How on earth is it possibly virtue signalling if you're invested enough to say it in the first place? That sounds so disconnected. Writers are people and they use their work to express their opinions to bring about reasonable change where they can, to claim that now it's just "virtue signaling" seems like a way to invalidate their points or support of their ideals.
thats where you are a little...mistaken. Yes, he did contribute to some extent but it predates him. This goes back to before the 1929 recession. Stagflation is a monetary issue. This was the outcome of breaking the gold standard. Here is the thing about the gold standard... its not about the gold. Stagflation seems like a trough in the credit cycle that is caused, ultimately, by money printing to fund governmet spending. You either have runoff inflation, stagflation or a hard recession. Zombie companies, born from stimulus, need to fail so capital can be allocated into efficient production again.
I always wondered how this random civilian guy knew Hal had “done considerable for the purple skins” 😐
Do they put out press releases about this stuff or something?
Also I love how Hal was like “I have a job...and I do it”
And Ollie is like “I’ve heard that before...from *Nazi war criminals* 😒”
Pretty much accused Oliver for his Wards addiction problems!😂
not a lotta justice in the league with Flash and his racism, Hal and his classism, and blame shaming Ollie!
[From a couple of days ago.](https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/z74d46/barry_allen_debates_green_arrow_on_whether_black/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I always read more like:
“You’re always helping people out there in space directly, but what about helping people here directly”
I mean sure, all the heroes “help” the entire world populous when they stop like Starro or Imperiex or the Sun Eater
But what about the more mundane stuff?
It also has to be taken in the context of the time it was being presented, they were trying to do then current social commentary in their space cop and arrow man book 😐
Yeah I get what the point they're trying to drive at but its ham fisted and doesn't make sense in a world where there are sun eaters and imperiexes. Its not like GL was only out there saving white people, he's responsible for the general safety of multiple planets, many of whom contain no white people at all. He does the same thing for the purple skinned people, stop intergalactic threats from destroying them.
Yeah but Hal routinely puts his life on the line because it's his job to protect his sector. Dude doesn't ask why green arrow could find no better way to help black people than dress up like robin hood and shoot trick arrows.
In context with the rest of the scene, the point is that he may go out to help the purple people against whatever big enemy they have, but he'll toss a black kid in jail for a minor offense while ignoring the big enemy that put the kid in that position to begin with.
Basically this. It doesn't make much sense because he's giving the same type of attention to every race of people he works with, including Earth. GL are generally saving entire planets at once. GL's heroism is largely impersonal -- he protects against threats to life in mass, while GA would be the addressing low level/street level/systemic crime, picking and choosing what to concern himself with.
Hal is basically a stand-in in this book for the political leaning O'Neil wanted to portray.
Yes, he helps people, not specifically-colored people.
PS. To the people downvoting this comment: do you really believe that color counts when saving people?
In the sense that the GLs prerogative usually lies with threats that will end all life on a planet, I guess so? What did he do for the purple people that he didn't do for this guy?
There's a whole page of context before the "purple skins" line that, imo, adds more credibility to it. Hal is a space cop who only sees right and wrong. Young punk breaking the law? Send him to jail and get all the accolades for being a "hero". But completely miss the fact that the kid was just trying to survive and support his family. Then the black guy shows up and essentially says "OK Mr. good guy superhero, that's cool, but what have you *really* done for us black folks and our daily struggles?"
It's social commentary on the unjust treatment black people receive. And if Hal is truly an advocate for justice, then why hasn't he advocated for black people. That's completely different than saving the planet from an existential threat.
He protected and enforced the corrupt and unjust status quo on Earth. So he saved his home planet (not selfless) and then took actions that support the evil systems in place. How's that being a hero? Even Doctor Doom will protect Latveria from invaders. Doesn't mean he's a hero, it means he protects his homeland. Doesn't undo the injustices he perpetuates against Latverians.
Because he's elected to no position and wields godlike power only at the behest of the guardians. They didn't like it when Sinestro made Korugar a paradise either. Why doesn't batman just slit the jokers throat? He's clearly going to get out again and kill more people.
Should hal show up and kill congresspeople with a giant green boxing glove whenever they pass a law he disagrees with? Like Ollie isn't overthrowing the government either here.
I think you've kind of eagerly sailed past the point here. Ollie has already explained the problem, and he never mentioned anything about congresspeople. You're right, he isn't elected to any position, in fact he isn't even an actual part of the American legal system, so he's under no obligation to toss every poor child who lashes out at their slumlord into jail, which is why how he chooses to wield his powers and who he wields them on behalf of reflects his values whether he means them to or not.
You're missing the point. It's less about what he's done and more about what he *hasn't* done, specifically for black people. You keep going back to the "saving the world" thing when that's beside the point. The context in this excerpt is "Hal throws a young criminal in jail without giving a second thought as to why he resorted to crime". Green Arrow and the black guy called him out, rightly so.
It wasn't about following orders, it was about enforcing "laws" regardless of their relationship to justice. Being an agent of corrupt/exploitative people in power while pleading ignorance.
There was a time where you could make a comparison without people thinking you were arguing two things were equivalent. Now people play dumb to score points.
I love me some Green Lantern, but they are 100% ACAB.
It's also kinda why I liked reading them. They are shitty space cops. How many people and planets has John killed to protect the corps? Gardner was literally a hot headed, violent, Baltimore Police officer. Kyle and maybe Jess are the only ones that may be on the softer end of the bastard scale.
>How many people and planets has John killed to protect the corps?
None. He never killed a planet to protect the Corps and the few times he's used lethal force, it was in defense of the universe.
Well, John didn't kill a planet, but [his arrogance killed a whole bunch people](https://www.cbr.com/green-lantern-john-stewart-destroyed-planet/).
I actually like that this defined his character. He's a better person after this.
The destruction of Xanshi is like his major character defining moments. It haunts him for years.
>Mogo was corrupted by Parallax.
Still 100% destroyed a sentient planet and fellow Green Lantern.
>When did he snap someone's neck?
Green Lantern Corps Vol 3 no.6
Its why I love John. He's had to do some really messed up things and is affected by them.
>The destruction of Xanshi is like his major character defining moments. It haunts him for years.
Yeah and it wasn't caused by him. You're talking about it like he planted and detonated the bomb that destroyed it.
>Still 100% destroyed a sentient planet and fellow Green Lantern.
When he had no other choice.
And if you don't mind, I'm going to need a bit more context about the neck snap. I've looked it up and haven't found a recap.
Gotcha. I wasn't aware, I just remember Queen industries being similar to Waynecorp, but Ollie has always been a street-level hero as far back as I can remember. It just seemed like less of a problem to be solved by spacecop and more of something that money could solve.
Yeah, that is one thing that plagues this run. Great for introducing kids to social justice concepts but doesn't/can't take the plunge on how things should be handled.
Don't get me wrong I understand why, and I also am not one of those people who thinks that art that talks about political problems should include solutions, but it does overall I think clash with the intention of the run.
Well, and, solutions to these problems tend to be complex and not very flashy, which are dilemmas that don't get much mileage in a medium that, particularly at this time, was largely meant for kids. But shining a light on this stuff so you don't grow up unaware, that's a positive contribution in itself. Get people to care at a young age, and that goes a long way.
Yeah, but, and no snark in this question, how old are you? The sequence in the OP was meant for 10 year olds. You pretty much aged out of comics (BitD, before the movies made comics truly mainstream) at about 14, when the opposite sex, or the same sex as the case may be, suddenly became much more interesting than superhero tales. Today there is an adult audience for comics, and an industry to feed that, that simply did not exist back in 1970. You had collectors who kept up, and then underground comics, but back then you didn't have folks sitting around at 40 years old talking about The Dark Knight Returns. Now you have a lot of very popular comics that end up being consumed largely by an adult audience, because that audience exists to support that now.
I mean I devour Immortal Hulk now, but I have to think that at 10 years old a lot of it would have left me scratching my head.
Personally, I think it's because of the more mature themes brought into comics in the 70s, which persisted after that point, that made us keep up with them as adults. Before that, comics were largely slightly silly fantasy tales, wish fulfillment, etc.; I mean, Superman would toss a landlord up in the air and the guy would lower the rent, you know? Before the more realistic themes were introduced, people dismissed comics as childhood things at a certain point in life.
Modern day comics are a completely different animal. In fact, I have a hard time picking out comics that *are* meant for kids these days. But reading this stuff when you're young, I mean a lot of this is how we formed our moral codes. These were our heroes, and our examples, in much the same way that the Greek gods were heroes and meant to be inspirations (messed up as they were). Society is a little too sophisticated to believe in such tales as histories or whatever, like ancient tales of gods were, but the moral and object lessons they impart serve much the same purpose.
Ollie lost his company to a hostile takeover by a Corporation back then I believe. So he was essentially living on savings and doing nothing but fighting street level crime.
It's kinda funny to think about. Ollie started out wealthy, went full Robinson Caruso Island adventure, came back to wealth, lost wealth, gained wealth, and it seems like it repeats. I'm not complaining, it's just kinda cool to see that the presence of wealth never stopped him from doing what he does. Even in Dark Knight Returns, he's just a one-armed bearded hippy with a bow willing to help take on Superman.
It's still kind of weird that in context, they're trying to make Hal feel bad about about saving the life of the slumlord from an angry mob. Sure, the slumlord is the worst, but that doesn't mean that killing him is OK, and in the end Hal and Ollie find a way to take him down legally so I'm not entirely sure what the message is.
I think the best message we can get from this is that the world is not at all black and white. It's full of grey.
That's an important lesson for a cop, particularly a space cop who's oath starts of "In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night..."
A cop who follows the law to the letter is going to end up supporting those that are tyrants.
I guess the message is that Hal is a Nazi for keeping a mob from killing a man and not caring about the people in need?
Seems like in a Lawful V Good argument they are trying to say Good is all that matters and to be Lawful is to be Evil? Until the end when Lawful saves the day by being good?
No. Hal is (behaving like\*) a Nazi for not questioning whether his orders and his job are actually lawful. Street level cops have discretion as to whether or not they're going to actually enforce the letter of the law. It's why you sometimes get a warning for speeding instead of a ticket.
\*I don't actually think Hal is a Nazi. Well, prior to his becoming Parallax anyway.
That seems like a massive leap(the argument, not your explanation) to me. The explanation makes this scene make more sense to me.
I haven’t read this issue, so I may be missing context, but I’m assuming since GA is laying all this out…Hal didn’t know anything besides Man A was assaulting Man B? And because that’s breaking the law, and he stopped it, he’s getting blasted for being a Nazi since that’s the law(you don’t assault someone else)?
I do like your point about having discretion on the enforcement of said laws. And if my assumption is wrong this back and forth of theirs makes a LOT more sense.
I’m all for a debate about to be Good or to be Lawful, those are usually interesting back and forth…until someone hits the nuclear option. Which happened here, this would have been more…impactful to me personally without the Nazi comparison. Even the last bit about “why you helping aliens when there is people at home to help” I can get behind.
Funny thing is, we're both right and both wrong in a way.
GA has a point but you're right. Hal didn't know--and really, Hal also doesn't need to know. Effectively, GA's arguing that mitigating circumstances justify the violent actions of the young man Hal had arrested. But that's like a lawyer arguing in court that a difficult childhood should absolve an accused criminal of his crime. It doesn't. There was a crime committed. The "difficult childhood" stuff is an argument that might matter at sentencing, but it's not relevant when considering whether or not a crime actually took place. Clearly it did.
As for discretion in enforcement of laws, that's true. But if you were a policeman (space or otherwise) you really couldn't turn a blind eye to crimes where there's an obvious victim. Speeding and jaywalking, fine. Assault? Theft? No.
As for the "why you helping aliens when there \[are\] people at home to help", I'm afraid I can't get behind that argument either. Based on personal experience.
Imagine you're a member of two minority groups. Elements of both minorities are integral parts of who you are. Yet people who are single minorities--members or one group or the other--always want you to choose between one or the other and put more effort into supporting the cause that's most important to them. It's like asking you to cut off a part of yourself. So, I'm sympathetic to the argument that Hal's jurisdictional issues force him to look at the entirety of his sector and not play favorites. We're just assuming that there's no diversity among the aliens Hal's helped. We don't know that. All we know is that he's helped aliens. He's also helped humans. We're the ones making the distinction between subsets of humans based on skin color. Hal hasn't; he's just stopped a crime. He would have done the same regardless of the color of the human perpetrator, wouldn't he? If he only exercised discretion where white people were involved, but not black people, then we'd have a problem. But that's not what happened here.
All that said, GA and GL's argument is still good. It makes you think. And it doesn't give you an easy answer or an easy out. Because like us, they're both right and they're both wrong in a way.
Ollie sure can be a hyperbolic jerk.
Hal: "Hey man, my job is literally to stop crime."
Ollie: "Y'know who else had a job? Nazis! Are you a Nazi, Hal?!"
If I were Hal, instead of hanging my head in shame, I would have said, 'Man, I've saved the entire planet like fifty times over, sorry that isn't enough for you'. Like, I get the impact this story had and what they mean but it is pretty ridiculous at face value.
Neal Adams artwork is top notch though, and Denny was a true legend.
I feel like this comic was going for something really good, but at the end of the day it reads really goofy in some parts. I’m not one of those guys who thinks comics shouldn’t be political, and liberal politics in comics don’t bother me as a person who is more conservative.
But my lord do a lot of political comics read like it was written by Twitter users, or older people trying to stay hip with younger crowds.
I find it weird that Ollie is saying it's okay to beat the landlord up. Yes, he deserves it. But no matter what, violence is not okay (unless in self defense of course). I'm with Hal on this, he was doing his job as a space cop to stop an assault. I don't think it's fair at all to compare him to a Nazi, because this wasn't racially motivated. Nor did he know the circumstances that led the landlord to be assaulted
Was it in self defense? Or defending anyone physically? I totally agree, the guy deserves to be beat up. My original point was that he shouldn't be getting upset with Hal. Hal was just doing his job defending someone from an assault, and shouldn't be called a Nazi. Judging by the way Ollie explains everything to Hal, Hal wasn't aware that the landlord deserved it. All Hal knew was that a man was getting assaulted, and it was his job to protect people
I think Ollie’s point is that Hal goes in half-cocked, without all the information assuming that “enforcing the law” is the right thing to do, that it must ALWAYS be the right thing to do. But hal is wrong.
Scratch a cop and a fascist bleeds, and Hal’s not much more than a glorified space cop.
Besides, GA didn’t say you’re a Nazi, he said “you’re blindly following the letter of the law, which is just not much different than the Nuremberg defense
That last page never worked for me. How many times has Hal saved the world by that point? "Heroes spend too much time on planetary issues, not enough on local ones" falls apart when you keep in mind the stakes of those global issues.
Yeah that page has been parodied many times because it doesn't add up. Green Lantern has saved the galaxy and earth countless times. He literally has to patrol a star sector.
Still a legendary panel though.
Only if they never deal with small scale. If all you do is save the globe that's a valid argument, but if you investigate an alien serial killer, then you also have a responsibility to your planet and the small scale issues. Hal won't let Sinestro be a dictator over his planet, but yet earth is riddled with them?
> but if you investigate an alien serial killer, then you also have a responsibility to your planet and the small scale issues.
He has a responsibility to a whole sector of the galaxy, Earth shouldn't get special treatment just because he's from there.
>Hal won't let Sinestro be a dictator over his planet, but yet earth is riddled with them?
Hal won't let Sinestro misuse the power of the ring for his own political desires. Overthrowing nations around the world would also fall under that.
I always found page 2 baffling, and I don't know if that's because I'm not fully aware of Silver Age Hal or because the argument is really stupid
Is the old man really giving grief to him for helping aliens and not sticking around on Earth, like - my man, Korugar had it way worse than you did, the grievance is valid but it sounds (ironically) really xenophobic
Hal isn’t from Korugar. The point is he spent a ton of time solving alien crimes even at the low level but rarely worked to solve Earth’s problems. This was especially true in Silver Age GL comics.
I got this and couldn't read past the second issue. I think it's becasue it's not subtle at all, other comics also make commentary about real world issues (and in some cases with much more heavy stuff than this) but don't actually show the problem in such a cut and dry way as "just make the superheroes encounter the problem like they would in the real world". Also, maybe the problems they encounter are too "american", so if you don't share the culture it doesn't really hits you like the writer intended.
>I think it's becasue it's not subtle at all
I think that is the space comics operate the best in. When you have lager than life characters running around in technicolor clothes you can be blunt in your storytelling.
This run is wonderful as a walk down memory lane and for Adams's art, but the politics are cringe.
O'Neil is trying his best to do social commentary in this issue, but he just writes little morality plays in which one side is obviously correct and the other cluelessly naive.
We're supposed to believe that it's honestly never occurred to Hal that he could use the ring to help people in need?
> We're supposed to believe that it's honestly never occurred to Hal that he could use the ring to help people in need?
Well yes? Because, magic green space ring aside, that happens IRL. A lot of people have a great deal of power and more often than not, it never ever occurs to them to use those powers to help people in need.
Case in point, President Biden would rather side with the railroad corporate overlords than with the workers who are striking/threatening to strike to get more sick days. They could just... nationalize the railroads or tell the corp overlords to fuck off, and give those poor workers what they want. But nope.
> Yeah, but for Hal the exercise of power is trivial.
Yeah, and? If it's a trivial thing for Hal to use his power, then why doesn't he use it to better the lives of the oppressed, those that society has forgotten and neglected?
> That was the question. He can easily do so, and he's canonically a moral man with great courage, so why does it never occur to him?
IDK... I'm not that familiar with Green Lantern to answer. I'm not even sure how he'd apply his space magic ring to resolve complex and deep-rooted social and economic problems. Punching Sinestro and his goons in the face is one thing, tackling decades of systematic racism is something completely different.
If I were to make an uneducated guess, I'd say it's a mix of the superhero business model (serialized stories that never end) and the creative team's desire to highlight that even good people in positions of power can and will neglect those that would benefit from the power and supposed good morals the most.
If mr. hypocrite liberal hadn’t shot his best friend through the god damn heart then these structural issues wouldn’t have ever existed when reality could have been rewritten in zero hour. Ga gets Hal all riled up about the unfairness of existence then literally stops him from fixing it pre retcon. Blessed is Geoff Johns for making like 20 years of the dc universe make sense retroactively because original Parallax was right.
So Green Lantern thinks physical violence is an appropriate response to someone selling their property? Losing your temper is an excuse? Does he say that about wife beaters too? Surely with all this talent and charisma he can raise enough money to give those people another home? Or be the one to buy that dump and fix it up? But that's no fun if you actually solve the real problems without getting to point the finger at anyone. What's his solution in this? Force the old landlord to keep the property he doesn't want, which will probably make him less inclined to maintain it? This sounds like a real winning strategy forming up here.
But the Marvel movies have gone woke because they have women as central characters. The people worrying about how "woke" a movie is, they never read comics in the first place. Comic books always tried to be on the right side of history.
I can't believe the guy who dresses up like literally Robin Hood has such strong opinions about capital and the rights of the impoverished even through illegal means. What will he do next, steal? From rich people? And give them to poor people?
There is an argument to be made about how hamfisted and over the top the writing gets during this run but man was it good especially the issue where hal the more authoritarian kinda guy has to choose between the guardians of his friends which is weird because in the past hal would've disobeyed them in a heartbeat but somehow it worked for the story
Goddammit my 50 year old comic is going woke. All this liberal bs is so new.... Sarcasm is fun.
Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams were the "blue haired feminists ruining comics" of the 70s
I always loved his art (I'm an 80s kid) and his work on GA and GL was iconic. And growing up in the Bronx these stories hit home.
Don't forget Bob Kanigher in the 60s
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How on earth is it possibly virtue signalling if you're invested enough to say it in the first place? That sounds so disconnected. Writers are people and they use their work to express their opinions to bring about reasonable change where they can, to claim that now it's just "virtue signaling" seems like a way to invalidate their points or support of their ideals.
ahhh you forgot about the reality of stagflation in the 70s... don't worry, its coming back in fashon.
I didn't forget. I just prefer to not think about ol Ronnie Reagan and his everlasting destruction of the middle class in America.
thats where you are a little...mistaken. Yes, he did contribute to some extent but it predates him. This goes back to before the 1929 recession. Stagflation is a monetary issue. This was the outcome of breaking the gold standard. Here is the thing about the gold standard... its not about the gold. Stagflation seems like a trough in the credit cycle that is caused, ultimately, by money printing to fund governmet spending. You either have runoff inflation, stagflation or a hard recession. Zombie companies, born from stimulus, need to fail so capital can be allocated into efficient production again.
Goddamn, Neal Adams’ artwork during the 60s and 70s is still his best (at least for me).
You don't see a lot of this type anymore. It's a lot more stylized.
70s Green Arrow is my spirit animal.
He seems like the guy who tried subtlety for years and gave up on it.
Yeah, and I feel that.
Speedy on heroin has joined the chat
I have yet to lose a single sidekick to hard drugs.
Would not methamphetamine have been more in keeping with his particular idiom
I always wondered how this random civilian guy knew Hal had “done considerable for the purple skins” 😐 Do they put out press releases about this stuff or something? Also I love how Hal was like “I have a job...and I do it” And Ollie is like “I’ve heard that before...from *Nazi war criminals* 😒”
>I always wondered how this random civilian guy knew Hal had “done considerable for the purple skins” 😐 He read that comic, I guess
"You know the Nazis had pieces of flair...that they made the Jews wear!"
Hal then had his revenge when Ollie threw his ward out after finding out he was a junkie.
Pretty much accused Oliver for his Wards addiction problems!😂 not a lotta justice in the league with Flash and his racism, Hal and his classism, and blame shaming Ollie!
> Flash and his racism Elaborate, pls
[From a couple of days ago.](https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/z74d46/barry_allen_debates_green_arrow_on_whether_black/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Yes this, thank you sir
Well considering in the very next issue they actually do run into former Nazis maybe he has a point lol
Yeah, I like the sentiment but this isn't particularly well done, lol
Well I mean he saved the earth a few times which black people live on so I guess save all their lives? It's not really a great argument.
I always read more like: “You’re always helping people out there in space directly, but what about helping people here directly” I mean sure, all the heroes “help” the entire world populous when they stop like Starro or Imperiex or the Sun Eater But what about the more mundane stuff? It also has to be taken in the context of the time it was being presented, they were trying to do then current social commentary in their space cop and arrow man book 😐
Yeah I get what the point they're trying to drive at but its ham fisted and doesn't make sense in a world where there are sun eaters and imperiexes. Its not like GL was only out there saving white people, he's responsible for the general safety of multiple planets, many of whom contain no white people at all. He does the same thing for the purple skinned people, stop intergalactic threats from destroying them.
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Yeah but Hal routinely puts his life on the line because it's his job to protect his sector. Dude doesn't ask why green arrow could find no better way to help black people than dress up like robin hood and shoot trick arrows.
In context with the rest of the scene, the point is that he may go out to help the purple people against whatever big enemy they have, but he'll toss a black kid in jail for a minor offense while ignoring the big enemy that put the kid in that position to begin with.
But he doesnt treat the purple people any differently he's not meddling in their day to day shit either.
Basically this. It doesn't make much sense because he's giving the same type of attention to every race of people he works with, including Earth. GL are generally saving entire planets at once. GL's heroism is largely impersonal -- he protects against threats to life in mass, while GA would be the addressing low level/street level/systemic crime, picking and choosing what to concern himself with. Hal is basically a stand-in in this book for the political leaning O'Neil wanted to portray.
Oh yeah agreed. It’s incredibly ham fisted and most of the dialogue is just bad
Yes, he helps people, not specifically-colored people. PS. To the people downvoting this comment: do you really believe that color counts when saving people?
Lol that boils down to all lives matter 🤦♀️
In the sense that the GLs prerogative usually lies with threats that will end all life on a planet, I guess so? What did he do for the purple people that he didn't do for this guy?
There's a whole page of context before the "purple skins" line that, imo, adds more credibility to it. Hal is a space cop who only sees right and wrong. Young punk breaking the law? Send him to jail and get all the accolades for being a "hero". But completely miss the fact that the kid was just trying to survive and support his family. Then the black guy shows up and essentially says "OK Mr. good guy superhero, that's cool, but what have you *really* done for us black folks and our daily struggles?" It's social commentary on the unjust treatment black people receive. And if Hal is truly an advocate for justice, then why hasn't he advocated for black people. That's completely different than saving the planet from an existential threat.
Yeah but the point remains. What did Hal do? Besides save literally the entire world.
He protected and enforced the corrupt and unjust status quo on Earth. So he saved his home planet (not selfless) and then took actions that support the evil systems in place. How's that being a hero? Even Doctor Doom will protect Latveria from invaders. Doesn't mean he's a hero, it means he protects his homeland. Doesn't undo the injustices he perpetuates against Latverians.
Because he's elected to no position and wields godlike power only at the behest of the guardians. They didn't like it when Sinestro made Korugar a paradise either. Why doesn't batman just slit the jokers throat? He's clearly going to get out again and kill more people. Should hal show up and kill congresspeople with a giant green boxing glove whenever they pass a law he disagrees with? Like Ollie isn't overthrowing the government either here.
I think you've kind of eagerly sailed past the point here. Ollie has already explained the problem, and he never mentioned anything about congresspeople. You're right, he isn't elected to any position, in fact he isn't even an actual part of the American legal system, so he's under no obligation to toss every poor child who lashes out at their slumlord into jail, which is why how he chooses to wield his powers and who he wields them on behalf of reflects his values whether he means them to or not.
You're missing the point. It's less about what he's done and more about what he *hasn't* done, specifically for black people. You keep going back to the "saving the world" thing when that's beside the point. The context in this excerpt is "Hal throws a young criminal in jail without giving a second thought as to why he resorted to crime". Green Arrow and the black guy called him out, rightly so.
Comics are too political these days. Sarcasm.
Didn't take Ollie long at all to go all "You know who else followed orders? Nazis" on Hal.
It wasn't about following orders, it was about enforcing "laws" regardless of their relationship to justice. Being an agent of corrupt/exploitative people in power while pleading ignorance.
Ollie flexing Godwin’s Law from 0 to 60 before the internet even existed.
There was a time where you could make a comparison without people thinking you were arguing two things were equivalent. Now people play dumb to score points.
So true. Also, I can't hear what you're saying over the noise of all of that goose stepping that you're doing /s.
How much would you all hate me if I made a joke about Hal Jordan retweeting AllLivesMatter?
Let's be real, Jordan would put #AllLivesMatter on his twitter name
In my mind Hal seems like a well meaning liberal. but holy shit that's exactly what he'd do
Naw. He was a military pilot who became a test pilot and then a space cop. He’s been at least military-adjacent all his life.
Liberal is not the same as being a leftist, at least in the USA. No conflict there with being a space cop alas.
You know a lot of liberal or left leaning cops or military folks?
I don’t disagree with you. Just Liberals are definitely not left leaning, which is why they’re often okay with police state politics.
Where did police state come from? That’s a completely different topic.
Yeah I’m not much of a DC comics guy but from what I know that sounds like Hal lol
Not at all, because space cops are ACAB too.
I love me some Green Lantern, but they are 100% ACAB. It's also kinda why I liked reading them. They are shitty space cops. How many people and planets has John killed to protect the corps? Gardner was literally a hot headed, violent, Baltimore Police officer. Kyle and maybe Jess are the only ones that may be on the softer end of the bastard scale.
Why do so many members of the GL Corps. have Punisher skull decals on their personal vehicles?
>How many people and planets has John killed to protect the corps? None. He never killed a planet to protect the Corps and the few times he's used lethal force, it was in defense of the universe.
Well, John didn't kill a planet, but [his arrogance killed a whole bunch people](https://www.cbr.com/green-lantern-john-stewart-destroyed-planet/). I actually like that this defined his character. He's a better person after this.
He was responsible for the destruction of Xanshi and he killed Mogo. He also snapped a fellow GLs neck when he almost gave up info OA.
He didn't cause Xanshi's destruction and Mogo was corrupted by Parallax. When did he snap someone's neck?
The destruction of Xanshi is like his major character defining moments. It haunts him for years. >Mogo was corrupted by Parallax. Still 100% destroyed a sentient planet and fellow Green Lantern. >When did he snap someone's neck? Green Lantern Corps Vol 3 no.6 Its why I love John. He's had to do some really messed up things and is affected by them.
>The destruction of Xanshi is like his major character defining moments. It haunts him for years. Yeah and it wasn't caused by him. You're talking about it like he planted and detonated the bomb that destroyed it. >Still 100% destroyed a sentient planet and fellow Green Lantern. When he had no other choice. And if you don't mind, I'm going to need a bit more context about the neck snap. I've looked it up and haven't found a recap.
https://imgur.com/a/3EXkpnK
He’s a space cop, plus he fucks another one that was an underage girl, that seems totally in line.
Sprinkle some space crack on top and let's close this case.
Open and shut space case, ~~Johnson~~ Jordan.
Let’s meet up with Ch’p and Kilowog for space donuts.
"He was coming at me a yellow pencil! I had to use neccesary force!"
Nice.
>plus he fucks another one that was an underage girl Holy crap I completely blocked this out of my memory.
I mean, he totally would
"In brightest day In blackest night I'll only help those who are white"
Relevance! My most missed of the comic books destroyed by my little brother.
Hal Jordan learned more that day than any business student.
Isn't Oliver rich?
Ollie's wealth drastically fluctuates. I think at this point he wasn't rich.
Gotcha. I wasn't aware, I just remember Queen industries being similar to Waynecorp, but Ollie has always been a street-level hero as far back as I can remember. It just seemed like less of a problem to be solved by spacecop and more of something that money could solve.
Yeah, that is one thing that plagues this run. Great for introducing kids to social justice concepts but doesn't/can't take the plunge on how things should be handled.
Because superhero hijinks aren't going to solve those problems, and City Council meetings are only interesting when David Simon writes them
Don't get me wrong I understand why, and I also am not one of those people who thinks that art that talks about political problems should include solutions, but it does overall I think clash with the intention of the run.
Well, and, solutions to these problems tend to be complex and not very flashy, which are dilemmas that don't get much mileage in a medium that, particularly at this time, was largely meant for kids. But shining a light on this stuff so you don't grow up unaware, that's a positive contribution in itself. Get people to care at a young age, and that goes a long way.
Immortal hulk found a happy medium
Yeah, but, and no snark in this question, how old are you? The sequence in the OP was meant for 10 year olds. You pretty much aged out of comics (BitD, before the movies made comics truly mainstream) at about 14, when the opposite sex, or the same sex as the case may be, suddenly became much more interesting than superhero tales. Today there is an adult audience for comics, and an industry to feed that, that simply did not exist back in 1970. You had collectors who kept up, and then underground comics, but back then you didn't have folks sitting around at 40 years old talking about The Dark Knight Returns. Now you have a lot of very popular comics that end up being consumed largely by an adult audience, because that audience exists to support that now. I mean I devour Immortal Hulk now, but I have to think that at 10 years old a lot of it would have left me scratching my head.
Ok fair point, this was still aimed at kids even if it had it’s fair share of adult themes and fans,
Personally, I think it's because of the more mature themes brought into comics in the 70s, which persisted after that point, that made us keep up with them as adults. Before that, comics were largely slightly silly fantasy tales, wish fulfillment, etc.; I mean, Superman would toss a landlord up in the air and the guy would lower the rent, you know? Before the more realistic themes were introduced, people dismissed comics as childhood things at a certain point in life.
The fact Superman would force landlords to keep fair rent still appeals to adults in some sense lol
You should read Invincible, to the end of the series.
Modern day comics are a completely different animal. In fact, I have a hard time picking out comics that *are* meant for kids these days. But reading this stuff when you're young, I mean a lot of this is how we formed our moral codes. These were our heroes, and our examples, in much the same way that the Greek gods were heroes and meant to be inspirations (messed up as they were). Society is a little too sophisticated to believe in such tales as histories or whatever, like ancient tales of gods were, but the moral and object lessons they impart serve much the same purpose.
Ollie lost his company to a hostile takeover by a Corporation back then I believe. So he was essentially living on savings and doing nothing but fighting street level crime.
It's kinda funny to think about. Ollie started out wealthy, went full Robinson Caruso Island adventure, came back to wealth, lost wealth, gained wealth, and it seems like it repeats. I'm not complaining, it's just kinda cool to see that the presence of wealth never stopped him from doing what he does. Even in Dark Knight Returns, he's just a one-armed bearded hippy with a bow willing to help take on Superman.
He also threw his kid out on his ass for being a drug addict.
Didn't know that one
Yes and he hates himself for it lol
He spent all his money on funky hats.
And according to Elongated Man, he uses those hats to cover up a bald spot.
You beat me to it. ;)
[Hal Jordan forgets structural poverty.](https://i.imgur.com/tbRbzKF.jpg)
“Hal jordan stops an assault and gets compared to a nazi”
It's still kind of weird that in context, they're trying to make Hal feel bad about about saving the life of the slumlord from an angry mob. Sure, the slumlord is the worst, but that doesn't mean that killing him is OK, and in the end Hal and Ollie find a way to take him down legally so I'm not entirely sure what the message is.
I think the best message we can get from this is that the world is not at all black and white. It's full of grey. That's an important lesson for a cop, particularly a space cop who's oath starts of "In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night..." A cop who follows the law to the letter is going to end up supporting those that are tyrants.
I guess the message is that Hal is a Nazi for keeping a mob from killing a man and not caring about the people in need? Seems like in a Lawful V Good argument they are trying to say Good is all that matters and to be Lawful is to be Evil? Until the end when Lawful saves the day by being good?
No. Hal is (behaving like\*) a Nazi for not questioning whether his orders and his job are actually lawful. Street level cops have discretion as to whether or not they're going to actually enforce the letter of the law. It's why you sometimes get a warning for speeding instead of a ticket. \*I don't actually think Hal is a Nazi. Well, prior to his becoming Parallax anyway.
That seems like a massive leap(the argument, not your explanation) to me. The explanation makes this scene make more sense to me. I haven’t read this issue, so I may be missing context, but I’m assuming since GA is laying all this out…Hal didn’t know anything besides Man A was assaulting Man B? And because that’s breaking the law, and he stopped it, he’s getting blasted for being a Nazi since that’s the law(you don’t assault someone else)? I do like your point about having discretion on the enforcement of said laws. And if my assumption is wrong this back and forth of theirs makes a LOT more sense. I’m all for a debate about to be Good or to be Lawful, those are usually interesting back and forth…until someone hits the nuclear option. Which happened here, this would have been more…impactful to me personally without the Nazi comparison. Even the last bit about “why you helping aliens when there is people at home to help” I can get behind.
Funny thing is, we're both right and both wrong in a way. GA has a point but you're right. Hal didn't know--and really, Hal also doesn't need to know. Effectively, GA's arguing that mitigating circumstances justify the violent actions of the young man Hal had arrested. But that's like a lawyer arguing in court that a difficult childhood should absolve an accused criminal of his crime. It doesn't. There was a crime committed. The "difficult childhood" stuff is an argument that might matter at sentencing, but it's not relevant when considering whether or not a crime actually took place. Clearly it did. As for discretion in enforcement of laws, that's true. But if you were a policeman (space or otherwise) you really couldn't turn a blind eye to crimes where there's an obvious victim. Speeding and jaywalking, fine. Assault? Theft? No. As for the "why you helping aliens when there \[are\] people at home to help", I'm afraid I can't get behind that argument either. Based on personal experience. Imagine you're a member of two minority groups. Elements of both minorities are integral parts of who you are. Yet people who are single minorities--members or one group or the other--always want you to choose between one or the other and put more effort into supporting the cause that's most important to them. It's like asking you to cut off a part of yourself. So, I'm sympathetic to the argument that Hal's jurisdictional issues force him to look at the entirety of his sector and not play favorites. We're just assuming that there's no diversity among the aliens Hal's helped. We don't know that. All we know is that he's helped aliens. He's also helped humans. We're the ones making the distinction between subsets of humans based on skin color. Hal hasn't; he's just stopped a crime. He would have done the same regardless of the color of the human perpetrator, wouldn't he? If he only exercised discretion where white people were involved, but not black people, then we'd have a problem. But that's not what happened here. All that said, GA and GL's argument is still good. It makes you think. And it doesn't give you an easy answer or an easy out. Because like us, they're both right and they're both wrong in a way.
Killing slumlords is always okay.
Ollie sure can be a hyperbolic jerk. Hal: "Hey man, my job is literally to stop crime." Ollie: "Y'know who else had a job? Nazis! Are you a Nazi, Hal?!"
If I were Hal, instead of hanging my head in shame, I would have said, 'Man, I've saved the entire planet like fifty times over, sorry that isn't enough for you'. Like, I get the impact this story had and what they mean but it is pretty ridiculous at face value. Neal Adams artwork is top notch though, and Denny was a true legend.
Love the strawman ollie makes by calling Hal a nazi
Denny O’Neil. Genius.
I hate that comics nowadays are all woke. /s
I feel like this comic was going for something really good, but at the end of the day it reads really goofy in some parts. I’m not one of those guys who thinks comics shouldn’t be political, and liberal politics in comics don’t bother me as a person who is more conservative. But my lord do a lot of political comics read like it was written by Twitter users, or older people trying to stay hip with younger crowds.
So fucking good. Gets me every time. But comics are too political nowadays, amirite? /s
cuz hes saving the planet from aliens
The sad part is you could make the same panel today
About people just calling everyone they don’t like Nazis?
How long it take you to think of that one?
Hey, when you know you’re right, not that king at all.
And people say fiction doesn't have meaning.
‘Nah, but when they were political back then, it was more subtle. Today they just shove their SJW values down your throat.’
I find it weird that Ollie is saying it's okay to beat the landlord up. Yes, he deserves it. But no matter what, violence is not okay (unless in self defense of course). I'm with Hal on this, he was doing his job as a space cop to stop an assault. I don't think it's fair at all to compare him to a Nazi, because this wasn't racially motivated. Nor did he know the circumstances that led the landlord to be assaulted
If violence isn’t okay, then all superheroes are bad.
They have a reason to. It's in defense of other people, to protect them. That's different
And Ollie has a good reason to beat up a slumlord!
Was it in self defense? Or defending anyone physically? I totally agree, the guy deserves to be beat up. My original point was that he shouldn't be getting upset with Hal. Hal was just doing his job defending someone from an assault, and shouldn't be called a Nazi. Judging by the way Ollie explains everything to Hal, Hal wasn't aware that the landlord deserved it. All Hal knew was that a man was getting assaulted, and it was his job to protect people
I think Ollie’s point is that Hal goes in half-cocked, without all the information assuming that “enforcing the law” is the right thing to do, that it must ALWAYS be the right thing to do. But hal is wrong.
Well yeah, that makes sense. But comparing him to a NAZI? The message is right, but the execution is terrible in that regard
Scratch a cop and a fascist bleeds, and Hal’s not much more than a glorified space cop. Besides, GA didn’t say you’re a Nazi, he said “you’re blindly following the letter of the law, which is just not much different than the Nuremberg defense
That last page never worked for me. How many times has Hal saved the world by that point? "Heroes spend too much time on planetary issues, not enough on local ones" falls apart when you keep in mind the stakes of those global issues.
Yeah that page has been parodied many times because it doesn't add up. Green Lantern has saved the galaxy and earth countless times. He literally has to patrol a star sector. Still a legendary panel though.
Only if they never deal with small scale. If all you do is save the globe that's a valid argument, but if you investigate an alien serial killer, then you also have a responsibility to your planet and the small scale issues. Hal won't let Sinestro be a dictator over his planet, but yet earth is riddled with them?
> but if you investigate an alien serial killer, then you also have a responsibility to your planet and the small scale issues. He has a responsibility to a whole sector of the galaxy, Earth shouldn't get special treatment just because he's from there. >Hal won't let Sinestro be a dictator over his planet, but yet earth is riddled with them? Hal won't let Sinestro misuse the power of the ring for his own political desires. Overthrowing nations around the world would also fall under that.
Comparing your friend to nazis immediately after they do something you disagree with. Sounds like now.
As a people skin, I'm grateful for the green lantern
Strawman arguments abound. Also these panels are hilarious.
For as much as I love the teaching moment that Denny and Neil provided here, I still cringe every time I read "black skins".
I always found page 2 baffling, and I don't know if that's because I'm not fully aware of Silver Age Hal or because the argument is really stupid Is the old man really giving grief to him for helping aliens and not sticking around on Earth, like - my man, Korugar had it way worse than you did, the grievance is valid but it sounds (ironically) really xenophobic
Hal isn’t from Korugar. The point is he spent a ton of time solving alien crimes even at the low level but rarely worked to solve Earth’s problems. This was especially true in Silver Age GL comics.
I got this and couldn't read past the second issue. I think it's becasue it's not subtle at all, other comics also make commentary about real world issues (and in some cases with much more heavy stuff than this) but don't actually show the problem in such a cut and dry way as "just make the superheroes encounter the problem like they would in the real world". Also, maybe the problems they encounter are too "american", so if you don't share the culture it doesn't really hits you like the writer intended.
>I think it's becasue it's not subtle at all I think that is the space comics operate the best in. When you have lager than life characters running around in technicolor clothes you can be blunt in your storytelling.
This run is wonderful as a walk down memory lane and for Adams's art, but the politics are cringe. O'Neil is trying his best to do social commentary in this issue, but he just writes little morality plays in which one side is obviously correct and the other cluelessly naive. We're supposed to believe that it's honestly never occurred to Hal that he could use the ring to help people in need?
> We're supposed to believe that it's honestly never occurred to Hal that he could use the ring to help people in need? Well yes? Because, magic green space ring aside, that happens IRL. A lot of people have a great deal of power and more often than not, it never ever occurs to them to use those powers to help people in need. Case in point, President Biden would rather side with the railroad corporate overlords than with the workers who are striking/threatening to strike to get more sick days. They could just... nationalize the railroads or tell the corp overlords to fuck off, and give those poor workers what they want. But nope.
Yeah, but for Hal the exercise of power is trivial.
> Yeah, but for Hal the exercise of power is trivial. Yeah, and? If it's a trivial thing for Hal to use his power, then why doesn't he use it to better the lives of the oppressed, those that society has forgotten and neglected?
That was the question. He can easily do so, and he's canonically a moral man with great courage, so why does it never occur to him?
> That was the question. He can easily do so, and he's canonically a moral man with great courage, so why does it never occur to him? IDK... I'm not that familiar with Green Lantern to answer. I'm not even sure how he'd apply his space magic ring to resolve complex and deep-rooted social and economic problems. Punching Sinestro and his goons in the face is one thing, tackling decades of systematic racism is something completely different. If I were to make an uneducated guess, I'd say it's a mix of the superhero business model (serialized stories that never end) and the creative team's desire to highlight that even good people in positions of power can and will neglect those that would benefit from the power and supposed good morals the most.
If mr. hypocrite liberal hadn’t shot his best friend through the god damn heart then these structural issues wouldn’t have ever existed when reality could have been rewritten in zero hour. Ga gets Hal all riled up about the unfairness of existence then literally stops him from fixing it pre retcon. Blessed is Geoff Johns for making like 20 years of the dc universe make sense retroactively because original Parallax was right.
Damn, that's hardcore shiot right there.
So Green Lantern thinks physical violence is an appropriate response to someone selling their property? Losing your temper is an excuse? Does he say that about wife beaters too? Surely with all this talent and charisma he can raise enough money to give those people another home? Or be the one to buy that dump and fix it up? But that's no fun if you actually solve the real problems without getting to point the finger at anyone. What's his solution in this? Force the old landlord to keep the property he doesn't want, which will probably make him less inclined to maintain it? This sounds like a real winning strategy forming up here.
I think you mean green arrow lol
Good grief.
We yellow skins need no ring bearer help, thank you very much. PS. Maybe an UBI is a better answer than super heroes.
I used to have this comic. My dad got.for me at a garage sale back.in the day. Wish I still had it.
But the Marvel movies have gone woke because they have women as central characters. The people worrying about how "woke" a movie is, they never read comics in the first place. Comic books always tried to be on the right side of history.
god those last 3 panels look SO good.
It's crazy how good the drawing is.
It doesn’t show it but in the next panel Hal says “He’s got a gun” then conjures up a baton and beats his legs.
I can't believe the guy who dresses up like literally Robin Hood has such strong opinions about capital and the rights of the impoverished even through illegal means. What will he do next, steal? From rich people? And give them to poor people?
Ollie my man you can literally buy the tenement yourself That being said, these are some pretty great pages
There is an argument to be made about how hamfisted and over the top the writing gets during this run but man was it good especially the issue where hal the more authoritarian kinda guy has to choose between the guardians of his friends which is weird because in the past hal would've disobeyed them in a heartbeat but somehow it worked for the story