Thoughts on Emerald Knights

[SKETCHSANCHEZ]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/47/EmeraldKnights.JPG/180px-EmeraldKnights.JPG
Having finished reading Showcase Green lantern, I went back and re-read this storyling in which then current, and only, GL Kyle Ranyer meets up with the Silver-Age Hal Jordan.

At the time, when this first came out, I didnt even realize thats how far back Marz went to get Hal honestly. After reading Showcase and seeing the exact story he was apparently plucked out of, it made me want to go back to this story.

I personally think it's awesome, then and now, from Kyle going all emo after Hal was welcomed back into the league, to batman setting him straight, to the Hal Vs. Parrallax fight.

What did you guys think then? What do you think now?

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Like I find with most of Ron Marz's writing, there's some great ideas mixed with some really shoddy story logic and frequent bouts of characters suffering from plot-induced stupidity.

My guess is that Dooley & Marz were hoping that this story would be for Kyle Rayner what Waid's Return of Barry Allen was for Wally West--finally putting to rest the long shadow cast by the main character's predecessor and moving forward. While it worked wonderfully for Wally, not so much for Kyle.

Hal's lame crisis of being faced with the menace of a yellow school bus filled with mentally handicaped kids was just plain dumb. Even at the height of Hal's Silver Age goofy showdowns with yellow objects, he was always smart enough to figure out that an object has to be completely yellow for him to be powerless against it. Remember that runaway yellow missle from Hal's first appearance? He was able to stop it because the tip was red. Now, if Hal is bright enough to spot a tiny red spot on a missle flying through the sky at Mach 2, why is he suddenly too stupid to notice that a yellow school bus has literally hundreds of non-yellow things he could have used to move the damn thing, like, say, the wheels, the undercarriage or the entire interior of the bus?

Then there was the just plain lazy knock-off of Broken Arrow during the flashback to Hal's Air Force days. I suppose it was meant to be an "homage", but, come on guys, you couldn't have come up with a reference a little better than a largely forgettable John Woo flick?

The worst of the bunch was Kyle's mind-bogglingly dumb solution to the big Parallax vs. Young Hal fight. Let's see, you've got a mass murdering lunatic with an obsession with altering past mistakes and the power to literally destroy the entire universe and you send him back in time with knowledge of his defeat and eventual demise because he promises to let you erase his memory?

What exactly was stopping Parallax from faking this mind wipe and returning to the past to not make the same mistake twice? It's not like a guy powerful enough and clever enough to both destroy and recreate the entire freakin' universe is incapable of blocking a mind-wipe.

It didn't help that the best bit of the entire storyline, Hal leaving behind a copy of his ring for Kyle to restore the Corps was buggled and botched in spectacular fashion by having Kyle march into space and start handing out the most powerful weapon in the universe to the first couple aliens he meets. And, gee, what a shocker when that well thought out plan doesn't work out and one of these random strangers turns out to be a genocidal maniac who murders billions.

Apparently, giving rings back to any of the many ex-GLs whose old rings had been left powerless by Parallax didn't occur to Kyle as he chose to take back all the rings and run back to Earth with his tail between his legs rather than learn from his mistakes and try again.

Ugh, what a terrible period in GL history. However, I know this era still has it's fans and Kyle Rayner has certainly grown into a capable and interesting character in his own right (thanks largely to Morrison's work with Kyle in JLA which built on the solid foundation Marz had built in his earliest issues).

Sorry to disagree with you SKETCHSANCHEZ, but I view those stories very differently than you do. But, different strokes for different folks...

[SKETCHSANCHEZ]

no biggie, I actually forgot about the school bus thing for some reason, it is stupid.

I thought the art was nice too, I think it was Paul Pettlier (sp?), he drew an awesome Parallax

[rwe1138]

I highly enjoyed it.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

no biggie, I actually forgot about the school bus thing for some reason, it is stupid.

I thought the art was nice too, I think it was Paul Pettlier (sp?), he drew an awesome Parallax

Yeah, definitely. No argument about the art. Banks does a great Sinestro.

[redlantern2051]

I read it at the time, and really enjoyed it. I actually really liked Kyle, especially in the early days, but I also loved Hal! I thought his death scene in Final Night was awesome. Overall, I remember it being as a great read AT THE TIME, but I must admit, I have read better GL since. It feels like a long time ago. I should go and read my back issues but I know that I am missing one of the best issues! Is this in a trade?

[SKETCHSANCHEZ]

Yes it is, the picture in the OP is the trade cover.

I think i realized the biggest problem with this arc is that it was too long? I thought the meet back in the past, Hal seeing Pie and Carol again, and the final act were really well done but the whole "broken arrow" rip (as bored put it) could have and prolly should have been left off. Maybe even the JLA issue too because it was just Hal being welcomed to the league, Kyle feeling left out, then him making out with Jade.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I forgot about another element of this story that stuck in my craw back when it first came out. The Hal & Kyle ring switcheroo during the Sinestro fight made absolutely no sense whatsoever. If Kyle was wearing Hal's ring when Sinestro stabbed him through the heart with a yellow spear, then the "auto protect" of Hal's ring wouldn't have done squat. The whole point of Abin Sur dying was to show that the ring, as powerful as it was, couldn't protect the wearer against anything yellow. Otherwise, Abin Sur would still be alive and Hal nor Kyle ever would have become GLs in the first place.

Geez, that story was dumb.

[stealthwise]

Hmm. Why did Kyle have so much reverence for Hal? And why was Hal so astounded of Kyle? The whole story seemed like a lot of superhero hand-jobbing that reads too much like fan-fiction to me.

[Alex L]

I forgot about another element of this story that stuck in my craw back when it first came out. The Hal & Kyle ring switcheroo during the Sinestro fight made absolutely no sense whatsoever. If Kyle was wearing Hal's ring when Sinestro stabbed him through the heart with a yellow spear, then the "auto protect" of Hal's ring wouldn't have done squat. The whole point of Abin Sur dying was to show that the ring, as powerful as it was, couldn't protect the wearer against anything yellow. Otherwise, Abin Sur would still be alive and Hal nor Kyle ever would have become GLs in the first place.

Geez, that story was dumb.

That bothered me, too.

If the ring's only weakness is yellow, and if even a yellow spear can't really kill a GL, then what can?

[David Atkins]

That bothered me, too.

If the ring's only weakness is yellow, and if even a yellow spear can't really kill a GL, then what can?

The ring couldn't affect anything yellow, but it could still affect Kyle's own body. It's plausible, considering the variety of things the rings could do, that Kyle recieved the equivilent of super sci-fi state of the art medical care that saved his life in spite of the fact that the injury seemed to be beyond normal human endurance. :)

I loved this story, btw, though I have to agree that the bus scene was... stupid.

[Kid Kyoto]

I forgot about another element of this story that stuck in my craw back when it first came out. The Hal & Kyle ring switcheroo during the Sinestro fight made absolutely no sense whatsoever. If Kyle was wearing Hal's ring when Sinestro stabbed him through the heart with a yellow spear, then the "auto protect" of Hal's ring wouldn't have done squat. The whole point of Abin Sur dying was to show that the ring, as powerful as it was, couldn't protect the wearer against anything yellow. Otherwise, Abin Sur would still be alive and Hal nor Kyle ever would have become GLs in the first place.

Geez, that story was dumb.

Also wasn't there a rule that only Kyle or his genetic decendants could use his ring? This led to speculation that Hal was Kyle's dad whihc went no where and left Emerald Knights making even less sense.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Also wasn't there a rule that only Kyle or his genetic decendants could use his ring? This led to speculation that Hal was Kyle's dad whihc went no where and left Emerald Knights making even less sense.

Yeah, but because Kyle's ring was originally Hal's, he was always able to use it.

[Alex L]

The ring couldn't affect anything yellow, but it could still affect Kyle's own body. It's plausible, considering the variety of things the rings could do, that Kyle recieved the equivilent of super sci-fi state of the art medical care that saved his life in spite of the fact that the injury seemed to be beyond normal human endurance. :)

Would it be okay to say that your explanation makes sense, yet the scene was still stupid? :)

[David Atkins]

*LOL* Definately.

[SKETCHSANCHEZ]

Also wasn't there a rule that only Kyle or his genetic decendants could use his ring? This led to speculation that Hal was Kyle's dad whihc went no where and left Emerald Knights making even less sense.

Isnt that Judd's fault? He's the one that made Kyles dad hispanic for no reason.

[Alex L]

Like Bored said, it was Hal's ring before it was Kyle's, hence Jordan's DNA was still imprinted in it.

Made sense to me the first time I read it.

And before that, Parallax-Hal gained possession of the ring two or three times anyway.