[MikeandRaph87]

I will continue discussion on The Phantom Zone after I read it online this Saturday in the DC thread.

I wasn't in the room at DC Editorial at the time, so I can only speculate as to what caused the abrupt shift in focus from Lots of Green Lantern to Very Little.

Mosaic, I know, was cancelled for low sales. I think the entire concept was a bit too highbrow and cerebral for conventional tastes at that time, frankly. A patchwork of cities plucked from across the universe all coexisting on Oa in a fragile forced ecosystem was an intriguing premise, but the book didn't always have a lot of action in it. John, also, at that time was considered the "#3 Green Lantern" by most people, and there wasn't a ton of interest in a solo book starring him. Most people who read it, liked it, but not a lot of people read it.

We know Guy's book wasn't cancelled for low sales, as it was the only book even tangentially-related to GL to survive the "purge", albeit with Guy completely retooled into his new "Warrior" character. All of his GL trappings being stripped was more a side effect of DC's editorial mandate that nobody but Kyle was allowed to have any GL connections. So we know what happened there. It was a shame, as Yellow Ring Guy Gardner is BEST Guy Gardner.

GL Corps Quarterly, again, had to go because of the "No More GLs Besides Kyle" edict. I doubt that book ever had great sales, seeing as it was a Quarterly book full of filler stories, and those never do especially well. But I also don't think sales were anything to do with it being cancelled. DC simply wanted Kyle to be the only GL and for his book to be the only GL-focused book. No room for GLCQ.

With regard to Hal's solo book... again, I do like Hal and I try hard not to slander him, but at that particular point in time his character and his book were both treading water. Sales were not especially great, and after the first dozen or so issues of that GL volume were done with - the "Mad Guardian" arc, in particular, which was great - there just wasn't a lot going on that was noteworthy.

Superman, Batman, JLA and Flash books were all really moving the needle at that point in time. Their books were selling well and people were really into the stories in those books. GL, regrettably, was not in as strong a place. At one point, Guy's book was reportedly outselling Hal's. Again, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I can definitely believe that. GL, after issue #25 - the big "Hal and Guy Fight, Guy Quits the Corps" issue - it sort of seemed like the GL book was in a holding pattern. It's not that the stories in those post-25 issues were BAD... they were fine. But they weren't especially memorable or impactful, at a time when characters like Superman, Batman, and even Flash were "Must-Read" books.

So that probably had a lot to do with making Hal easy pickings for a Big Shake-Up, as much as all the other stuff I mentioned about Zero Hour. People can argue For or Against the Emerald Twilight arc all day, all month, and all year... what's indisputable is, overnight the Green Lantern comic went from "Eh, it's okay" to "Must-Read", and it STAYED a "must-read" book for a good long while afterwards. Sales reflect that, as do the letter column chatter from that time. There simply hadn't been so much "heat" around GL since the relaunch five years or so earlier.

So it's kinda funny, looking back on it. DC cut the entire GL line down to one book, wiped out the entire Corps, and put the entire focus on One Guy, a brand-new character rather than one that was decades-established... and in so doing, the entire GL "brand" had never been more popular. Pretty wild.

I've long held a theory that a lot of writers at the time were simply "bored" with writing Hal. If you look at the DCU from like, 1991-1993, he had a severely-diminished presence compared to Guy Gardner, who was suddenly everywhere. Who got to be the Lantern in the JLA? Guy, while Hal got shuffled off to the "Justice League Europe" book, which wasn't as popular. Who saved Superman from Eclipso? Guy Gardner... whereas I can't even remember if Hal had any big role in that event. You pull any cross-over from that time, or just pluck a stack of random DC books in general... Guy was everywhere. At one point, I wasn't sure if Hal even WAS still Green Lantern, since it seemed like he barely showed up anywhere for a while.

In hindsight, it seems like everyone wanted to write Guy at that specific point in time, because he was more "fun" to write for and a more dynamic character, whereas they were all just sort of "eh" with Hal by then. Again, this is just a gut theory, but if you go back and look, it does sort of fit with what was happening across the entire line. People weren't throwing Hal into their books to spike sales for a month... they were using Gardner.

As for Hal's 90-day drunk driving sentence... I know that's a controversial storyline, but is that REALLY any better or worse than the whole "He's An Ephebophile" storyline where he was banging Arisia? Let's be honest, here... Hal never had good luck whenever any writer tried to put some "depth" onto his otherwise-vanilla character.

Hal and Barry were possibly two of the biggest examples of characters who struggled to find a place of relevance once the 1980s hit, and "Comics Weren't Just For Kids Anymore". I mean, it's not exactly the fault of those characters; it's just that for 50 years, "They're Just A Good Guy, And They Do Good Guy Things" was all the "character" that a super-hero needed. Hal and Barry were strongly of that era, and when all of a sudden, super-heroes were being written more "realistically", it was hard to find a place for them because neither of them ever HAD any notable personality or depth of character. So you had writers scramble to come up with "flaws" and "conflict" to project onto two characters who had up to that point been the whitest of White Bread, and it didn't always play well. On Barry's side, you had him suddenly killing Zoom and then the never-ending "murder trial" storyline, all of which was a bit ridiculous, especially its resolution. And with Hal, you suddenly had things like "He's banging teenagers" and "He got a DWI that one time". Because it's like... what do you DO with these characters, to try and make them more "realistic" and give them "depth" despite never having had any?

Superman and Batman had a much easier time with that whole transition period because they'd always been portrayed with some depth and pathos long before that. Hal and Barry, not so much. Which is why they basically got the heave in favor of replacement characters who could be written with more depth, and carried less baggage. It was ultimately easier for writers to develop Wally and Kyle from the ground-up, than try and graft personalities onto Barry and Hal. They TRIED, but it didn't work.

Hal, eventually, managed to find a personality, years upon years later. Barry... eh. I can't speak to much as to recent years. I know that when I stopped reading around 2011, Barry had been back for a couple of years but still hadn't done anything to make me glad he was Flash again instead of Wally. Barry, to me, was honestly more impactful when he was "dead".

Until I researched where signs of Hal's downfall started as well as the streaks of gray started I did not know that Green Lantern Mosaic was actually an ongoing because it was so short-lived. I thought it was a mini-series. Perhaps it should have been.

Killing off Iris back in 1978 I assume was meant to show it was not rosy sci-fi with Barry. It looks like from an outsider perspective to have only gotten bizarre with the sudden interest in Zatanna and then Fiona so quickly afterwards and the soap opera trial that was longer than a DBZ fight. Then surprise Iris never died, but is in another body a millennium in the future! Even for comics that comes off as strange. Wally even as Kid Flash despite what Marv Wolfman may claim did have a personality and a direction. Sure he was wishy-washy about college taking priority over super heroics, but so was Peter Parker at that same timeframe. Wally was able to do what Dick will likely never do and that is blossom in the direction intended by design as the heir. Having a hero be removed from the board who has no personality and held on a pedestal is needed. I only read Barry in Justice League of America volume one and now the current volume, but even with the edgy 'my mom died' he comes across as better off the table instead of in play to increase importance. If a notable hero needs to die why not a bland one?

While my exposure to Hal is Superfriends before Green Lantern: Rebirth on beyond Justice League of America volume one he does lack the headstrong mr. cool rebel streak that he has now. I assume that it did not manifest until Emerald Twilight(1989)? Despite that I would not call him bland like I would Barry in the 60s' to the mid 80s'.