Also the Rebirth part and the stuff done by Geoff Johns got me interested in the Lantern Corps. I think I liked Hal Jordan mostly becasue he was the main character and I like the stories he had from this run. I think I was more a fan of the Green Lantern Corps books with the the main team they had that weren't Hal Jordan and their dynamic together. But I appreciated that they had a few Earth Lanterns on the team to help give me a sense of perspective and scale of everything going on. I think I liked Soranik as one of the members of this Lantern crew, esspecially after learning she was Sinestro's kid. Thought that was kind of cool that she was a little different from her dad. I'm not sure if she's shifted in the time since her creation. I think I saw a thumbnail floating around here on TH-cam lately with her in a Sinestro Corps suit and looking freaky and evil. So I have no idea what's going on, and haven't touched DC since New 52. 🤷♂
You forgot to mention that before The Final Night, Kyle and Hal would face off each other a few more times, in the “Parallax View: The Resurrection of Hal Jordan” story arc in GL Vol. 3 62-64, GL Annual Vol. 3 5 in 1995, and the one shot crossover, GL/Silver Surfer: Unholy Alliances, which was when Parallax encountered Cyborg Superman for the first time, in the Marvel Universe.
I didn’t know this was how Kyle Raner was introduced. That’s pretty cool. I remember that Costume design as a kid considering it was one of my favorite action figures. That’s normally why when people talk about green lantern, I either will think of Kyle or John. Not really Hal, and I find it interesting that originally he wouldn’t have come back if they decided to keep Him as the specter.
This should have never been retconned tbh because it throws away all of the meaning character development Hal Jordan had during the Spectre 2001 where he tries to redeem himself by being the host for the Spectre. Geoff Johns is my mortal enemy
@@IzayaLee1725 I think that emerald twilight is a wonderfully crafted story about grief. It isn't just about "what if superhero but evil" this isn't injustice. but it's about a story about a man who has been pushed to his absolute breaking point. Emerald twilight works because It had *years* of build-up to it. Plus, it gave us Kyle Rayner and I like Kyle. I think that Emerald Twilight and the Parallax is a story that has it's place in Hal Jordan's history before geoff johns came to ruin it and now Hal just blames all of his mistakes on a dumb space bug instead of owning up to his mistakes like he did before the retcon.
Odd how weirdly iconic that image of Hal grinning like a madman and wielding all those Power Rings is and yet despite some madness in the narrative I don't really get that vibe anywhere in the story from him.
Never ceases to amaze how stupid comic books in the '90s were...what were they thinking with this!? And the punchline to the whole joke was how they removed any point to this series by literally stating "it was a parasite, bro" a decade later.
This was such a good idea for a story, but has been kinda retconned to ruin. I love Parallax as a concept, but using it to retroactively absolve Hal of his crimes is lazy and a cop out in my opinion. This story has been turned from a tragedy into a generic possession story, which sucks because that clearly wasn’t the intention.
I never treated it as if being used absolve Hal of his crimes. Rather I treated as it serving as a necessary change to properly explain why Hal had such a radical change to his character. He did, after all, head to OA to absorb more power and try to save his city. so he is still to blame for everything. Parallax only really lessens his guilt. Hal Jordan would have probably never killed his former comrades if not for Parallax, but I can see him still knocking them all out in order to take the power of the central lantern for his plans. That would still be a severe crime and a betrayal on his part, that would end with him being punished and losing his power ring. And no other Lantern would trust him after that
I missed Emerald Twilight, and was somewhat ambivalent about Hal Jordan's path as Parallax, when I got Emerald Twilight in TPB form, I didn't like it. I just didn't buy into his fall from grace (he had fallings out with the Guardians before) and I hated the killing of Kilowog and Tomar-Re. I was also disappointed with Hal Jordan as the Spectre. All that said, I found Ron Marz's run to be engaging and enjoyable and it became a read I looked forward to each month. Couldn't say that about Green Lantern before. That said, I read an article about the reasoning behind Emerald Twilight (the creative team just didn't see that there was anything they could do to spark interest in the title again "no one would care if we brought back the Zamorans" is one quote I remember). That said, I think they should have focused more on executing an idea more relying on the spectacle of some event (something that came to plague the industry and led to me not buying current books anymore). Still, for the most part, I liked the Kyle Rayner run.
This is one of best DC stories ever produced by this Publisher. I wished we had more tales of Hal Jordan gone bad as Parallax. This also allowed Kyle to shine as a new Green Lantern without the Core and Guardians to back him throughout the Universe.
Uff, both Kyle AND Guy Gardner were awesome. Guy Gardner Warrior is one of the more underrated cómics of the time. His fricking Bar for "supes" was were you got to meet the superhero scene at the time. Ice was a Queen. And Guys new Powers and enemies we're the bomb. Honestly I like him more as "Warrior" than as a lantern of any color.
Emerald Twilight is the original notion of die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. It was the 90s. The extreme 1990s. They killed Barry Allen in the 80s, and this didn’t come out of nowhere, I do recall the end of Coast City/Engine City story.
hello long time fan here. I really love your content and your deep dive in comic storyline and lore. that being said i wanted to know if you have thought about doing this for the Authority. ive seen several people attempt trying to explain the team and failing to do so. Given your previous work i think you are best suited to being this great team to light for a whole generation of viewers.
I wish that Emerald Twilight got a few more issues of padding, in order to focus on Hal’s declining mental state, and to make the situation with Parallax more of a deal with the devil, so Hal’s turn to villainy is of his own volition, but Parallax gave him a little nudge. Perhaps shortly after the destruction of Coast City, a small, yellow bug slithers onto Hal’s shoulder from the wreckage. The bug promises Hal the ability to undo the destruction, if he were to go to the central battery and absorb its power. Hal is reluctant at first, but the bug gives him time to reconsider his decision. Hal attempts to recreate Coast City with the power of his Green Lantern ring on his own, but it runs out of power. The Guardians come down, and tell him that his responsibility as Green Lantern is to protect the universe, not play god. This causes Hal to snap and agree to the bug’s offer.
I see no flaws in this stories, they were great at the time and they are great now. Is inevitable to feel a little bit nostalgic of that time when comic were so good. I think in retrospective is even better.
14:06 the origin of "women in refridgerators" 19:41 Kyle would end up in one of the most important justice league rosters 21:09 The New Frontier is more relevant than I thought
My favorite earth green lanterns from best to least 1. Guy Gardner 2. John Stewart 3. Hal Jordan 4. Kyle Rayner Overall it’s a great cast, and I love how they can switch from one of them to another every couple of issues.
I know this story gets hate, but I absolutely enjoyed it! Yes, the replacing of long-standing heroes for youngbloods had grown thin, but this was the first time we ever saw a top-tier hero go the way of Anakin Skywalker. The destruction of the Corps, the deaths of Kilowog, Sinestro and even all the Guardians save Ganthet seemed to mark the end of an Era, at the time. The greatest Green Lantern had become the greatest anti-hero. Too bad Green Lantern Rebirth had to undo all of it.
this was the first "old" comic i went back to read as a teen when he was revived in the late 2000s i was like who is this dude and my shop owner pointed me to this story and got the whole story in the floppy's for 5 bucks its a special book to me
Good video of the history of that whole story arc! I do have one question, wasn't there a story where a younger Hal Jordan found out what happens to his future self and sets out to confront him?
I know this is about green lantern, but I just wanted to say I’ll never forget when superman died. It was crazy. It was on the news and stuff like a real person.
It's thanks to this arc that I can only accept either Hal Jordan or Kyle Rayner as main characters of the Green Lantern comics. I understand many people Like John Stewart because they grew up with the cartoons and that's ok, Stewart is a fantastic character who's proven himself deserving of the ring even though he was originally just a temporary member. I believe John Stewart is the one who bring stability to both Hal Jordan and Kyle, since he was there to support both characters during their carreers, just as how both supported his own growth as a permanent member of the corps. But I honestly can't see him as the actual main Lantern, he doesn't have the characteristics you would usually find on main characters. Serving more as a Deuteragonist. The second important character who could protagonize his own self contained arcs, but not lead the entire story as a whole.
Given the state of comics in the 1990s, I’m not sure we can say Emerald Twilight “seemed destined to fail from the beginning.” DC was chasing the sales boost they got from killing Superman, which made the whole storyline seem like a pretty safe bet at the time.
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
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how many of Kyle's GF died? Was it 3 or 4?
Good video 🙂
I love this arc, more for Hal Jordan’s trajectory as Parallax following the emerald twilight, his anti-hero antics, his eventual sacrifice in Final Night, his penance as the Spectre, and finally resurrection in Rebirth and the Geoff Johns era. One of my favorite character arcs ever!
Doesn't even feel like an arc. In the end it was retconned so that none of that was his doing but him being influenced by an entity.
@@akwilson1676 I mean, it’s not a redemption arch, but it is still a character arch
@@akwilson1676 it is, Hal was possesed by Parallax because he gave up into fear. That was his failure.
I absolutely agree with you! Finally! Someone who understands the mythology. Absolutely, Emerald Twilight I feel is often degraded among fans. But, on the grand scheme of things the arc enabled all the plot threads to be established during the Geoff John’s Era. Without Emerald Twilight there is no Final Night and without that one there is no Day of Judgment where Hal Jordan becomes The Spectre. Why is it that nobody credits Emerald Twilight for its outstanding pacing in carving out perhaps, the most controversial acts among perhaps the greatest and most definitive of all the Green Lanterns have ever done? Emerald Twilight should be credited to enabling Johns and Sciver to develop the Green Lantern Mythos today. Oh, and fun fact it was Ethan Van Sciver who came up with the concept of the Emotional Electric Magnetic Spectrum of all the colorful rainbows presiding of the various Lantern Corps throughout the enriched mythos.
I loved this arc too until Green Lantern Rebirth. The retcons completely destroyed Hal Jordan's complex character and introduced a fear entity possessing him which made zero sense. Especially since "Parallax" was supposed to have trapped in the Central Power Battery for eons but it was destroyed once or twice beforehand😒
I'm not crazy about Emerald Twilight, but i love the character development he gets in Rebirth as a result. Hal isn't fully trusted by his fellow Lanterns whom he massacred, but he does everything in his power to re-earn their trust and prove that he is worthy of the mantle
That is such a ridiculous sentence haha, I haven't gotten into the story yet but wtf, how are they supposed to trust him, he who killed everyone. It's like telling Batman to trust the Joker.
@@Jay9966 he used to be their friend and some buy the Paralax thing and others don’t. Its like if someone acts out because of their mental illness, how much of that was them and how much of it was because of the disorder?
That scene in final night, where hal used his power to save the sun, while reciting the green lantern oath and it finished with a massive green light will never stop send shivers down my spine
It's so good, right? A perfect way to end his story at that point.
I love DC in the '90s. Who'd thought of how to kill Superman? Who'd thought that Batman could be outsmarted and got his back broken? Who'd thought that Diana will lose her mantle as Wonder Woman? Who'd thought Hal Jordan willpower turns into rage and no longer a GL?
I started reading DC comics when Hal was already Parallax and Kyle was Green Lantern, and Emerald Twilight has always fascinated me. I've always wondered what it must have been like to be a fan reading Green Lantern at the time this story happened, and over the course of just a few issues watch the long-standing hero of the book turn into a full villain and be replaced by a new protagonist.
Fascinating video, as always!
Emerald Twilight was my jumping on point for Green Lantern and it was amazing. I had an understanding of GL, so i understood the magnitude of what was happening. Kyle will always be my favorite GL just for that reason alone.
It was insane, no other way to put it. Whether you loved it or hated it Emerald Twilight kept your jaw on the floor.
@@stevenstokes464 I didn't like HAL turning into a villian,not at all.But,I really liked Kyle and bought the title he was in,it was very different. In brighest days....
I owned all the issues of Green Lantern before Emerald Twilight. Emerald Twilight for a long-term Green Lantern fan was total garbage. The story literally had no build up, came out of nowhere and indicated the writers had never read any of the issues that came before it. It is the Last Jedi of Green Lantern comics. Total garbage
@@powerbadpowerbad while the comic was debatable we can all agree that Jon Stewart's animated movie having hal be bad was an awful choice.
As someone reading Green Lantern at the time, the real problem with Emerald Twilight was how abrupt it was. There were a few months between the destruction of Coast City in Reign of the Supermen and the start of Emerald Twilight, and in that span we get very little indication of Hal taking it particularly hard. Which, realistically, isn't all that surprising: it had been years since he'd regularly operated out of Coast City and none of his close friends were killed. Heck, the issue immediately before Emerald Twilight begins is a light-hearted team-up romp with Green Arrow, so the tonal shift was extremely jarring.
So, ultimately, it's up to Ron Marz to sell Hal's entire descent into supervillainy in three issues. With the final issue mainly being the big slugfest with Sinestro, and the middle issue showing how he gets through the rest of the Corps, that means there's exactly one issue to show how Hal goes from zero indication to the reader of his suffering to being ready to commit genocide. And Marz legitimately does as good of a job as anyone could, but it blatantly reads like a nightmare brief from editorial, and the best writer in the industry couldn't have pulled it off without problems.
I'm not sure how I feel about Rebirth, ultimately. I think it was a deeply questionable editorial dictat that nonetheless led to some pretty good storytelling (much like Emerald Twilight, frankly). But externalizing Hal's rage and subsequent actions was pretty much the only way DC could have brought him back. It's not just that what he did was so heinous: it's that it was too much out of nowhere to deal with as a legitimate part of his character arc. It's not that you *couldn't* tell the story of how an upstanding hero like Hal Jordan gave into his fear and rage and went down the path of villainy, but DC *didn't* tell that story in anything approaching a convincing fashion. And that fundamental failure ensured that previous attempts to revive the character in some fashion, either with his heroic sacrifice in Final Night or his turn as the Spectre, were doomed to failure. His villain turn was both too significant to ignore, and too messy to contend with. It had to be retconned in order to give the character a decent shot at working again.
Goated comment your insight is absolutely true in every sense of the word hence part of the reasons that’s wrong with comics in general & they’re lack of build up before the big battle
Thanks for having me! Really great video, Owen!
Any time! Thank you for being part of it.
I got into this right after the Death and Return of Superman. I didn't know much about the GLs, but I loved this arc. So visceral. Whenever Marz brought back Hal over the next few years it was always a highlight and a big deal - Zero Hour, Parallax View (63-64), Final Night and finally #100 & Emerald Knights (101-106). I was so glad Johns brought him back with his legendary run.
My first exposure to Hal Jordan was Zero Hour, but I eventually got interested in Green Lantern because of Kyle Rayner on the JLA comics. I have since read quite a bit of the build-up and aftermath of Emerald Twilight. It was a really good story.
I hate that they made Parallax an entity that posses HJ. I thought that made the stories that followed loose so much potential.
Yeah it seems like a cop out to me.
It is much better to me that a hero just has a breaking point because they are people in the end even if they could bench press a 747, personal loss hits harder than a nuke.
Absolute cop out that completely cheapens his fall, death and redemption. I do like the fact that the lanterns have those cosmic beings surrounding them - Ion, Parallax, Proselyte, etc - but there could have been a different way to do that.
I liked it because it allowed DC to fully erase that foolish weakness the Green Lanterns had
They could have just said he slowly grew bad with power. At first killer the lanterns was a mistake but after awhile Hal was consumed with power. Instead of having a dumb parallax.
The same thing happened with onslaught and I 100% agree with you
I really believe Emerald Twilight made Hal Jordan an interesting character. A guy who has for decades been, let's be honest, *really* wishy-washy far a guy with incredible willpower, finally *wants* something for himself. Jordan hit a point where his morality and that of the Guardians were too far apart, and he can no longer accept their leadership. Decades of friction pour out in a single moment, and for just a moment, all restraint is gone.
He finally gets to show his will, independent from the will of the JLA or the Guardians. He proves himself worthy of the name "Green Lantern" in the same moment that he destroys the entire thing. Forget Authoritarian Superman or Batman but he's Evil now, Parallax is what actually happens when a hero goes "bad." Hal regrets his actions pretty much for the rest of his life, but he can't go back. In that instant, he's not a hero anymore.
The Greatest expression of “free will” was demonstrated when Jordan broke free from the Guardians domination, destroyed the Lanterns trying to suppress him, and liberated the universe from the domination of the Guardians.
Its a dark freedom. But it’s still a strong example of free will in action.
Wonderful vid! Kyle is my favorite Lantern specifically because he is so much of an everyman and that they used his career as an artist to make him use the ring in more creative ways than any of the other Lanterns.
Hooray, i agree 100% with you
I liked emerald twilight. It was a nice tragic story as Hal spirals into a position where he could become a villain. I wish they spent more time doing it though as his one issue snap felt rushed. Had they spent time for him to grieve and stew before the whole “I am coming for you” moment it might have felt more organic.
This was the era of comics that i first started really reading as a kid. I have the trade paperback of the first kyle rayner arc and it holds a special place in my heart.
I had some back issues of Green Lantern but I never cared for the character until Kyle took over. As a kid, Kyle, Superboy, Steel, Wally West Flash, and Damage were the comics that got me into DC. When Barry and Hal took over the Flash and Green Lantern again I lost interest in them.
Owen, I sort of think of you as the Kyle to my Parallax
One of my favorite GL stories and along with day of judgement and rebirth the definitive Hal Jordan story. The evolution of Hal Jordan from hero to villain to anti hero to back to hero is incredible. And the creation and introduction to Kyle Rayner is awesome as well. Ron marz GL RUN IS so underrated
I thought Hal becoming a villain was the most interesting thing they ever did with him. I was disappointed when they retconned it.
Hoping with the new GL series coming to the new DCU, we get a fair bit of people interested in more Green Lantern stories. I’ve always enjoyed the comics & therefore the DCAU was always my go to for seeing them come to life. I never knew EXACTLY where the retcon to Parallax becoming an alien parasite originated so I am glad I was able to get that told to me with this great story. Always love your videos Owen!
I hope so too! Thanks.
Originally it was known as the yellow entity in one of the last few issues of Green Lantern Corp where Sinestro was imprisoned in Oa Power Battery for crimes of mass genocide. Sinestro depowered all Lantern rings so Hal went inside the battery and it was revealed Sinestro had discovered the yellow impurity which led to the cause of the shut down.
Sinestro’s next appearance was in the Emerald Twilight story and with the yellow impurity,that was where Geoff Johns got the idea from for his Parallax retcon in GL Rebirth.
It should’ve been a complete failure, but Marz really created something special with Emerald Twilight. Not only did it introduce me to GL, but it gave me Kyle Rayner who was MY Green Lantern and one of my favorite characters in all of comics. If not for this giant risk, I would’ve never fallen in love with the GL mythos. Excellent job, Owen. Truly.
One of the most iconic storylines in comic history and one of my personal favorite, great vid!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you so much. Kyle was my GL during my youth. I always love him, Hal, John, and Alan.
Feel bad that after Hal came back, Kyle's role was reduced. Though at the very least, Hal coming back led to stories that impacted all of DC and the GL mythos. Which is more than i can say to most characters coming back which are cheap and end up doing nothing to service the stories. Plus, Hal coming back was a way to redeem in the eyes of many given how hard he was screwed over.
Anyways, i myself read some of Kyle's first stories and really liked it. Never finished though so i should probably get back on that train (or...construct? HAHAHA)
I'm glad you said that cuz it's just like when you talk about like the Green Lantern rebirth run bringing Hal Jordan back like what was the whole point of umbral Twilight and everything that led up to the return of Hal Jordan. Because to this day it pushed Kyle Rayner out the door honestly they gave more storylines to Hal Jordan and not the other Green lantern's that they created overtime at least you know during the emerald Twilight at least they did something with the the other Green Lantern characters but with Hal Jordan returning it does cheap and everything and DC just keeps on giving storylines to him instead of the other lanterns kind of makes it what was the whole point of all of this
@@treymykel Sadly these days Kyle seems completely forgotten.
I got into Green Lantern just as Hal came back. It was bizarre and wonderful, because there was so much history there, and so much more growing with each issue.
The writer part of me immediately sees how exactly I would have done Hal's story in just three issues, without turning him into an evil person but still making a huge change for Kyle Rayner to come in and take over. Here's my pitch:
"Set in the aftermath of Coast City's destruction, Hal attempts to bring it back through the power of his ring and begins to relive his past life, while having conversations with people through hindsight. He speaks with his mother, his friends, and a former girlfriend named Jennifer from his college years but avoids his father. His mother and friends are the easiest to speak to. Hal recalls some of his best memories being with his mother during his childhood. Although she is proud of the man he has become, she wishes for him to settle down and raise a family. As for his friends, he recalls the good memories and comes to believe that the superheroes he has fought alongside with, like Oliver Queen, became his surrogate family, which his mother points out is only a substitute for what he might be truly desiring.
After making peace with his mother and friends, he is met by Jennifer, who brings back the regret he has in breaking up with her so suddenly after she helped him recover from his father's death, realizing that those feelings were never truly resolved. He imagines what their life would have been like, seeing an alternate reality where he is a father and husband, making him feel even more regret. However, she points out that if they hadn't broken up, he wouldn't have become Green Lantern. He responds that it did little for Coast City, but she tells him that dwelling on what-ifs never helps and that everyone must live with the consequences, no matter who made them. She forgives him and tells him to do the same for himself before vanishing, telling him her wish is to see him move on.
Finding the strength and will within, Hal finally confronts his father, who berates him for failing to save Coast City and Hal admits that it is his failure, that he can't bring back the dead or live in a fantasy world where everything is alright. He turns the tables on his father and calls him out on ignoring him as a child, or being there for him when he needed a father. Although his father refuses to acknowledge this, Hal forgives him and makes peace, just as the power in his ring runs out.
Afterwards, Hal is contacted by the Guardians, who order him to return to Oa and face disciplinary action. He accepts and is brought before the council, who acknowledge that Hal was going through mental stress and PTSD, so they won't imprison him. Instead, they decide to suspend him from Lantern duties for a little while, take his ring, and return him to Earth. Once there, he pays a visit to Jennifer but from afar, seeing that she has moved on, married, and has kids. He smiles at the family and decides to go back into the military. A little while later, he meets a woman and begins to date. When his suspension is up, Hal refuses the ring when it comes to him, having found peace.
In Los Angeles, Kyle Rayner finishes a date with his girlfiend, Alexandra DeWitt, and returns home to find the ring waiting for him, telling him that he has been chosen to become the new Green Lantern of Sector 2814."
Honestly my day was not the best, but something about your calm and relaxed recaps of comic books never fail to make me feel better. Thank you :)
I'm so glad!
Would anyone say that this story is comparable to X-Men's Dark Phoenix Saga? Since both have beloved, fan-favourite characters (Hal and Jean) turn evil due to the actions of a cosmic force?
Damn... accurate
And at the time of the story there wasn’t any cosmic force but it was retconned later
I would say its way more the fall of Anakin Skywalker, elite pilot and famous space cop, turning on his organization, killing his friends, adopting a different costume and persona, and Green Lantern did it first.
@@feenix219Not really. Anakin's backstory was already well established in Star Wars long before the prequel trilogy.
Jean didn't kill the entire X-Men team leaving only 1 mutant, so no.
Emerald Twilight was my introduction into the Green Lantern mythos. And until this very day it's one of my all time favorite story arcs. I was glad that Johns brought the character back in the mid 2000s but I didn’t like how it was done. And that lame retcon of making Hal being possessed by Parallax when it made no sense from a canon/ continuity perspective as well as Hal's heroic deeds as Parallax.
Hal, John and Jessica may be my favorite GL, but I really enjoy Kyle Rayner and his stories from the 90's. In fact, many of elements in Kyle backstory (ex: he being the last member of cosmic team, he suffering a tragedy in his first arc) were the inspiration for a O.C I made some recently:
This character is called Spectruman, the alter ego of Marcus Dumon, a 15 old student who is choosen by Percyon, a dying alien warrior and the last member of the Star Knights (a GL Corps/Nova Corps type of group that were extinct), to recive his cosmic power and continue his legacy and become a protector for the universe. Basically Spectruman is mix of sci-fy concepts of Green Lantern with teenage drama from characters like Spider Man or Invincible.
In the first arc, Marcus is establish as well meaning average kid who just wish to do good for others and honor his father memory, a firefighter who lost his life in the line of duty.
Marcus not very good at sports, he's not the best student in the class and isn't very talent compare to his friends, causing him to be bit pessimistic and have sort of inferiority complex. While his friends and family (compose by his mother and sister) try to help, he rejects and close himself from them, beliving he needs to do things on his own and that their help will just make him feel more uncapable and that his mother don't trust in him, with the grief for the lost of his father, resulting in him having that "man of the house" mentality, this idea that he needs to do everthing by himself.
His relationship with other becomes more difficult after he become Spectruman, as Marcus let the fame as local hero get over his head, with his heroic actions and power giving him a feeling of safety against insecurities, that he start to spend way to much time as Spectruman and forgetting to be there for his friend and family, resulting in big argument between him and his mother. It's only after his first fight with his school bully-turned-villain Cold Bones (basically the Hot Streak to Spectruman's Static Shock), in which many people would get injure by the collaterall damage, including one of Marcus's friends, who is put into a coma, that Marcus realize his mistake.
At first he becomes very afraid and even more insecure, feeling that he's truly uncapable of anything. Marcus is only able to overcome his shame and guilty after interaction with his mother, with the two making amends and his mother telling Marcus that he doesn't need to worry about impressing her or anyone else or be a "perfect version of himself", that he's good by just being himself and capable to solve his problem, but to always remember that her and his friends will always be there if he needs. In the end Marcus learn to accept his flaws and move forward, as well that asking help from others is nothing to be ashamed, that his love and connection for his friends and family don't makes him weak, it what gives him reason be stronger.
The GL Corps has become like the mutants in Marvel
Full of amazing, creative, heart warming and fascinating supporting characters...
That gets brutally and pointlessly culled every 2 years when someone wants the book to be edgy again.
YES exactly!!!
A latecomer to your channel; I wanted to make a comment. I have been a lifelong Green Lantern fan, and I followed and supported the title from issue 1, all the way through the introduction of Kyle until they finally brought Hal back as a Lantern. This was truly some of the best DC storytelling of all time. Thank you for this awesome summary. Thanks for the memories. And yes, I own just about all of them. I bought several copies of #51. Maybe they'll be worth something someday. Cheers.
As someone who’s been bed bound with flu for 3 days I appreciate you a lot!
Hope you're doing okay!
Kyle was my Lantern as a kid. I was in that era of Jean Paul Valley, Conner Hawk, Kyle Ryner, Conner Kent. The 90's were a fun time and I miss many of those characters.
Ah yes. I am not a big DC fan, but the green lantern corp(Hal Jordan especially) have always been a standout from DC alongside the flash and blue beetle families. This story of Jordan's fall, sacrifice and redemption is just...phenomenal and one of the best from DC imo!
Really like how GL rebirth retconned the Parallax and helped fix Hal and bring about Geoff Johns’ GL run. Great vid as always Owen
Glad you enjoyed it!
It removed all tragedy about a hero going mad after losing everything...
@@Jose-se9pu "I'm going to undo that development and blame it on a space bug in his brain" Genius
@@Jose-se9pu I’m fine with it tbh. It’s basically the equivalent of when Wally West killing everyone in HIC. It was a bad decision to begin with and made the hero into a big murderer. The retcon in GL rebirth helped preserve what happened and made it more interesting imo
@@AlienIOIandroktone him doing that wasn’t really earned so honestly don’t mind that decision to kinda retcon . Atleast we got some of the greatest green lantern stories because of it
I like where Rebirth brought things, like with all the other Corps and sources of their power, but the story itself always felt like if Return of the Jedi ended with like "Darth Vader was actually just posessed the whole time, he's cool now don't worry about it"
This is the VERY BEST summary of this historic event on TH-cam. I am 74 and a Hal Jordan fan. I hated what they did to Hal Jordan. It would have been better to kill him off at the time. But comic sales drive storylines and my hero Geoff Johns brought back Hal and Barry Allen. I like Kyle Rayner,
but "weomen in refrigerators" says it all. In the end comic sales dictate all. You can thank my generation for the very best superhero movies out there today. You are welcome!
Everything about Ron Marz's approach towards Hal Jordan's downfall was handled so brilliantly. Seeing a hero reach his breaking point in such a way is one of the reasons why i love this storyline so much.
What annoys me is how Geoff Johns butchered the complexity of Hal's arc by making it so that he was possessed by Parallax, the redemption was already achieved by his sacrifice in Final Night. While i love Hal as the status quo Green Lantern, Rebirth is a horribly written story with no emotional weight and a complete disregard for Marz's writing.
I got into comics right when Kyle bacame Green Lantern. I understand how important Hal is, but Kyle will always be my Lantern.
Great video, Hal Jordan is my favorite DC character. I think his relationship with Sinestro is the best thing in the GL stores.
Thank you for this overview! I knew a little bit of this from having looked into the origin of the term 'Fridged' in relation to support characters (usually women, but not always) getting harmed or killed simply to motivate the main character, but I didn't know its place in the larger story of what's happened with the Lantern Corps. This was a really awesome overview of that.
You deserve to have a million subs man. Your videos are so good, the quality, research, and overall commitment to your channel are 100 times more than many other creators. I will always be liking and sharing until the wheels fall off, and I’ll be back on Patreon as soon as I get a new job. Keep up the great work!
Death of Superman, The breaking of the Bat, and Emerald twilight, peak 90's entertainment. Have loved your DC coverage but would love to hear what you have to say about Frank Miller or Ann Nocenti's Daredevil runs.
DC “beginning their ambitious plan to kill Superman” makes the writes sound like supervillains and I kind of love it
I love this story, I know lots of boring purists don't like it, but to me it's amazing, Hal's heel turn was perfectly executed and I love Kyle as a Lantern
I tracked down vintage copies of GL 48-50 some years ago, after buying the Rebirth graphic novel. As a 90s kid, I missed out on the whole Parallax arc because I wasn't into comics at that time. By extension. I missed out on all the major arcs of that time, like Knightfall and the death of Superman, but the flashbacks in GL Rebirth spurred me to find the original issues from the 90s. At a comic con last year, I met Ron Marz. He's a super nice guy. I told him how I was only 7 years old at the time the original issues came out.
Ahhhh that's where getting fridged comes from
This is also how bruce Tim and Paul dini were treating Nora freeze in BTAS, of course this got over ruled by the director of Batman and Mr Freeze Sub zero boyd Kirkland who disliked the girlfriend in the refrigerator idea and decide to have Nora be cured and revived.
It’s both the origin of that, and Gail Simone’s breakout into the comic world.
My introduction to this arc was unorthodox. I had bought a TPB for the Green Lantern & Green Arrow series when I getting into the comics, so when I found some old, second-hand TPB in the comicshop when I came back it immediately caught my attention: Emerald Dawn, Emerald Dawn II and Emerald Twilight. Oh boy!
Honestly after the guardians callousness and self righteousness and all the atrocities we later find out the committed, it almost seems cathartic that Hal wasted them. The rest of the corps, not do much. Though Ganthet tried
It was this arc that got me into the Green Lantern mythos, and Kyle Rayner currently still stands as my personal favorite to hold the mantle
Being an artist made his constructs so amazing.
Its really refreshing to hear someone talk about Emerald twilight and the Kyle Rayner era that came after positively for once, as its often lumped into DC's era of big status quo changes without proper planning in the 90s.
As someone who started reading Green lantern during the Geoff Johns era, its hard for me to really understand what it was like to read the comics at the time they came out, so I try to be understanding. I know to people who read the comics as they were current it might have been a lot more frustrating.
As someone who's looking back on them in retrospect though, I love them. I love Kyle, Hal's fall as Parallax, the events that he took part in afterwards, and both Kyle's journey afterwards and Hal's eventual return, its some of my favorite stuff out of DC and I'm not sure I'd even like green lantern nearly as much as I do without it.
I started a bit before Hal's Fall, so most GL's books I've read were from Kyle's Era, I didn't have that much attachment to Hal. Hal grew on me more as Paralax, until he eventually used his new powers to save the sun. Kyle was and still is my favorite lantern because he was executed so well, he was a rare character in comic books that has constant character progression and he usually keeps that progression. He had a lot of potential from day one, with his creative use of the ring. Each new arch showing more and more constructs in very creative situations. Something you won't ever see happen with Hal, John or any other Lantern, unfortunately. Upon Hal's return the story grew too much in scale practically doing away with most classical GL villains, and focusing more on more members of the corp. Making it hard to develop the story in this manner.
Great video! So glad to see more Green Lantern and specifically Kyle Rayner because he’s my favorite lantern! Would love to see more future videos focusing on 90’s/early 2000’s Justice League characters
Kyle was GL when I was a kid. I knew about Hal, but he had become the Spectre. By the time I was old enough to care about comics, John Stewart was the GL of Justice League. He remains my favorite GL. Geoff Johns helped me come to love Hal. But I feel like I was born at a unique time for Hal and the Green Lanterns.
First Lantern story I ever read. It did a great job of establishing Jordan, the mechanics of ring and battery, as well as the corps and the guardians - only to tear it all down in the end.
I wish they would have used the original idea: Hal going psycho was a bit much. But at least we got Kyle Rayner out of it.
People dislike the retcon with Paralax becoming a separate entity. But personally I liked it far more than how Marvel did it with Dark Phoenix.
With Paralax, the entity fully explains why Hal became psycho. Of course you may not like that it cheapened his actions, but that would be people looking at this the wrong way.
If Hal's behavior was atypical already back then, who the heck cares about his actions when they didn't make sense originally? Parallax's existence fixes that.
In Marvel's case, the Cosmic entity retcon actually killed everything that made Jean a good character.
The Phoenix power was what saved Jean from being the most boring X-men character in the original team. Taking that away from her and making it possible for anyone to use that power made it all irrelevant.
I've read comics since the 80s. Kyle is my favorite Lantern by a country mile. This is my absolute favorite GL storyline. The "Girls in refrigerators" trope was started by a woman who sucked at writing and wanted to make waves in order to get themselves jobs.
First off thank you for this video! GL is without a doubt my favorite hero, and Kyle by far is my favorite GL. Ron Marz did incredible work building the mythos, followed up by other writers. It's a little hard to believe Emerald Twilight is nearly 30 years old at this point, I remember all these issues coming out, and it was such a wild time to be a comics reader.
I started reading just a few years before this, with issue 25 of that volume. Hal and Guy were having a fight to determine who would get Earth as their sector, with the loser leaving the Corps. It was an exciting issue to be sure, but what followed (at least for young teen me) was a little disappointing. Hal seemed lost and directionless, John was off doing some weirdo Mosaic stuff on Oa (which ended up being great when I finally read it, but there was no way I was ready for it back then). Guy wasn't even in the Corps anymore, as he was sporting Sinestros yellow ring at the time.
So I get why they needed Kyle, and he ended up bringing so much to the table! Truly a hero for my age group: Generation X. And Hal was much more interesting as a villain wanting to change history than a hero suffering a midlife crisis. I know there was pushback at the time, with Marz even receiving threatening letters, but for a lot of us, Kyle was "our" green lantern, in a way Hal, John, or Guy never could be.
When I first read GL Rebirth, and the first few issues if Johns run, I was again disappointed. Not because they brought Hal back, but because they brought him back without consequences. As you stated, the retcon of Parallax was meant to "Exonerate" Hal from killing many of his fellow Lanterns, but I never saw it that way. In the universe it might have been a separate entity controlling Hal, but we the readers never saw that. We saw Hal doing it. Even Kilowog forgave him, acting like nothing ever happened. I think Johns even went on record as saying no one wanted to see Hal face his actions, earn forgiveness, and endure a redemption arc. They wanted him to be forgiven, and start out a hero again. Not true, at least for me. It would have been far more interesting so see Hal taken to task, be held accountable for his actions, and earn back the trust and respect he squandered, rather than see it swept under the rug as it was.
Again, this is just my take as a reader who was there and of the right age at the time. Please take it with a grain of salt, and forgive my rambling. This storyline was one of my favorites, and impacted me quite a bit as a young reader...
One of my all time favourite arcs. One of the best story arcs of this character. Mars story that was followed by the post-rationalisation done by Geoff Johns with the “rainbow rings” saga.
Kyle has always been my favourite Lantern and character. Excellent video
Interesting, I knew nothing about this story arc so your account was entertaining and informative.
Glad you enjoyed!
Definitely one of my favorites. Such a shock, and so daring. But it absolutely deserved and warranted way more than three issues.
Its the kind of epic storytelling many people only dream.of. its the kind of long term narrative to see a beloved hero fall from.grace, do an unbelievable face heel turn, and then work his way to find redemption and forgiveness. Mad respect to.the writers for having the guts to.pull the trigger on this idea, and to do so in a way that makes sense and to have it pay off in such a.great way.
great job on covering emerald twilight and how dc comics broke Green Lantern.
A great analogy for Emerald Twilight/A New Dawn would be Star Wars, with Hal becoming Parallax being similar to Anakin becoming Darth Vader, and Kyle being Luke; their encounters with each other mirroring the Luke vs. Vader duels.
Also, Alex’s death at Major Force’s hands was Kyle’s Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru moment.
GL: Rebirth was one of the first DC miniseries I read when I was getting into comics in the early/mid 00's. I never read the original Parallax arc but I knew the broadstrokes. Now that I know the full story, I really wanna sit down and read it and Rebirth again. In fact, that whole Geoff Johns era of GL was crazy good. I might read it all again
I agree. Everything Johns did from Rebirth to war of green lanterns was amazing
I liked that they gave Hal a redemption arc.
the whole thing with Paralax helped introduce me to the whole Green Lantern Universe and due to the whole wider implications for larger DC, it helped me finally understand what the DC universe was. I was sort of interested in it from the side from sort of knowing the tv shows but not being able to see all of them. Also just having difficultly knowing which books or things to get to get started and get a good idea. I happened to pick Rebirth and I was kind of familiar with Spectre because I had seen him hang out with The Flash, so that helped. And seeing all this stuff tie together kind of all worked out kind of nice and gave me a neat character to follow and get started with. I know it might be a bit of a cop out getting Jordan off the hook for all the stuff he did...but I honestly don't think I have a counter or answer for that...I'm just glad and thought it worked out nice and I liked the stories it generated with the Blackest Night Event and introducing those other Lantern Corps. Those were pretty cool and fun....yeah. 👍💚
This was a very fun and cool video. I enjoyed learning about the history of this story as well as Hal Jordan and why he went on such a downfall.
Glad you enjoyed it!
For me I think Secret Origins and Rebirth were the stories that helped introduce me to the wider Green Lantern lore. Also the Rebirth part and the stuff done by Geoff Johns got me interested in the Lantern Corps. I think I liked Hal Jordan mostly becasue he was the main character and I like the stories he had from this run. I think I was more a fan of the Green Lantern Corps books with the the main team they had that weren't Hal Jordan and their dynamic together. But I appreciated that they had a few Earth Lanterns on the team to help give me a sense of perspective and scale of everything going on. I think I liked Soranik as one of the members of this Lantern crew, esspecially after learning she was Sinestro's kid. Thought that was kind of cool that she was a little different from her dad. I'm not sure if she's shifted in the time since her creation. I think I saw a thumbnail floating around here on TH-cam lately with her in a Sinestro Corps suit and looking freaky and evil. So I have no idea what's going on, and haven't touched DC since New 52. 🤷♂
You forgot to mention that before The Final Night, Kyle and Hal would face off each other a few more times, in the “Parallax View: The Resurrection of Hal Jordan” story arc in GL Vol. 3 62-64, GL Annual Vol. 3 5 in 1995, and the one shot crossover, GL/Silver Surfer: Unholy Alliances, which was when Parallax encountered Cyborg Superman for the first time, in the Marvel Universe.
I didn’t know this was how Kyle Raner was introduced. That’s pretty cool. I remember that Costume design as a kid considering it was one of my favorite action figures.
That’s normally why when people talk about green lantern, I either will think of Kyle or John. Not really Hal, and I find it interesting that originally he wouldn’t have come back if they decided to keep Him as the specter.
This should have never been retconned tbh because it throws away all of the meaning character development Hal Jordan had during the Spectre 2001 where he tries to redeem himself by being the host for the Spectre. Geoff Johns is my mortal enemy
"I like heroes becoming evil asshats"
@@IzayaLee1725 ?
@N0TDeezy Hal becoming a villain is arguably the worst thing to happen to GL comics
@@IzayaLee1725 I think that emerald twilight is a wonderfully crafted story about grief. It isn't just about "what if superhero but evil" this isn't injustice. but it's about a story about a man who has been pushed to his absolute breaking point. Emerald twilight works because It had *years* of build-up to it. Plus, it gave us Kyle Rayner and I like Kyle.
I think that Emerald Twilight and the Parallax is a story that has it's place in Hal Jordan's history before geoff johns came to ruin it and now Hal just blames all of his mistakes on a dumb space bug instead of owning up to his mistakes like he did before the retcon.
Odd how weirdly iconic that image of Hal grinning like a madman and wielding all those Power Rings is and yet despite some madness in the narrative I don't really get that vibe anywhere in the story from him.
Never ceases to amaze how stupid comic books in the '90s were...what were they thinking with this!?
And the punchline to the whole joke was how they removed any point to this series by literally stating "it was a parasite, bro" a decade later.
This was such a good idea for a story, but has been kinda retconned to ruin. I love Parallax as a concept, but using it to retroactively absolve Hal of his crimes is lazy and a cop out in my opinion. This story has been turned from a tragedy into a generic possession story, which sucks because that clearly wasn’t the intention.
I never treated it as if being used absolve Hal of his crimes. Rather I treated as it serving as a necessary change to properly explain why Hal had such a radical change to his character.
He did, after all, head to OA to absorb more power and try to save his city. so he is still to blame for everything. Parallax only really lessens his guilt.
Hal Jordan would have probably never killed his former comrades if not for Parallax, but I can see him still knocking them all out in order to take the power of the central lantern for his plans. That would still be a severe crime and a betrayal on his part, that would end with him being punished and losing his power ring. And no other Lantern would trust him after that
Great job Owen!
Thank you. I'm enjoying these.
Glad you like them!
I missed Emerald Twilight, and was somewhat ambivalent about Hal Jordan's path as Parallax, when I got Emerald Twilight in TPB form, I didn't like it. I just didn't buy into his fall from grace (he had fallings out with the Guardians before) and I hated the killing of Kilowog and Tomar-Re. I was also disappointed with Hal Jordan as the Spectre. All that said, I found Ron Marz's run to be engaging and enjoyable and it became a read I looked forward to each month. Couldn't say that about Green Lantern before. That said, I read an article about the reasoning behind Emerald Twilight (the creative team just didn't see that there was anything they could do to spark interest in the title again "no one would care if we brought back the Zamorans" is one quote I remember). That said, I think they should have focused more on executing an idea more relying on the spectacle of some event (something that came to plague the industry and led to me not buying current books anymore). Still, for the most part, I liked the Kyle Rayner run.
Fantastic video! Fascinating as always.
Thank you! Cheers!
I always love learning about Comic history! Great video Owen 💙
Thank you so much!
@@OwenLikesComics Ofc! 💙
This is one of best DC stories ever produced by this Publisher. I wished we had more tales of Hal Jordan gone bad as Parallax.
This also allowed Kyle to shine as a new Green Lantern without the Core and Guardians to back him throughout the Universe.
Great video! Love this story and what came out of it!
Thanks so much!
Uff, both Kyle AND Guy Gardner were awesome.
Guy Gardner Warrior is one of the more underrated cómics of the time.
His fricking Bar for "supes" was were you got to meet the superhero scene at the time.
Ice was a Queen.
And Guys new Powers and enemies we're the bomb.
Honestly I like him more as "Warrior" than as a lantern of any color.
There’s nothing cooler in comics than Green Lantern.
Emerald Twilight is the original notion of die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
It was the 90s. The extreme 1990s. They killed Barry Allen in the 80s, and this didn’t come out of nowhere, I do recall the end of Coast City/Engine City story.
hello long time fan here. I really love your content and your deep dive in comic storyline and lore. that being said i wanted to know if you have thought about doing this for the Authority. ive seen several people attempt trying to explain the team and failing to do so. Given your previous work i think you are best suited to being this great team to light for a whole generation of viewers.
I wish that Emerald Twilight got a few more issues of padding, in order to focus on Hal’s declining mental state, and to make the situation with Parallax more of a deal with the devil, so Hal’s turn to villainy is of his own volition, but Parallax gave him a little nudge.
Perhaps shortly after the destruction of Coast City, a small, yellow bug slithers onto Hal’s shoulder from the wreckage. The bug promises Hal the ability to undo the destruction, if he were to go to the central battery and absorb its power. Hal is reluctant at first, but the bug gives him time to reconsider his decision.
Hal attempts to recreate Coast City with the power of his Green Lantern ring on his own, but it runs out of power. The Guardians come down, and tell him that his responsibility as Green Lantern is to protect the universe, not play god. This causes Hal to snap and agree to the bug’s offer.
I see no flaws in this stories, they were great at the time and they are great now. Is inevitable to feel a little bit nostalgic of that time when comic were so good. I think in retrospective is even better.
14:06 the origin of "women in refridgerators"
19:41 Kyle would end up in one of the most important justice league rosters
21:09 The New Frontier is more relevant than I thought
Brilliant video. Would it be Brilliant if James Gunn brought Ryan R back to be Pralax .....
My favorite earth green lanterns from best to least
1. Guy Gardner
2. John Stewart
3. Hal Jordan
4. Kyle Rayner
Overall it’s a great cast, and I love how they can switch from one of them to another every couple of issues.
Awesome job as always man 👍.
Thanks!
Really enjoyed this, thanks
Glad to hear it!
I know this story gets hate, but I absolutely enjoyed it! Yes, the replacing of long-standing heroes for youngbloods had grown thin, but this was the first time we ever saw a top-tier hero go the way of Anakin Skywalker. The destruction of the Corps, the deaths of Kilowog, Sinestro and even all the Guardians save Ganthet seemed to mark the end of an Era, at the time. The greatest Green Lantern had become the greatest anti-hero. Too bad Green Lantern Rebirth had to undo all of it.
this was the first "old" comic i went back to read as a teen when he was revived in the late 2000s i was like who is this dude and my shop owner pointed me to this story and got the whole story in the floppy's for 5 bucks its a special book to me
Good video of the history of that whole story arc! I do have one question, wasn't there a story where a younger Hal Jordan found out what happens to his future self and sets out to confront him?
I hate how it was adapted in the latest animated movie. Complete character assassination
Just picked up a bunch of books in this storyline. Love it.
I know this is about green lantern, but I just wanted to say I’ll never forget when superman died. It was crazy. It was on the news and stuff like a real person.
It's thanks to this arc that I can only accept either Hal Jordan or Kyle Rayner as main characters of the Green Lantern comics.
I understand many people Like John Stewart because they grew up with the cartoons and that's ok, Stewart is a fantastic character who's proven himself deserving of the ring even though he was originally just a temporary member. I believe John Stewart is the one who bring stability to both Hal Jordan and Kyle, since he was there to support both characters during their carreers, just as how both supported his own growth as a permanent member of the corps. But I honestly can't see him as the actual main Lantern, he doesn't have the characteristics you would usually find on main characters. Serving more as a Deuteragonist. The second important character who could protagonize his own self contained arcs, but not lead the entire story as a whole.
Given the state of comics in the 1990s, I’m not sure we can say Emerald Twilight “seemed destined to fail from the beginning.” DC was chasing the sales boost they got from killing Superman, which made the whole storyline seem like a pretty safe bet at the time.