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The Ballad of Ollie and Hal
Nov. 9th, 2006 12:53 pmAfter months of putting off doing it myself, someone else finally went ahead and posted a four part mega post on the history of superhero-dom's second-greatest pairing of all time: Green Lantern and Green Arrow.
This is a simply excellent introduction/overview to the long, strange friendship between Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen, especially for people who don't know much about what makes them click. But also, it gives a nice overview into what makes Hal an interesting character. I mean, everyone knows (or should) that Ollie is one of the most complex superheroes ever, but Hal is often dismissed as whitebread.
I mean, I was feelin' pretty damn good today until I read a column on the political leanings of superheroes and Hal's read as "Republican: The squarest superhero in the DC Universe (and that’s saying a lot), Green Lantern is also one of the most conservative. A former test pilot and current galactic police officer, Green Lantern has always been a running dog for The Man. Dude carries a WMD on his ring finger and flies around reshaping reality according to his idea of The Way Things Should Be. Total neocon. (I am so getting hate email for this.)"
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kali921, I'm really gonna need your help to back me up here, but I'll do my best to start without you.)
That last line indicates to me just how willfully smug, smartassedly ignorant this guy is, and the problem is, he's not the only one who thinks this way. It's like he hasn't read a GL comic since the 1970's. Sure, that's what Hal was like... back in the 1960's! People like this columnist always ignore that, due in large part to his partnership with Green Arrow, actually had some (gasp! horror!) character development over the past 35+ years.
Characters had to evolve and develop from the Silver Age, otherwise they'd stagnate (I'm looking at you, Cyclops... I love you, but between Wolverine stealing the show and you being Jean Grey's handbag, you've barely developed an inch since the 60's, and that's why so many people hate you). And just like they did with Batman, moving away from his TV camp and back to his darker roots, Denny O'Neill and Neal Adams brought Hal out of the Silver Age with the GL/GA stories.
What's especially fascinating about the Hal/Ollie dynamic is how Hal started off as well-meaning but naive, with Ollie there to (sometimes literally) bash some sense and perspective into Hal's head. Slowly, through much back-and-forth and conflict, Hal started to come around, learned to question and even disobey authority, to really let his hair down, figuratively. Ollie, meanwhile, remained trapped in his own hypocrisies and faults (having faults are one thing, but when it comes to self-improvement, Ollie is more flight than fight. Just ask his son). It's an absolutely fascinating dynamic.
Of course, then Hal got possessed by the giant ageless space insect embodiment of fear from Stephen King's IT and went totally nuts. But just like the Klingons, we don't like to talk about it.
Which brings be back to the asshat who wrote the column. Hal Jordan is square? SQUARE? Pre-Ollie, sure, depending on which interpretation you wanna follow (he certainly is in some of the scans here). But virtually every other depiction of Hal shows him as the superhero equivalent of John Crichton by way of Bruce Campbell! Idiot. Read some fucking FLASH/GL: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, asshat.
Eventually, I really am gonna have to do my own megapost, purely on Hal. I really want to show how well-rounded and interesting a character he is and can be. Like Ollie, Hal's very complex. But unlike Ollie, the complexities are exceedingly subtle, and many a lesser writer has just seen him as a standard boring whitebread superhero (I could do a whole argument about how there's no such thing...). Hal's one of the most beloved and reviled superheros ever, inspiring crazy loyalty and dripping venom, and we really should examine why that is? Why is Green Lantern the abortion issue of superheroes?
So please, for those even marginally interested in the characters themselves or why I'm so interested in them, do check out those mega-posts. It's a great GL/GA 101 primer and it gave me plenty to consider.
This is a simply excellent introduction/overview to the long, strange friendship between Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen, especially for people who don't know much about what makes them click. But also, it gives a nice overview into what makes Hal an interesting character. I mean, everyone knows (or should) that Ollie is one of the most complex superheroes ever, but Hal is often dismissed as whitebread.
I mean, I was feelin' pretty damn good today until I read a column on the political leanings of superheroes and Hal's read as "Republican: The squarest superhero in the DC Universe (and that’s saying a lot), Green Lantern is also one of the most conservative. A former test pilot and current galactic police officer, Green Lantern has always been a running dog for The Man. Dude carries a WMD on his ring finger and flies around reshaping reality according to his idea of The Way Things Should Be. Total neocon. (I am so getting hate email for this.)"
(
kali921, I'm really gonna need your help to back me up here, but I'll do my best to start without you.) That last line indicates to me just how willfully smug, smartassedly ignorant this guy is, and the problem is, he's not the only one who thinks this way. It's like he hasn't read a GL comic since the 1970's. Sure, that's what Hal was like... back in the 1960's! People like this columnist always ignore that, due in large part to his partnership with Green Arrow, actually had some (gasp! horror!) character development over the past 35+ years.
Characters had to evolve and develop from the Silver Age, otherwise they'd stagnate (I'm looking at you, Cyclops... I love you, but between Wolverine stealing the show and you being Jean Grey's handbag, you've barely developed an inch since the 60's, and that's why so many people hate you). And just like they did with Batman, moving away from his TV camp and back to his darker roots, Denny O'Neill and Neal Adams brought Hal out of the Silver Age with the GL/GA stories.
What's especially fascinating about the Hal/Ollie dynamic is how Hal started off as well-meaning but naive, with Ollie there to (sometimes literally) bash some sense and perspective into Hal's head. Slowly, through much back-and-forth and conflict, Hal started to come around, learned to question and even disobey authority, to really let his hair down, figuratively. Ollie, meanwhile, remained trapped in his own hypocrisies and faults (having faults are one thing, but when it comes to self-improvement, Ollie is more flight than fight. Just ask his son). It's an absolutely fascinating dynamic.
Of course, then Hal got possessed by the giant ageless space insect embodiment of fear from Stephen King's IT and went totally nuts. But just like the Klingons, we don't like to talk about it.
Which brings be back to the asshat who wrote the column. Hal Jordan is square? SQUARE? Pre-Ollie, sure, depending on which interpretation you wanna follow (he certainly is in some of the scans here). But virtually every other depiction of Hal shows him as the superhero equivalent of John Crichton by way of Bruce Campbell! Idiot. Read some fucking FLASH/GL: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, asshat.
Eventually, I really am gonna have to do my own megapost, purely on Hal. I really want to show how well-rounded and interesting a character he is and can be. Like Ollie, Hal's very complex. But unlike Ollie, the complexities are exceedingly subtle, and many a lesser writer has just seen him as a standard boring whitebread superhero (I could do a whole argument about how there's no such thing...). Hal's one of the most beloved and reviled superheros ever, inspiring crazy loyalty and dripping venom, and we really should examine why that is? Why is Green Lantern the abortion issue of superheroes?
So please, for those even marginally interested in the characters themselves or why I'm so interested in them, do check out those mega-posts. It's a great GL/GA 101 primer and it gave me plenty to consider.
