As a relative new GL fan, I'm confused on Hal and Kyle's role

[HXHAlex]

Isn't Hal often called the greatest GL? Or isnt that what the renowned GL who died and gave Hal his ring told Hal he would be?

But Kyle was told he would be the greatest/most important GL also right? I can't remember where I read it, (I'm new to GL, pardon my lack of knowledge) but I remember reading one of the guardians telling Kyle that when he was first given a ring, he was the GL Corp's greatest hope, and the he still is the GL Corps' greatest hope (I think this was in War of the Green Lanterns)



It seems like Hal and Kyle are both trying to share a single role......

[havok1977]

Back in 1993/4 there were lots of shakeups going on at DC in the aftermath of the Death of Superman and the Knightfall crossover in which Bane broke (literally and figuratively) Batman. So the next character to go thru the grinder was Hal Jordan, who was and still is mentioned often in story to be the greatest GL ever. Its worth mentioning that the title's sales for the time were kinda meh and the writer was dismissed in an aggressive editorial takeover.

Long(ish) story short, Hal went bonkers over the destruction of his home city and rebelled against the guardians; he single handedly brought down the entire GL Corps to finally enter the central battery where he "became" Parallax in his hunger for infinite power in order to restore Coast City and was remade into a large scale villain; only the guardian Ganthet was able to escape the devastation with enough energy to create the one last GL ring which he gave to then new character Kyle Rayner back on earth who from then on was the last and only Green Lantern and the Corps "last hope" or torchbearer for several years publishing time.

Stuff happened in the intervening years to Hal, there was a storyline named Final Night around '97 in which he was redeemed by taking one for earth and plunging himself into the sun to reignite it somehow, so he "died"; not too familiar with the context as I didnt read it.

Then Johns' run started and Hal was resurrected, it was revealed/retconned that Parallax was a separate cosmic parasitic entity that had infested Hal's mind over his time as a GL and thus tipped him over the edge to end up becoming such a destructive force, check Green Lantern Rebirth for the details.

Since then, Kyle has remained an important member of the GL Corps, kinda on the same level as John Stewart and Guy Gardner. I'm not reading New Guardians but I guess since Kyle still gets his own book and has his share of fans editorial and Tomasi highlight his role and relative importance in the current and coming events of the GL corner of the DCnU, and it looks like the coming Third Army event will affect things considerably.

Of course all of this happened pre-new52, and even tho all Green Lantern past made it thru relatively unchanged we'll see how much remains the same in the coming zero issue onwards.

[Yttrium]

Hal's role is: Former Green Lantern with a scary (to the Guardians) amount of willpower.

Kyle's role is: Renegade Green Lantern trying to figure out how he became the leader of a rainbow group of Lanterns.

[MajorHoy]

Isn't Hal often called the greatest GL? Or isnt that what the renowned GL who died and gave Hal his ring told Hal he would be?

But Kyle was told he would be the greatest/most important GL also right? I can't remember where I read it, (I'm new to GL, pardon my lack of knowledge) but I remember reading one of the guardians telling Kyle that when he was first given a ring, he was the GL Corp's greatest hope, and the he still is the GL Corps' greatest hope (I think this was in War of the Green Lanterns)

It seems like Hal and Kyle are both trying to share a single role......

Hal was the main GL for Earth starting back in the late 1950s.


But when Hal went whacko and wiped out the GL Corps . . .


. . . Kyle was chosen by the (supposedly) last remaining Guardian to (eventually) be the start of a new Green Lantern Corps.


And Hal eventually "got better", but that's another story.

[Deviates]

The way I've always understood it is Hal is seen as the most powerful Green Lantern, while Kyle served probably the most important role any one person has in the history of the Green Lanterns: being the last remaining Lantern and being the torchbearer/having the power of Ion.

It's all nonsense anyway, everyone knows Guy Gardner is better than either of them :)

[MajorHoy]

Blame it on him:

[Castel]

It seems like Hal and Kyle are both trying to share a single role......

Actually, not really.

Kyle played a huge part in the corps history. He's maybe one of the most important lantern ever as he saved the corps, was the torchbearer and all. Hal is more THE earth lantern if you know what i mean.

Each of them has his own role.

[Byzantine]

Hal is pure will power, he's supposedly "the best" of the Corps, but he's constantly outplayed by Sinestro, so it's really hard to take that seriously. Hal is sort of everything the Corps is supposed to be, he's their poster boy, the real deal, etc. Kyle, on the other hand, wasn't picked for his willpower. He was in the right place at the right time, and got a ring because of it. He's the artist, the free spirit, the everyman of the Corps. He fills an important role in having been the "Torchbearer" or last of the Green Lanterns for almost a decade's worth of comics. He's the one who reignited the central power battery, he's the one who brought back the Guardians of the Universe, and he's the on that kept the emerald light alive when there were no others. What he lacks in willpower, he makes up for in raw humanity, empathy, creativity, and a well balanced sense of responsibility.

Kyle is the conscience of the Corps, and he has a special place in it because of his longstanding dedication to it's ethos and methods even when there were no others to guide him.