Did people like this when it first came out?

did people like this when it first came out?

No, not really.

It sounds like people either liked it or hated it

No, but it is actually pretty well written/drawn considering it was yet another attempt at acquiring Death of Superman sales.

They didn't like it so much so that a group of Hal fans made an entire movement dedicated to shit talking DC at every opportunity and to get Hal re-instated back into the corps called HEAT (Hals Emerald Attack Team). When there was a bomb threat at DC they changed their name to Hal's Emerald Advancement Team afterwards so not to seem as bad. They would buy ad-space in Wizard magazine for this purpose and I've heard stories i.e. probably bullshit of members of HEAT actually beating up people who bought Kyle books.

Some people liked it a lot, a lot hated it.
Parallax in general was loved as a villian, but EVERYONE AGREES the execution was poor and rushed.

I really liked the concept, and Hal as a fallen hero is better than Johns dumb sue

>EVERYONE AGREES the execution was poor and rushed
It wasn't. Hal got more character development in those issues than in his entire existence.

I liked the whole arc a lot.

>Parallax in general was loved as a villian
I find that hard to believe

>Hal got more character development in those issues than in his entire existence.

I don't have enough time to explain how fucking wrong you are but I'm going to give you the quicknotes version of it.

The entirety of Vol. 3 of GL (Gerard Jones' run) was about letting go of the past and moving forward.
This is shown early on as Hal is shown as an older man who is unsure of his place in the world after the Corps imploded after executing Sinestro. When they start recruiting new GLs again, Hal figures that he shouldn't just be getting people with a 1 to 1 personality the same as him and goes outside the box recruiting people like Aa and Boodika who completely clash with him and also that he doesn't need to be the leader all the time. He can be the one to take commands rather than being the one giving them out.
Moving over to John, he becomes in charge of the Mosaic world as a sense of penance for what happened with Xanshi and his wife. Learning to work together with all the different civilizations on the Mosaic world helps him put his guilt about Xanshi behind him and to start a new relationship with Rose who was a farmer on the Mosaic.
With Guy, we have him going from the complete nutcase who beat the shit out of others for fun to a person who actually cares when he has his adventure with G'Nort and eventually recommends him to the corps.

Looks like this is too long

>indiscriminate and swiftly retconned death of nearly entire supporting cast
>character development

cont.
Prior to Emerald Twilight (issue 47), we have Hal aware that Coast City has been blown up as he was at ground zero fighting Mongol after the fact. He is sad sure, but the only thing he cares about at the moment is whether or not Pieface and Carol are okay. Towards the end of the issue he finds out that they are and lets Ollie know that as long as he has those two, he will be fine.
The next issue starts with Hal crying in a crater at Coast City and later killing everything he worked so hard to achieve by reviving the corps. That isn't character development, it's character regression and assassination. People later went on to make Parallax a great villain with good motivations but Emerald Twilight itself was written like shit because A) it was rushed to complete shit and had 3 issues cut so it could make it to #50 and B) because DC wanted another Knightfall and DARoS.

Now fuck off and actually read comics and stop parroting shit you hear on Sup Forums.

>He is sad sure, but the only thing he cares about at the moment is whether or not Pieface and Carol are okay
Which doesn't negate his reaction in issue 47.

>lets Ollie know that as long as he has those two, he will be fine
More like realizes being overprotective is one of his traits, and he'll try to deal with it.

>More like realizes being overprotective is one of his traits, and he'll try to deal with it.

Which doesn't entail going crazy and murdering all of his friends and colleagues in the GL Corps. Like look at this, does this look like he is having a breakdown? He's gotten over it and is going to move on. They didn't have the time or issues to make his change more believable because like I said, it was rushed to shit.

> It's no secret that "Emerald Twilight" (the story arc that destroyed the Corps and turned Hal Jordan into Parallax) was planned at the last minute. Gerard Jones himself has said on numerous occasions that something entirely different was set to run in GREEN LANTERN #48, #49, and #50. It was, unfortunately, deemed by Kevin Dooley too uninteresting to grab new readers. Mike Carlin, Paul Levitz, Archie Goodwin, and Dennis O'Neil were then assigned to write a new plot for "Emerald Twilight", which was eventually scripted by Ron Marz.

>The decision to run the new version of "Emerald Twilight" was so sudden, in fact, that the original plans for GREEN LANTERN #48 and #49 had already been solicited by many preview magazines used by retailers (which are released about three months before the issues they solicit). DC even ran advertisements in some of its other titles for the storyline, such as the one to the left, taken from DARKSTARS #15.

>ORIGINAL SOLICITATION:
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.

>RESOLICITATION:
GREEN LANTERN #48
by Marz, Haynes, & Tanghal
"Beginning the special 3-part story Emerald Twilight that culminates in the landmark Green Lantern #50: Green Lantern confronts the horror of the destroyed Coast City, once the place where he lived, worked, and even buried his parents. Now Hal Jordan must come to terms with the death of his father, an event that led to his choosing the life of a Green Lantern. But his way of coping may cost him his ring, and the consequences of his actions will change his life forever."
Cover by Kevin Maguire & Romeo Tanghal.

>ORIGINAL SOLICITATION:
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

>RESOLICITATION:
GREEN LANTERN #49
by Marz, Haynes, & Tanghal
"Part 2 of the 3-part Emerald Twilight: Hal Jordan has gone rogue, rocketing to Oa in a desperate quest for power---the power to restore Coast City! When the other Green Lanterns are unable to stop him, the Guardians are forced to reinstate the one member of the Corps who might put and end to Jordan's rampage.
Cover by Darryl Banks & Romeo Tanghal.

And i agree, that doesnt mean the story needed to be 2 issues longer.

A lot of Hal fans formed a fan group that had some members sending death threats to DC so I would say no.

...

I doubt that at this day and age there's anything to like about Death of Superman.

That cover is really based.

People didn't care much about Green Lantern at that point.

It's the entire reason it happened.

From what I've read, 50 was supposed to be Hal retiring as GL and taking up a different name or something.

I think it's mostly a case of people mixing up "I liked this story" with "this story was a good and logical path for the character"

As someone who was around during that time period, in retrospect H.E.A.T. was autismo as fuck but fucking harmless. Idiotic but absolutely harmless.

As for stories about people beating others up, flat-out lies.

Now I heard there WERE some psychos who sent a few fan letters in full of hate and shit but even those were exaggerated. Most likely it was a handful of fucktards who were similar to idiots who thought wrestling was real and went spastic when someone told them otherwise.

Sales were good enough to support four titles. They just went as high as certain editorial people would've wanted.

They WEREN'T just as high, I mean.

Say what you will about Didio but frankly it was the changing of the editorial guard back in the early 00's that got us the return of the Corps and Jordan.

Also, I never really saw the point of blaming Marz for Emerald Twilight. Well, you can blame him for the quality of the story itself but it'd be wrong to actually blame him for the decisions within the story itself since those were done by others.

He basically got a shit sandwich from what I recall. He was a fan of GL and was dying to write the book... only to find out that they were tearing everything apart.

It'd be like blaming JMS for how OMD turned out. That's all on Quesada.

Emerald Twilight is all on Dooley, Carlin, Levitz, Goodwin, and O'Neil. Two of those people frankly never cared for the GL franchise. O'Neil never took a shine to the cosmic stuff and he was always more at home with street-based characters. You can tell by looking at his GL stories how phoned in they were whenever they didn't feature GA preaching about some shit. Levitz has frequently demonstrated his apathy for the GL franchise during his various runs on LOSH.

I don't know what the fuck Goodwin was smoking back then but that's a black spot on what otherwise was a great career. Carlin has always been hit and miss.

As for Dooley? Everything I've heard about the guy paints him as a gigantic asshat who never knew what the fuck he was doing.

Dooley is the main problem from what I've read about Gerards time on the book. He's done some retrospective interviews and it usually ends up being about Dooley not liking how the books were doing despite them doing good enough for 4 GL books and the fringe Darkstars. One of the biggest fuck yous to him though was how the entire ending of Mosaic was completely ignored and have John go from becoming a Guardian to waking up the next day going "Oh shit, my powers are gone. I will now lead the Darkstars"

>He can be the one to take commands rather than being the one giving them out.
i.e. he finally accepts his role as a sub

I read an interview with Jones a while ago where he says he pretty much never got along with Dooley and by the time ET was approaching he was ready to quit anyway

Man, I've read some of those Jones interviews, too. I remember how Dooley blocked stuff like Jones wanting to ignore all the past shit and just go with a badass with no baggage Hal Jordan. That would've been fucking awesome to have seen then. I don't deny that Gerard Jones can be hit and miss but fucking hell his GL stuff prior to his burn-out was largely a hit. Shit, you can blame his burn-out on how Dooley treated him. Which is a shame cause he had all the makings of a potentially-great writer if it wasn't for all of that stressful shit.

The destruction of Coast City and his breakup with Carol make Hal realize that he can't find the roots he wants on earth. He's inspired by the memories of the dead, especially his father, to become a better hero; he decides he must affirm himself first and foremost as a Green Lantern, finding his community in the Corps.

But when he goes to Oa for the big swearing-in ceremony of all the new GLs, a new group of Guardians appears, claiming to be the true Guardians. These "New" Guardians claim that the "Old" Guardians are impostors who plan to use the GL Corps to reduce the universe to chaos. The Old group counters that the New ones are impostors who plan to use the GLs to subject the universe to tyranny in the name of "order."

Adding credence to the New Guardians' claim--and raising the stakes--are the Zamarons, convinced that they are their husbands. The Zams are about to give birth to the ultimate Cosmic Children, whose power will be such that whoever controls them can control the cosmos. The fate of the universe--chaos or tyranny--hinges on whichever set of Guardians can win over the GL Corps and gain control of the Children.

Hal--who knows the Guardians as no other GLs do, having seen the Old Timer at his most human and vulnerable, and having gone through his conflict with them and his "act of faith" in GL 35--knows in his gut that the New Guardians are the impostors. But the weight of evidence is against him and he can't convince the other GLs (the "Twelve Angry Men" dynamic).

Hal has a choice: break with the GL Corps, now his only hope for community and belonging; or collude with something he feels will reduce the universe to tyranny.

Hal chooses the former. He enters the battery to increase his power, fights the Corps and takes the Old Guardians into hiding as he seeks a way to convince his fellow GLs or beat the New Guardians. The stakes for Hal are high: if he's RIGHT about the New Guardians, but they WIN, then the universe is doomed. If he's WRONG in his gut-feeling and HE wins, then HE'S doomed the universe. If he's WRONG and he LOSES, then the universe is okay but Hal is ostracized from the only group that means anything to him. The pressure is on him not only to win, but to be damn sure he's right.

The New Guardians announce their new leader of the GL Corps: Sinestro, renowned for his devotion to order before he broke with the GL Corps. He whips the Corps into a paramilitary group and starts a program of "good" but ruthless acts: like destroying the Khund homeworld.

Hal sends his only ally, Star Sapphire, to appeal to her fellow Zamarons. She learns some things about the way the New Guardians convinced them of their legitimacy that suggest to Hal that the power behind the New Guardians is ENTROPY.

Hal contacts the confused but sympathetic Arisia, trying to argue his point with other GLs through her. But Sinestro has them all wowed or cowed...and when Kilowog throws in with Sinestro and his tough new approach, Hal feels like his struggle to win over the Corps is becoming hopeless.

Hal returns to the Coast City monument, to commune with the memory of his father, whose grave was destroyed along with the city. But the Hunter GLs--revived by Sinestro to police the Corps' internal affairs--catch him there. He escapes for the moment, but they've destroyed his ring. His low-point gets lower than ever...

But the inspiration of Hal's dad makes him want to find a way to keep fighting, and he discovers that he has power within him. His trip into the battery enabled him to internalize his power, but he couldn't realize that as long as he felt he needed his ring, and the Corps.

Hal fights back, knowing he may have to fight alone to his death, and defeats the Hunters. Sinestro reacts to this by getting even tougher with the Corps and speeding up his acts of "purification," and some GLs begin to wonder if Hal was right.

The Zamarons, meanwhile, are about to give birth, which would give the New Guardians the power they need to take control of the universe no matter what Hal does. The clock is ticking faster and faster.

Star Sapphire, acting under Hal's instructions, learns enough about the New Guardians through the Zamarons to start forcing Entropy to show his hand.

Hal gathers DC earth-heroes to join him against the Corps.

When Sinestro tries to send the whole Corps against Hal and his allies, Arisia rediscovers her nerve and fights back against him. Other disaffected GLs join her--but not enough to stop the rest. Arisia's splinter group flees into space, is nearly caught and destroyed by Sinestro's group...but are saved at the last moment by Hal.

Hal now leads his rag-tag band of heroes and rebel GLs against Sinestro on Oa. But Entropy, through the New Guardians, throws him a curve: they reveal to Hal that his father didn't die by accident; his death was arranged by the Old Guardians, who saw the potential for a great GL in Hal but foresaw that he would need a trauma to make him the fearless man he could be. At the moment before the final conflict, Hal is shaken to the core: can he fight to defend the beings who killed his father?

Hal realizes that his private grief and rage means nothing against the fate of the universe. He fights for the old Guardians despite what they did.

The babies are about to be born. The New Guardians capture Sapphire and are about to kill her. The battle begins. Hal goes head to head with Kilowog, the most painful battle of either of their lives. In the heat of conflict, though, Sinestro begins to reveal his true, wretched self. Hal tricks him into showing his true colors. Kilowog realizes he's been suckered. Enraged, he joins Hal's side.

Sinestro's support collapses. The New Guardians dissolve, revealing themselves as mere manifestations of Entropy, and Entropy throws himself personally into the fray. His goal all along has been to reduce the universe to lifeless entropy by robbing it of its life, its ability to change. Too much order (Sinestro) is essentially equal to too much chaos (Entropy). The Old Guardians represent the right way, the way of Life. Now he's about to seize the Children as they're born...

The Old Guardians show up--thanks to Hal's power--and tip the battle. They snatch the babies from Entropy at the last moment. The GLs turn on him. He's destroyed.

All seems well. Deceived GLs are forgiven. The Guardians send the Corps off to do its thing while they tend to the Children who will become the greatest powers in the universe.

But all isn't well with Hal. He fought for the Guardians, because it was right, but he can't go on serving the cosmic manipulators who killed his father. They say they don't do things like that anymore, but it's too late. Hal has his own internal power now, and he's learned that he fights best alone. He won't be manipulated again. He goes off to become the Protector.

>and when Kilowog throws in with Sinestro and his tough new approach

Well, that makes no sense. Kilowog is the one who wanted Sinestro executed in the first place prior to Vol. 3. The rest of it sounds neat.

I really wonder what would have happened if Jones had gotten to do this storyline instead of it getting scraped for ET

it was not worse than the shit that was Death of Superman that is for damn sure, of all the "Hero is defeated" storyline the only one that was good was Knightfall, and just barely because O'Neil knew how dumb this types of stories were

My bet is that Hal would be the first Ion or the name Parallax would have a different meaning

>Hal would be the first Ion
that seems plausible, especially since he ended up powered with the central battery, just not evil

Now that i think about it, would GL rebirth even happen if Jones got his story done ? or would Johns stay on JSA ?

I don't think there'd be much reason for Spectre Hal or GL Rebirth to happen if Hal had never turned evil

I think that's mostly unrelated, Johns was still on JSA for years after GL Rebirth. Maybe he would have stayed on Flash though.

I honestly think that Flash rebirth was gong to happen even sooner, Just think of the shitstorm this could cause

it makes me feel conflicted since I really love Spectre Hal and Johns GL but I don't like that ET happened

but I wouldn't have gotten either of those things without ET

What year is this, when did DC just say fuck it to the comics code? I know Marvel did away with it in the mid to late 80's.

it's from 1994

DC stopped caring about the CCA like... less than a decade ago?

Fuck really? I feel like they did some shit in the 80s that would totally not be approved by it. Women dead in fridges.

The latest cover I can find with the logo is 2010.. It's been at least 40 years since they actually followed it though.

I can't imagine they gave a huge fuck in the 80s even if they still put the logo on there

hell, I'm surprised ET has the CCA stamp on it

I love it when Sup Forums does stuff like this
I go on Sup Forums more (for some reason) and they're all full of shit and have no interesting knowledge pertaining to movies or shows.

Emerald Twilight was the Avengers Disassembled of it's day in terms of DC shitting on fans, who rightfully called bullshit on it.

The only difference is that they kept Hal around and used him as a villain before they realized that it was only pissing fans off more, especially after they pissed off Marv Wolfman when they ordered him to have Donna Troy divorce Marv's fictional alter ego/Marty Stu so they could have Kyle date her, in order to win over fans.

Hal only got killed off because Karl Kessel wanted to mercy kill him and give him a heroic sacrifice death to redeem him. Mark Waid kept him in the public eye with his Brave and the Bold and JLA Year One books, while Hal Jordan merc, still being made, continued to outsell any Kyle merch and even other DC character merch. Not to mention that the HC collections of the Silver Age Hal stories sold so many copies, that they allowed DC to branch out the hardcover line into obscure books that would never of been greenlighted, had they not had Hal's HCs to effectively allow them to publish them at a loss due to Hal's Archives selling so many copies

Marz deserves blame too. Like Dan Slott and Spider-Man, he knew going in that he was going to be hated for the shit he was going to write. And like how Dan Slott was willing to nuke his reputation for the sake of writing Spider-Man and defining the post-OMD Spidey (so long as he followed editorial mandates), Ron Marz was willing to sell out his reputation if it meant that he could create the next generation Green Lantern who would be given the biggest God-push ever seen in comics, over the objection of the readership.

The only difference though, is that Marz fucking broke because he couldn't stand the proverbial HEAT/heat from the backlash. He couldn't stand being hated or the fact that fans hated him for what he did to Hal, regardless of him being a hatchetman or not.

Hence him writing shit like the 1995 Green Lantern Annual where he pandered hard as fuck to Hal fanboys by having Hal and Kyle switch places and Hal single handedly saving Alex from being killed by Major Force while Kyle got made the Invisible Destroyer's bitch. Or how he went along with Karl's demand that Hal be redeemed and later did that big time travel storyline for Green Lantern #100 that brought back a past version of Hal for the anniversary.

Marz fucked up and still has blame, but he at least owns up to his sins and has begged forgiveness from the Hal fanboys.

>Hence him writing shit like the 1995 Green Lantern Annual where he pandered hard as fuck to Hal fanboys by having Hal and Kyle switch places and Hal single handedly saving Alex from being killed by Major Force while Kyle got made the Invisible Destroyer's bitch. Or how he went along with Karl's demand that Hal be redeemed and later did that big time travel storyline for Green Lantern #100 that brought back a past version of Hal for the anniversary.
I do wonder what Marz's plans for Parallax were, I know he had plans that got derailed when Kesel wanted to mercy kill Hal in Final Night

>Emerald Twilight was the Avengers Disassembled of it's day in terms of DC shitting on fans, who rightfully called bullshit on it.
Going through the post-ET letter pages was an exercise in rage, some of the shit Dooley and Berganza said was the same exact shit Slott and other marvel folks say now about stuff like OMD or Superior

I feel like the lesson of every event like this, from ET to Disassembled, is pretty simple: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

is Kesel the most underrated cape writer ever

wow, that's the most faggoty fucking post I've ever seen.

Can someone contact Gerard Jones to get the original scripts?

In all fairness, having Hal going from being mildly upset to flat-out destroying the GLC and Sinestro was an editorial mandate, so I'd hardly call his behaviour in Emerald Twilight "character development."
I still like pre-retcon Parallax a lot, but it really wasn't necessary. That said, I am glad we got Kyle out of this.

It famously began the possibly greatest shitstorm predating the Internet.

Google Hals Emerald Advancement Team (H.E.A.T.).

...

I'm the same way, ET as it happened was abysmal but it resulted in some truly great stories and a well-defined character arc for Hal.

A lot of people hated it, and still hate it. But the facts are, the GL title was not selling. It was one of the DC staples that just couldn't keep up in the 90s. Changing Hal our for Kyle made people start reading the title again, even if only for sheer outrage at how they could make Hal a villain. Gerard Jones' run was nice and comfy and decent meaning that even people who claimed they loved it (usually retroactively) didn't flock to stores to buy it.

Woah, that last panel


Retroactively makes GL Rebirth even better