Why Did I Subject Myself to This? (The Cancelled Jack Black Green Lantern Film)

This week at CBR, I'm revisiting the Robert Smigel script for a Green Lantern film starring Jack Black. Although, truly, there are no words...

GREEN LANTERN #50 – March 1994

Emerald Twilight Part Three: The Future

Credits:  Ron Marz (writer), Darryl Banks (penciler), Romeo Tanghal (inker), Albert de Guzman (letterer), Steve Mattsson (colorist)

Summary:  Sinestro battles Hal Jordan outside of the Central Battery, goading Hal to remove all of his recently acquired rings.  Hal agrees, defeating Sinestro in a bloody battle that ends with Hal breaking Sinestro’s neck.  Kilowog reemerges and tries again to prevent Hal from stealing all of the Green Lanterns’ energy from the Central Battery.  Hal declares that he can’t go back and blasts Kilowog until only his skeleton remains.  As Hal enters the Central Battery, the Guardians decide to sacrifice their own lives and give their remaining power to Ganthet.  Hal emerges wearing new armor.  He crushes his power ring and flies away.  Later, Ganthet reforms the ring and flies to Earth.  Outside of a nightclub, Ganthet hands the ring to Kyle Rayner.

Irrelevant Continuity:  Hal Jordan’s new identity after stealing the Central Battery’s power is Parallax, although he doesn’t use the name this issue.  I’m assuming that comes in his next appearance.  Years later, Geoff Johns will reveal in the Green Lantern: Rebirth miniseries that Parallax was the name of the “fear entity” that possessed Hal throughout this entire story arc.

“Behold, the Unrivaled Imagination of Hal Jordan!”:  Hal resorts to generic energy blasts for most of the issue, deviating a few times to create a shield, a battering ram, and a handheld laser cannon (which simply shoots the energy beams his ring fires anyway, so you tell me what the point is…).

I Love the ’90s:  Kyle Rayner is wearing a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt, although it doesn’t feature the rectangular NIN logo that was everywhere during 1994.

Total N00B:  I’d love to know how Kilowog’s death was retconned.

Gimmicks:  This is a forty-eight page anniversary issue, featuring a pin-up gallery in the final pages.  The cover price is $2.95.  Looking at the GCD entry, I don't see any indication that there was an enhanced cover.

Review:  There’s a moment this issue when Hal Jordan’s friend Kilowog returns unexpectedly, giving Hal one more chance to end this insanity and turn himself in.  Kilowog is one of the more popular Green Lanterns, with a lovable grouch persona that’s reminiscent of the Fantastic Four’s Thing.  (Judging by his appearances in all of the TV and film adaptations featuring GL characters, DC is under the impression that everyone loves Kilowog.)  During their conversation, Hal reveals that he actually didn’t leave any of the Green Lanterns to die; that even though he stole their rings, he left them with enough power to escape outer space and return home safely.  This reads as a very abrupt attempt to backpedal away from the previous issue, which gave absolutely no indication that Hal was concerned about sparing the lives of his friends, but hey…maybe cooler heads have prevailed.  No one explicitly died last issue, and the only person killed by Hal so far is the villainous Sinestro, so there’s still time for Hal to redeem himself.  He’ll have a trial, lose the ring for a few issues, and then the status quo will be restored.  It’s all a little melodramatic, but nothing too outrageous by the standards of a superhero comic, especially in the early ‘90s.

Oh, what’s this?  

No, they’re doubling-down on this nonsense.  Ah, well.  

“Emerald Twilight” concludes, with Hal Jordan officially becoming a supervillain, effectively killing the entire Green Lantern Corps and flying off into space in his shiny new set of villainous armor.  Bizarrely, the issue ends with a series of pin-ups dedicated to Hal Jordan, with a portion of the Green Lantern oath pasted in typographic print on each drawing.  Yes, let’s pay tribute to the gallant hero whose character we’ve assassinated over the course of the past three issues.  I can only assume that these pin-ups were already in the drawer when DC decided to radically change plans for “Emerald Twilight,” because the decision to run them after this storyline is mind-boggling.  

There’s not much to be said about the issue that I haven’t covered before.  Visually, it is an improvement over the last chapter -- Darryl Banks’ interpretation of Hal Jordan is reminiscent of M. D. Bright’s, and I don’t have a problem with that.  There’s a sense of incredulity throughout the issue, although most of the shock value was already exhausted in the previous chapter.  That issue led us to believe that Hal was actively killing his friends, while this issue allows him to claim innocence.  The decision to back away from the apparent murders in the last issue seems odd initially, until you realize that it’s all done to make Kilowog’s death this issue seem even more dramatic.  If Hal’s already killed a dozen Green Lanterns, it doesn’t mean as much when Kilowog is blasted into bones.  Of course, we’re supposed to infer by the end of the issue that the rest of the Green Lantern Corps died when Hal stole the power from the Central Battery, but it’s more of an incidental death now.  I can’t imagine this placated anyone -- Hal’s still clearly on the hook for all of these deaths.

The final pages end with the introduction of the new Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner.  I get the sense that he’s still being developed as a character, because no effort has been made thus far to establish anything about Kyle, aside from the fact that he’s young.  I’ve heard people remark before that Kyle was a random citizen who received the ring while drunk outside of a nightclub, but he appears sober this issue, commenting that he needed to “leave the dance floor for some air.”  The “random” part of his origin might be true, with Ganthet commenting that Kyle will “have to do,” although Ganthet’s actions in the final pages are so poorly dramatized it’s hard to discern what’s happening.  He flies all the way to Earth, for reasons that aren’t explained.  (Hal Jordan’s sector didn’t just include Earth, right?  And there are no sectors now, and only one ring, so why did Ganthet travel so far?)  For more unexplained reasons, Ganthet decides to stand outside of a nightclub, and after giving the ring away, he simply disappears.  I have to assume that Kyle’s origin was fleshed out in upcoming issues, because it’s hard to imagine that such a choppy origin story didn’t receive at least one retcon or two.

Whether or not Kyle Rayner was a worthy successor to Hal Jordan is ultimately irrelevant.  He’s taking the mantle after a conscious decision has been made to twist Hal into a murderous psychopath, and there’s no way the existing fan base would stand for it.  DC had to know they went too far with this story, because the rest of the ‘90s are spent trying to find ways to redeem Hal Jordan without totally negating the events of this storyline.  And DC was outright stubborn about this.  “Peter Parker Shouldn’t Be Married” stubborn.  Eventually, it took a fan-turned-pro who never got over this story to pull the ultimate retcon, and regardless of what you might think of Geoff Johns’ later work, his enthusiasm for the Hal Jordan character did lead to a legitimate revival for the hero.  Hal was finally redeemed, even though it took longer than any of us expected.  DC used to defend “Emerald Twilight” by touting it as “daring,” but it’s clearly shock value storytelling; poorly conceived, poorly executed shock value at that.

GREEN LANTERN #49 – February 1994

Emerald Twilight Part Two: The Present

Credits:  Ron Marz (writer), Fred Haynes (penciler), Romeo Tanghal & Dennis Cramer (inkers), Albert de Guzman (letterer), Steve Mattsson (colorist)

Summary:  Hal Jordan flies to Oa, and is confronted by various Green Lanterns along the way.  He easily defeats Lanterns Ke'Haan of Varva and Jayd Laira and steals their power rings.  Hal then faces his friend Tomar Tu and Jack Chance; he defeats them both and leaves them to die in space.  Using the power of the various rings he’s stolen, Hal brutalizes the final Lantern defender, Kilowog.  He arrives at Oa, announcing he wants the Central Battery.  The Guardians reluctantly release Sinestro to face Hal.

Irrelevant Continuity:  Years later, Geoff Johns will reveal that the Sinestro Hal faces in this storyline is actually a hard-light duplicate that Sinestro is controlling from inside the Central Battery.

“Behold, the Unrivaled Imagination of Hal Jordan!”:  Hal sticks to his typical energy blasts for most of this issue, although he does briefly create a giant replica of himself during the Kilowog fight.  And…I guess that’s supposed to be a knife, but we’ll get to that one later.

I Love the '90s:  I’m assuming Jack Chance was DC’s attempt to create a Green Lantern “for the ‘90s.”  He has a trenchcoat, a giant gun, and a bad attitude to go along with his gambling gimmick.  I’m going to guess that he was created as an intentional parody and just accept the joke.

Approved By The Comics Code Authority:  Hal creates what appears to be a knife with his power ring (the art isn’t clear), and severs the hand of female Lantern Boodikka when she refuses to give up her ring.

Creative Differences:  The original solicitation for this issue reads:    

GREEN LANTERN #49

   by G. Jones, Haynes, & Tanghal

   "Green Lantern is caught up in a battle raging between two equally powerful groups of the Guardians of the Universe. Hal's side loses, and the winners' first act is to take away the power rings' 24-hour time limit, and their yellow impurity. Their second act is to appoint a new leader of the Green Lantern Corps---Sinestro!. This issue leads directly into the landmark Green Lantern #50, a major turning point for the series."

   Cover by Kevin Maguire

Review:  I didn’t hate the previous issue of this event.  I thought that Ron Marz conveyed Hal’s angst in a credible way and, given the limitations of a single issue, established the enormity of Hal’s loss in a manner that didn’t feel cheap.  This issue, I hate.  It’s everything I assumed “Emerald Twilight” would be, and even if my affection for Hal Jordan is limited to his old Super Powers action figure, I can’t read this and not feel some empathy for anyone who grew up enjoying Hal’s adventures.

Before delving into the sheer ghastliness of the story, I’ll mention that the art is a major disappointment after the Bill Willingham job last issue.  I’ve always liked this cover (which appeared in numerous fan magazines and promotional materials at the time), but the interior art is far too rough for a professional job, let alone an “important” storyline that serves as Hal Jordan’s big finale.  Ugly faces, feeble backgrounds, pointless rendering, weak anatomy…it’s exactly what I would expect a ‘90s rush job to be.

The plot of the issue I’ve been familiar with for over twenty years, even though I’m only now reading the story.  Everyone knows about the time Hal Jordan went nuts, killed his friends, and tried to steal the Guardians’ power.  The execution this issue is about as deep as that summary -- Hal’s here, he’s crazy, and people are going to die.  (Okay, aliens are going to die.)  Even today, this is frustrating on numerous levels.  It’s just such a pathetic attempt to imitate what DC thinks someone like Alan Moore would do with the book.  It’s the hero as the villain, driven mad by grief and power, and aren’t you kids just thrilled to watch his killing spree?  Out of sheer morbid curiosity, of course this is going to bring attention to the title, but surely someone had to realize that this was disastrous short-term thinking.  

DC is extremely lucky that Ron Marz was able to create a replacement character that managed to attract his own fans and keep this book alive, because it’s difficult to imagine why any hardcore Green Lantern fan would continue to follow the title after this issue.  Was Green Lantern even in such a dire need of a reboot, anyway?  DC was publishing three Green Lantern titles at the time, so I’m assuming the brand still had some commercial appeal, and I don’t recall any antipathy towards the Hal Jordan character.  Maybe a segment of the readership was burned out on Hal, but did anyone really want to see this happen?  Yes, some writers are able to create stories that aggressively fly in the face of what the audience wants while still keeping the readers onboard, but this event has no real creative merit.  It was conceived as a hit piece on Hal Jordan’s character and a flagrant sales stunt.  At least “Death of Superman” and “Knightfall” had a point to prove.  This is just ugly.

GREEN LANTERN #48 – January 1994

Emerald Twilight Part One: The Past

Credits:  Ron Marz (writer), Bill Willingham (penciler), Romeo Tanghal & Robert Campanella (inkers), Albert de Guzman (letterer), Anthony Tollin (colorist)

Summary:  Hal Jordan visits the remains of Coast City.  With the power of his ring, he recreates an emerald version of his city and has conversations with replicas of his father, mother, and teenage girlfriend Jennifer.  When Hal’s ring loses its charge, he screams that it isn’t fair.  A holographic projection of one of the Guardians appears, ordering him to surrender his ring as punishment for using it for personal gain.  Hal is infuriated by the request and instead absorbs energy from the hologram into his ring.  He declares that he will return to Oa, but the Guardians won’t like him when he gets there.

Irrelevant Continuity:  The future Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner, debuts on the final page with his girlfriend, watching a “shooting star” (Hal on his way to Oa) and commenting that he’d just like to escape one day.

“Behold, the Unrivaled Imagination of Hal Jordan!”:  Hal Jordan has been mocked over the years for unimaginative uses of his ring (the common complaint is that he always defaults to a giant boxing glove), but he’s full-on ring crazy this issue.  Not only has he created an emerald sling for his wounded arm, but he’s recreated the entire municipality of Coast City and he’s having interactive conversations with its inhabitants!  

Total N00B:  I’m not familiar enough with Hal Jordan continuity to know the origin of his white temples.  You might think it was simply a decision to slowly age the character and distinguish him from other heroes, but I’m going to assume that there’s a needlessly complicated comic book origin behind the change.

Creative Differences:  “Emerald Twilight” began as a completely different storyline conceived by the previous Green Lantern writer, Gerald Jones.  DC even went so far as to solicit the original plans in Previews and run an ad for the aborted storyline in Darkstars #15.  According to online sources, series editor Kevin Dooley considered Jones’ plans too tame to attract new readers, and a new storyline was conceived at the last minute by Mike Carlin, Paul Levitz, Archie Goodwin, and Denny O'Neil.  

Courtesy of http://glcorps.dcuguide.com/curtain/gl48-50.php here’s the original solicitation for this issue:

GREEN LANTERN #48

   by G. Jones, Cobbs, & Tanghal

   "Superman and the Justice League gather by Green Lantern's side as Hal confronts the horror of the destruction of Coast City. Meanwhile on Oa, the Guardians of the Universe find themselves fighting a lethal battle against...the Guardians of the Universe!?"

   Cover by Kevin Maguire & Romeo Tanghal.

Review:  “Emerald Twilight” just might be the most outrageous stunt pulled by one of the major comics companies during the ‘90s.  Commercially, the impetus for the story was the success of Batman and Superman’s concurrent “event” storylines, ones that featured the iconic characters broken, killed, replaced, and ultimately returned as the stars of their titles.  Hal Jordan isn’t going to be so lucky.  Sure, he’ll eventually don the mantle of Green Lantern again, but quite a few creative teams and editorial regimes must pass before the traditional status quo is restored.

Creatively, the inspiration for “Emerald Twilight” would appear to be two of the most famous storylines to emerge during the Jim Shooter years of Marvel.  “The Death of Phoenix,” or “The Dark Phoenix Saga” as it came to be known, is the story of founding X-Man Jean Grey corrupted by a cosmic power and transformed into a villain.  (And I’m sure no one reading this has ever heard of that storyline before…)  “Born Again,” Frank Miller’s final Daredevil epic, brings the hero to the brink of insanity after an effort by the villainous Kingpin to systematically destroy his life.  To say that these stories were quickly elevated to the status of “classics” would be an understatement.  DC’s main competition in the category of “groundbreaking superhero work” at the time consisted of Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen.  Watchmen is an erudite science fiction novel told through the medium of superhero comics, and not an obvious inspiration for a monthly mainstream series.  Dark Knight Returns does star a slightly unhinged, more violent interpretation of Batman, but he’s still a hero by the story’s end.  DC had yet to produce an in-continuity story featuring a hero experiencing some form of trauma that pushes him into villainy.  Actually, I’m not an expert on DC continuity, so it’s entirely possible at least one character was put through those paces in the ‘80s or early ‘90s.  DC hadn’t attempted such an arc with a character like Hal Jordan, however; a hero with roots that go back to the beginning of the Silver Age and an established fan base.

I’m not sure what it says about the climate of comics at the time that the arc of driving a hero insane and recasting him or her as a villain was considered the pinnacle of sophisticated storytelling, but that attitude certainly existed.  It was one of those important stories that you never thought you’d see, yet it just had to be a great story, right?  “The Dark Phoenix Saga” prevaricated a bit by establishing that Phoenix had been brainwashed by the Hellfire Club, and years later we learned that Phoenix was never truly Jean Grey at all.  “Born Again” had Daredevil act crazy for a few issues, but ultimately the hero triumphs over the odds and is able to move forward with his life.  How great would it be if someone didn’t wuss out on the concept?

“Emerald Dawn” certainly does not wuss out on the concept.  DC will eventually begin to backtrack on its characterization of Hal Jordan, tying itself in knots for years looking for ways to redeem him until it’s ultimately decided just to restore Hal to his classic status quo.  There’s no hint of any second thoughts in the original issues, though.  It’s full-on fan wish fulfillment, and I mean that in a horrible way.  Yes, when you’re twelve, you think you want these comics, but ultimately they prove far too cynical and grim to work as superhero stories.  They’re not about inspiration or imagination, but instead exist as exercises in tearing heroes down and offering no means of redemption.  There’s a reason why Phoenix sacrificed her life in order to save her friends at the end of “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” and Matt Murdock walked happily into the sunset with Karen Page during the finale of “Born Again.”  Without those endings, the stories are just exercises in misery.

All that said, I have to confess that the first chapter of “Emerald Dawn” reads as an adequate Green Lantern comic.  Bill Willingham evokes a bit of John Byrne and a bit of Neal Adams, creating an iconic Hal Jordan and an emerald recreation of Coast City that does seem like a nice place to live.  The story, at this point, doesn’t come across as something written by committee, but is instead a melancholy reflection on what Hal’s lost and his frustration that he’ll never truly recreate it.  The previous creative teams clearly didn’t know how to address the destruction of Hal’s hometown -- he’s gone from indignant fury in Green Lantern #46, to a much more passive role during the subsequent Superman chapters of the crossover, to a seemingly non-sequitur team-up with Green Arrow in Green Lantern #47.  So, he yelled for a few pages, beat up a bad guy, and kind of got over it.  Ron Marz’s interpretation is at least grounded in human emotion.  It’s hard not to emphasize for Hal during the story, even if you do know where this is all headed.  And once Hal dons that evil grin at the end of page 20, this is going somewhere bad indeed.  If only DC had commissioned a story that allowed Hal to properly mourn the loss, fruitlessly search for a resolution, and then learn a lesson and move on.  If editorial wanted to use this as an excuse for Hal to retire and for the more “relatable” Kyle Rayner to take his place, fine.  Instead, things are just going to get nasty…

The Next Casualty - Hal Jordan’s Integrity

Yeah, I’m going to do this one, too.

GREEN LANTERN #46 - October 1993

Death City

Credits:  Gerard Jones (writer), M. D. Bright (penciler), Romeo Tanghal (inker), Albert de Guzman (letterer), Anthony Tollin (colorist)

Summary:  Green Lantern, enraged at the destruction of Coast City, fights his way into Engine City.  He faces Mongul in battle, but is unable to destroy the engine room when he discovers its kryptonite power source, knowing that Superman is nearby.  Mongul takes advantage of Green Lantern’s inability to affect yellow and breaks his arm and knee.  Green Lantern finds Steel’s hammer and uses his ring to build armor around his body.  With the hammer, he beats Mongul into unconsciousness.

Irrelevant Continuity:

• Steel left his hammer behind after he flew Cyborg Superman’s metal form into the engine room’s gears in the previous chapter.  Where he is now is not revealed.
• Mongul is still referring to Cyborg Superman as “the leader” even though Mongul’s turned against him by this point.
• Green Lantern’s title was going through an awkward stage during this crossover.  This is the gray-at-the-temples, drunk driving, renegade Hal Jordan from what I’ve been able to glean from online articles.

Total N00B:  Green Lantern’s ring is still powerless against yellow at this point in continuity.  I was surprised to see that bizarre old rule was still in place in 1993, but then I remembered Ron Marz stating in Wizard that Hal’s replacement wouldn’t have that absurd restriction, so this must be one of the final stories to feature it.  

Production Note:  The Return of Superman trade only reprints sixteen pages of this issue.  Presumably, the rest of the issue deals with storylines that don’t directly relate to the GL/Mongul fight.

Review:  Green Lantern was thrown a bone and allowed to participate in the “Return of Superman” event, although it’s debatable if this really helped the title in the long run.  Within a few issues, the destruction of Coast City will become the basis for Hal Jordan turning rogue, an idiotic decision that DC stubbornly stuck to for a surprising number of years.  (Never tear down the existing hero in order to build up your replacement hero.) This issue is mostly dedicated to Green Lantern screaming at Mongul and futilely punching him.  Gerard Jones does exploit the basic flaw in the fight’s premise -- Mongul is yellow -- and gets a few entertaining pages out of it.  Green Lantern knows he can’t directly hurt Mongul, so he has to use his ring to destroy everything around Mongul, using Engine City as a weapon against him.  The action’s staged rather well, and M. D. Bright keeps the fight energetic, but it’s hard to ignore that almost every other page is either a splash page or double-page spread.  It’s a quick read, and what passes for “depth” are some melodramatic narrative captions from Green Lantern about his hate fueling his power.  It’s not pleasant.