Review "Green Lantern Emerald Twilight": in the archives of a hero

DC Confidential is a new collection of Urban comics that allows French readers to discover highlights of major characters and little-known parts of the publisher DC comics. In Green Lantern Emerald Twilight, we discover how Hal Jordan gone mad is replaced as Green Lantern by a new hero.

Hal Jordan, a dark hero

Don't know anything about Green Lanterns? Rest assured, the very good character sheets and the introduction retrace all the context. In the first pages, Hal Jordan is found crying near a huge crater. A fight between Superman and a cybernetic impostor caused the destruction of Hal Jordan's hometown of Coast City. Jordan is lost but his ring allows him to create the shapes he wants, he recreates his father to settle a family psychological conflict. He spent his childhood wanting to prove his worth to her, but the latter was never interested in him. Then his mother appears, but he refuses her lesson on grief. Jordan then recreates every detail of his city and realizes that he has the power of a god. In these passages, the charged and awkward dialogues show the antiquity of the saga. Wandering in this city, symbol of his tormented being, he finds Jennifer who has given him a taste for life after the death of his father. But, all these constructions collapse because the Guardians, responsible for the Green Lantern corps, deprive him of energy. He is supposed to come to their planet to be tried but Hal especially wants to recover all the energy from the Lanterns' bodies. This saga decided by the publishers wanted to change the Green Lantern to give a facelift to the series. The project was entrusted to screenwriter Ron Marz who made the changes. Inconsolable, grief drives Hal crazy and he kills colleagues without feeling any doubt or remorse. This shift brings interesting plots: for example, the classic duel against his enemy Sinestro is reversed because Jordan is the threat and Sinestro sides with the good guys. But the change is a little too fast. In addition, he is angry with the Guardians while it was Superman who unwittingly participated in the destruction of his city. Ron Marz explains it awkwardly in episode two. Jordan no longer wanted to be their slave but it is difficult to see the connection with grief. He forgets his morals and his violence goes further and further. He crossed the red line by killing his closest friend in the corps and then the guards. Dying, they give their energy to the last of them who recreates a ring. He goes looking for a successor on earth and gives it to the first person he meets, Kyle Rayner.

Green Lantern Emerald Twilight: A Hero Rises

The narrative completely abandons Hal Jordan and changes track by focusing on Kyle's beginnings without ever mentioning the threat of Hal coming. It is certainly destabilizing but these episodes are much better. The new Green Lantern is indeed an interesting character because he is imperfect. Uneducated, he knows nothing about the Lanterns. Selfish, he sees this ring as an opportunity to make his dreams come true. Pretentious, he wants to take advantage of it to become famous without thinking about the responsibilities inherent in his new status. It is by acting that the teenager becomes a responsible man. Even if his carelessness continues, he has acquired a greater sense of responsibility. His attempts to master a power usually based on will bring a new dimension. Indeed, he uses his imagination and his childhood dreams to produce complex and original constructions. His ignorance saves him because, unlike the old Lanterns, he is not affected by yellow. After his friend's death, Kyle thinks of running away from his responsibilities but accepts her charge in her memory. The long-awaited fight between Hal and Kyle is coming to the end of the volume. The action is more agreed with a succession of fights and a plot orchestrated by a government agency. It is sometimes difficult to understand the choice of episodes because this volume brings together the episodes Green Lantern 48-55 then 0 and 78 which are supposed to show other aspects of Kyle Rayner. Also in this volume is the famous episode of the girlfriend in the fridge. The reader follows in parallel the atrocious death of Kyle's girlfriend and the Green Lantern who saves a poor woman. It is by seeing this double victimization, this very present and sometimes gratuitous violence that a group of feminists has created a website that lists women injured or deprived of their power, simply for the purposes of history. The cartoonists are quite numerous: Darryl Banks, Bill Willingham, Fred Haynes, Steve Carr, Jamal Igle, Derec Aucoin and Craig Hamilton. But we find a coherence by a very classic drawing for the time in the layout and organization of the box. This does not prevent to see beautiful parts like Coast City recreated all in green. This classic narrative is a major milestone in the history of the Green Lanterns. Embedded in bright colors, this story is actually very dark: one hero goes crazy while another loses a loved one. Nowadays, some parts have been the subject of an exciting militant re-reading. Green Lantern Emerald Twilight is an important story that deserved to be edited. However, the reader sometimes finds it difficult to identify the motivations of the characters and to immerse himself in the torments of a hero too cold.