DailySkew: Green Lantern #76 Green Arrow Denny O'Neil + Neal Adams

Monday, November 2, 2009

Green Lantern #76 Green Arrow Denny O'Neil + Neal Adams

Silver Age Green Lantern, for the first 75 issues, was all about Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) defending the earth from bug eyed aliens and exploring his power ring and the other Green Lanterns from other planets. Before April 1970, writers John Broome, Gardner Fox, and Denny O'Neil each had three different takes. Broome, Green Lantern's creator, showed Green Lantern as a flawless figure yet also subservient to his masters, the Guardians of the Universe. Some of Gardner Fox's scripts were kind of silly, but most of the time featured great alien sci-fi stories.

Green Lantern/Green Arrow Collection - Volume 1

However, DC Comics felt forced to copy Marvel Comic's gimmick of having "human heroes" riddled with self-doubt, money problems, and girl issues. In my opinion Green Lantern started to slow down after Green Lantern #46 (ironically featuring the "Death of Green Lantern"-- well, not really) although there were some great issues scattered about. After that it seems Hal Jordan had very silly identity issues; he left Coast City and became an insurance salesmen. The comics started to mimic the changing society, but mostly the fad side of things- hippies and beatniks and being "hip". Hal, who was the perfect square-jawed hero in the 1960's, started to get ugly as we headed towards 1970.

And that brings us to the most famous Green Lantern comic of all time, which has a cover date of April 1970: Green Lantern #76 by Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams. Many comic book historians mark this comic book as the end of the Silver Age and the beginning of the Bronze Age. Indeed, the comic book industry was never the same after this comic book (the storyline lasted 14 issues).

For the first time, Hal Jordan- the conservative Enneagram Personality Type 6 living in a hero's fantasy world- is confronted with poverty, crime, and evil with no labels. Green Arrow, a liberal, takes Hal's face and rubs it in the plight of the Black Man and the corruption of the Evil Rich White Man. Hal's nose is full of so much dirt that he doesn't know what to do. The Guardians of the Universe actually punish Hal for attacking a slum lord because "he has committed no crime".

Mattel DC Universe Classics Green Lantern Figure

Everything creator John Broome created was teared down. The Silver Age was dead, never to get its luster again. The Bronze Age had arrived- good and evil were not easily recognized; Hal was shown to be a mindless lackey to uncaring aliens; liberalism is superior to conservatism; the plight of the Black Man is more important that the plight of the alien worlds and the planet earth that Hal had saved dozens of times previously; everything you knew about being a super-hero was wrong.

If my tone is sarcastic- I'm sorry, I really don't mean it like that. Come 1970 it was time for comic books to have "social relevance". The problem with telling an ongoing story every month is that you are bound to run out of ideas. It could be argued that 50 issues is enough for a title. God knows how hooked I was on Green Lantern until it started to lose its peak. John Broome's Hal Jordan seemed content with being oblivious to poverty, racism, and corruption. He was totally fine obeying the Guardians and going on outerspace missions instead of dealing with politics or lawyers or destroying labels.

Although Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams run gathered a lot of MEDIA attention in 1970,the urban legend is that sales were not through the roof. But in the comic book community GL#76 became iconic. Fans memorized the dialog and most of them believed Green Arrow was correct and that Green Lantern was a bad hero for not realizing "with great power comes great responsibly", something Peter Parker/Spider-Man, the quintessential Enneagram Type 6 already had realized years before. I must imagine long-time GL fans- the ones that loved his hardcore sci-fi adventures- must have hated that their hero was chumped out by Green Arrow like that. However, when fans in the 1980's referenced O'Neil/Adams there was NO criticism.

Fast forward to the 21st century, however. With the growth of the internet and the ease of transmitting opinions, there has been a minority group that has been very vocal is saying that Green Lantern #76 is overrated and that Denny O'Neil is overrated and dated. So let me tackle that criticism right now:

1) Is Green Lantern #76 overrated? No. The art is better than Gil Kane's work. The story is a milestone and ushered a new era of comic books. The dialog and the liberalism may seem "dated", but that doesn't mean the message is dated or irrelevant. On the contrary, we are still dealing with all of those issues. Remember, it's still a comic book, so Green Arrow's argument about poverty and corruption had to be simplified. This is not Plato's Republic. Granted, I wish Hal Jordan would have defended himself better, but there is no arguing with the Black Man and Green Arrow, especially when the Guardians acted like jerks by punishing Hal.

2) Having one Guardian live as a mortal and travel with Green Lantern and Green Arrow was a great touch and injected humility into Green Lantern's bosses.

3) Yes, Denny O'Neil uses stereotypes and hokey dialog- it was 1970 and when I read Amazing Spider-Man and Incredible Hulk from scratch I encountered the same epidemic in comics. Even the most classic 1970's comics have corny scenes and politically incorrect dialog.

4) Is O'Neil/Adams Green Lantern run the most socially relevant comic run of the 1970's? To bring that level or writing and art to the super-hero genre, which had up until then been unsophisticated in the characterization and personality department is outstanding and Hall of Fame material. All comics today in which adults interact with real world problems in a believable way owe their origin to this comic book.

5) The major rip is that Hal Jordan is the straw man and takes it from Green Arrow every issue. I agree that it is WRONG. I said that already. It is what it is; it still holds up. Social problems like racism, sexism, drug abuse, corporate exploitation, pollution, and over-population are NOT DATED!

Officially Licensed DC Comics Green Lantern Hoodie Sweatshirt

In retrospect, I doubt O'Neil and Adams (not to mention editor veteran Julius Schwartz) believed this would change the way we read comics and what to expect from super-heroes. Green Lantern needed a new direction, and he sure got one. Of course, I doubt they expected to actually deconstruct what it is to be a super-hero.