re: "The Trial of Hal Jordan"                     Cmon. Give me a break! Hal was cool, but get over it! Kyle is the next generation of the GL legacy and if you dont like it, then tough luck Mike!!! GL rules!           Bat1teen Well argued! I love a deep, thorough, spell-checked discussion. And please send me the URL of your "Leonardo DiCaprio and the Spice Girls are Cool" page so that I can add it to my links.           I liked the story but you should change what happened to Kyle at the end of it.           [email protected] Well, don't take it too hard. Kyle has all the validity of Chuck Cunningham, Coy and Vance Duke, or that long-lost fourth Brady sister. More importantly,I just loved imagining Kyle being subjected to some prolonged physical travails akin to some Peter Sellers routine. Hey, now there's another good idea for a new Green Lantern: Inspector Clouseau with a power ring!           Your scenario is facinating and more than plausible, with our knowledge of Hal Jordan and his supporting cast. While the ghastly fate of Kyle Rayner is equally cruel in nature to what The Powers That Be did to Jordan the remainder of the story is well organized and presented.           Now my question: since Hal and Guy seem to have proven their case rather well (despite all circumstances), do you think that it is possible for a well-written, plausible story to come out explaining what the hell was going on back there that would (if nothing else) explain both why the Guardians would react as they did and why Hal would (forgive me) go totally bonkers like that? (Assume that there would be people at DC that might actually take a shot at giving us a real story.)           Thank you, Geoffrey Wade Knight There are several differences between what I did to Kyle and what Marz did to Hal Jordan. "Trial..." is not only a piece of uncanonical fan fiction, but it's an out-of-continuity comedy! Or, I could just take the argument which Ron Marz himself used to downplay his destruction of a character by saying, "Hey! It's just a comic book. Why don't you worry about the environment or world peace?" (My fondest wish is that someday, some writer may casually destroy this character that Marz has poured his heart into for years and then wave it away with the same arguments he's used to dispel the significance of Hal Jordan.)           As for your question: Y'know, I'd much rather prove Marz's incompetence than try to explain all of the inconsistencies he's written! That might be an unvenviable job for Mario Di Giacomo. Right on the spot, Rabbit-boy. I loved the Trial.           You know, I had forgot that Kilowog didn't have a ring when he last fought Hal. As you remind us, that fact makes his death completely unnecessary and unbelievable. There's simply no reason for Hal to kill a ringless Kilowog, whatever his mental state might be.           As for Vril Dox's theory, is that actually based on published stories? I didn't know what Hal was up to before returning to Earth in Reign of the Supermen, your article supplied me with lots of information. I take it that Hal's battery was destroyed shortly before his appearance in Reign of the Supermen? Did he have any other way of charging other than the ones he supposedly resorted to in Emerald Twilight?           Don't you sometimes have the feeling that the supporters of GL's current direction must have been reading some alternate versions of prior stories that somehow we never knew about? There's this Johanna Draper who tell tales about "Hal Jordan's brain damage", for instance, and I've heard of Ganthet "letting Kyle keep his ring when he saw what a good GL he was". To me, it looked like Ganthet really never had the chance of taking the ring back.           While we're at it, isn't it odd that the ring was rebuilt and overall improved, including an exclusivity function (only Kyle may use it) - and the only other person capable of using the ring is the one being Ganthet would rather see ringless? Why bother making the ring useless to joe average if Parallax (who probably will get the ring if he wants to) can use it? BTW, I don't think Parallax's desire for the ring made much sense either. Ganthet described Kyle's battery as "a piece of Oa". GL #0 tries to explain Parallax's desire for the ring as a need for a recharge means, now that he has "neither ring nor battery". That train of thought has holes that a galaxy could hide into - are we to assume that Parallax absorved most of the juice from the GLC, but couldn't find or build a battery or functional ring for him? The only reason I can see for he wanting Kyle's ring are the yellow immunity and lack of time limit, and that's hardly worth all the trouble he went.           "Luis Dantas" Green Lantern appeared in L.E.G.I.O.N. #s 44-47, If I Recall Correctly. My/Vril Dox's theory is quite a stretch, but it's possible! The many other proposed explanations on the 'Net (That it was Malvolio, Malvolio's ring, the supposed-dead Appa Ali Apsa, etc...) would be more directly-tied to the GL mythos and more believeable. As I recall (unfortunately, I sold most of my Jones-era GL comics before I took over Fanzing), Jordan's battery was destroyed several stories before Emerald Twilight...during an "Itty" two-parter, to the best of my recollection. For such an important plot point (if he doesn't re-charge, he's stuck forever with a useless ring!), it was practically ignored by Jones during one or two story arcs, including "Trinity". That's why Hal had to suck the energy from the Guardian's projection in GL #48 (Give credit to that damned Marz for acknowledging the lack of a battery).           The reasons behind the yellow weakness have changed from writer to writer. Some say the Guardians did it intentionally. Others say it was simply a "necessary impurity," which is as believeable as anything else. The exclusivity function, on the other hand, is rather odd. If the Guardians ever had the ability to do that, they would have done it millenia ago to keep it out of the hands of unworthy individuals. Great story. Had me glued to the screen. My one problem was a little error. Barry Allen's identity was not (and to my knowledge still is not) public knowledge.           [email protected] We've never been shown the moment when those who knew him finally admitted to the public that Barry Allen had been the Flash. In the same way, Hal Jordan's name is now unguarded, but we didn't get to see any of the villains' faces when they learned who he'd been all this time. To my mind, this could have been the spark for several cool stories (such as when Major Disaster learned he'd been right all along), but it was all done off-panel. We only have the ample evidence that this is the case.           The villains all refer to Barry Allen by name, not as "The Old Flash." Heroes who never met him call him Barry Allen. More importantly, Iris West Allen just published a book entitled "The Life Story of Barry Allen." Your "Trial Of Hal Jordan" article was one of the funniest things I've ever read, and altogther more believable and entertaining than what "actually" happened.           I hope someone has forwarded a copy of it to DC? The only change I would make, in a serious vein, is that it has always been my pet theory that Hal was possessed by the spirit of Krona (who would have more against the guardians and the GLC?) in a moment of weakness and confusion somewhere around #48. Although, all your explanations are logical and well thought out as well. I can only hope whoever the next creative team is on GL that they have access to all the great articles in your GL issue. Are these archived someplace? (I'm new to the site).           Anyway, thanks for the great articles and keep up the good work.           Marc Williams I'll soon be adding the articles from issues #5 and #6 to The Fanzing Archives, which are found at the end of each issue. A recent discussion about last issue's Green Lantern Issue:           Hal Jordan: "Oh my god, they killed Kyle!"           Guy Gardner: "You bastards!!"           "Gary Ancheta" You know, I wondered how long it would take someone to pick up on the inside joke of the ending to "The Trial...", and here this arrived the day it was posted! My friend that was truly the best story I have read on the Web. Thanks!           "Burns" I've read the "Trial" and I loved it. I'm a charter member of H.E.A.T. (Hal's Emerald Advancement Team), and fully support the return of Hal and the Corps.           Bill Brackeen This was one of the funniest things I have read in a while.           Pyroman22 Liked it a lot! Veery funny!           Thanks!           [email protected] Well, all I can say is WOW you have some great articles about Green Lantern. I loved the Hyle Vs Kal debate. You manage to keep everything nonoffensive. Both sides can read that and feel good. I wish some of the AOL members who go to the AOL message board would pick up on that. Although I think the last paragraph of the Trial of Kal Jordan was a bit much.           One of my good fans is a rabid Hal Jordan fan and another is a too accepting Kyle fan so I hear the rant from both sides and I'm getting kind of tired of it. So you can understand the mild annoyance when I see anything GL-related and have it be another antiKyle/Hal argument. Your last paragraph had a nice "South Park" feel to it which I thought was funny.           [email protected] One last thing from me, regarding the comments about the Kyle's ignominious fate...           According to the legendary comedian Harold Lloyd, "A secret of comedies...is that, if you make your audience hate your heavy sufficiently, you may heap the most outrageous slapstick upon him and have them cry for more"** In the case of "The Trial of Hal Jordan," Kyle Rayner is the heavy. True, the character of Kyle Rayner is a somewhat modest, awestruck kid who knows his place. (Well, most of the appearances I've read are non-Marz, and most other writers aren't as gung-ho about Kyle, so I could be completely wrong.) But symbolically, Kyle Rayner is a careless, pre-fashioned attempt by an Almighty Dollar-minded editorial staff to appeal to the younger, so-called "hipper" crowd with little regard for the work of the many distinguished writers who had gone before. Kyle Rayner is the heavy against which Hal Jordan must fight. Thus, I don't think it was too outrageous!                   (**Lloyd, Harold and Wesley W. Stout. An American Comedy. New York: Dover, 1971.)

Other GL Comments                     Kudos on a good web paqe.           The Hal Jordan/Action books were disposable. It was an attempt by DC in the late '80s to bundle several heroes who couldn't support their own titles into an omnibus monthly publication, complete with a 4 page Roger Stern Superman feature to ge readers involved. Very forgettable.           Stephen Farr Boy! One Little Mistake!                    This is the first time I've come across your fantastic publication. I thought your article on the various retcons and inconsistencies that plague Green Lantern was excellent. I particularly liked the fact that you quoted, cited, and noted your sources. A friend of mine just recently started reading Green Lantern and I was trying to explain to him all the various origins he might come across. I'll just tell him to read this.           One thing, though. You mentioned that no story ever addressed why a Green Lantern (Abin Sur) would need a spaceship. Check out Alan Moore's "Tyger Tyger" story in Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual 1. It's an excellent story and a pretty decent explanation of why Abin was using that ship. It also fleshes out his character a bit.           Once again, great site, excellent article.           lhoswald Chris Stansfield replies: "Well, I definitely have egg on my face - especially since I HAVE read that comic and actually own it! The story actually raises another question, though: Why would Abin Sur worry about conserving power? Surely he knew that the things had unlimited power until the 24-hour period was up! I greatly enjoyed this month's focus on green lantern. However i have one problem with Chris Stansfield's Retconvention article. He repeatedly mentions the fact that Abin Sur died in a spaceship crash and wonders why a Green Lantern needs a spaceship. This question was answered in Tales of the Green Lantern #1 in a story by Alan Moore. Apparently Abin Sur encountered some demons who put into his head the notion that his ring would fail him when he needed it most. He then began to rely on his ring less and less. Hence, the spaceship.           [email protected]Gary Ancheta also sent a wonderful summary of the story...well, not so much a summary as a full re-telling, and it was too large to print here. Me, I never needed a dramatic story explaining the spaceship. A ring may be able to get you through space, but if your trip's going to take more than an afternoon you're going to want to cook, sleep, bathe and go to the bathroom! Besides, get distracted for even a moment and you're exposed to vacuum. Springboard: "Altered Egos"                     To whom this may concern: I just read ["Altered Egos"], and I though it was great! The story was well thought out, and was extremely entertaining. I especially liked how noble the Joker was, and the ending was nothing short of magnificent. I would gladly pay two dollars for this, because this story is one on the best that I have ever read.           Dan Greenhaus Not bad...not bad at all. I could easily see this being done as an Elseworlds story. The idea of standing the entire DC Universe hero/villain roster on ear may not be an entirely unique one, but the different twists on the plot could be pulled off in a Elseworlds book quite well.           Derrick Ferguson Not an original idea but something that does pique interest. See, it's interesting to wonder how it would be like to see your favorite heroes end up as villains and vice versa in your elseworlds. Kind of like Earth-3 from Crisis.           I'll just assume that Superman's motivations would be revealed if you made a full blown story. I somehow didn't like the idea of the Joker as the man to stop Superman. I think it should be Lex Luthor. It should always be Lex Luthor. He could easily represent the human race in a way that a heroic Joker couldn't. Plus, he's always been Superman's arch foe.           Finally, Superman thinking of protecting the Earth instead of taking over feels a bit too sudden even if the purpose of the ending is to give him some redemption. Maybe if you give him some time...           James Lee I liked this story line. A couple loose ends need to be summed up and it looks a little complicated to put into one book but mre than one book could work really well.           I hope to see it in full DC glory.           Matthew Singer I'd pay. It's really good and I liked it a lot. It's better than most of the Elseworlds tales.           Mauricio Lopez No offense, but I thought your springboard was really bad.           John Barker           Dear Sir/Madam,           I think the alter egos is LOUSY!!!!!!!!! I would not even pay 1 cent to look at the cover. I am saying this is because when I was small I always trusted if anything went wrong on Earth, Superman would fix it. Rameses           (It makes a crapy story anyway) JLA Casebook                     An interesting article about the Dr Destiny dream reality. One point that the article missed was that this story was a homage to Marvel's Squadron Supreme mini-series. The JLA/Squadron take over the world when the normal governments cannot handle it any more.           Only once nitpick the series was the referred to as JL OF A #72 rather than JLA (second series) #72 or JLA #72 as the second series did not use the of at that stage (an entire point of removing the of was made when the series was launched). To most people it's nothing, but I've been doing a lot of digging into DC publication history at the moment.           And now for the real reason that I'm writing: on the browser that I use (Netscape 2) the colour of text that outlines what each article is (purple), disappears against that background (black) on the main page and is unreadable.           Keep up the good work.           Jason Kirk P.S. Don't you have trouble from DC about fan fiction? The only DC comics sites that I know that have been actually forced to close down have been fan fic sites. P.P.S. JLA Casebook? Sounds familiar from somewhere. You may want to check your monitor settings. I am trying to stick to non-dithering colors for those of you who have only 256 colors...but at some point, one has to just hope that everyone out there is keeping up with technology.           Why do you have Netscape 2 anyway? Netscape upgrades are free. Unless you have a really old computer, you should be able to get a recent version.           As for fan fiction problems, there are still numerous fiction sites functioning. I've set up some stricter disclaimers on the foreword for Fanzing. Of course, if DC ever cracks down, we'll just stop doing fan fiction. But we'd still keep the magazine running, whatever it takes.           Sorry if JLA Casebook has been used on your site (I'm assuming it is). There really aren't too many names of that sort to go around. Actually, I'd love to see an ongoing series similar to "JLA: Year One" called "JLA Casebook." That way, we could see years 2-6! Meeting The Guy Who Killed Superman                     I have a meeting Dan Jurgens story as well...           I was at the comic-con in San Diego in 1995. I walked into the convention center and made a beeline for the DC section. In line were all these people waiting to talk to Dan Jurgens, who I recognized from a photo in Wizard. I couldn't believe it! I was going to talk to the artist who drew the "Death of Superman"!           I walked over and waited for about ten minutes. Then I noticed that he was doing sketches for people in their books. Then when I did meet him, I basically said what I liked about Superman, and how his presentation reflected that.           I couldn't leave without a drawing, so I asked him to draw on my portfolio and he drew a cool pic of Superman.           Anyway, here's the interesting part...The part I regret to this day..! A year before, I had won a baldy award for writing in to Superman comics about an error. It was one that Dan Jurgens had drawn, a close-up panel of Lois that showed her face and hair. Superman was talking to Lois and Supergirl. But the colorist had colored it wrong, coloring Lois' hair blonde. Because Lois' hair was the same style as Supergirl, you couldn't tell that there had been a mistake. The only way I could tell was from the dialogue. They had "Supergirl" say a line that only Lois would say, that you would only pick up was wrong if you understood the relationship of the characters.           So, wanting to make conversation while Dan was drawing my pic, I mentioned that I had a Baldy award.           "What did you win a Baldy for?" he asked, as he handed me my sketch.           "Uh...They colored Supergirl's hair wrong". I sputtered out.           "Oh," he said, motioning to the next person in line to come up, "I thought you had to do something really great to get a Baldy."           And that was it. One of the great Superman artists thought that I won my baldy through the most mundane ways possible. A coloring mistake.           Anyway, that's my story.           Sincerely, Bill Galvan Blue Devil           Thanks so much for your Blue Devil review in the May Fanzing. This has long been one of my favorite issues of one of my favorite characters. Also, it's good to see someone agitating for humorous stories again. they can work (as demonstrated by Foglio's stuff) and they can sell - after all, Giffen was once a fan-favorite, and JLI was once a big seller! Keep up the good work!           Christopher Stansfield ...and General Adulation                     My GOD!! Your Fanzing site is AWESOME, pal!           I am stunned. I am blown away. I am as Lot's wife, alchemized into a pillar of salt upon looking backwards at Sodom.           I'm also jealous as all holy heck.           Normally, I recommend my own Silver Age shrine -- The CHEEKS THE TOY WONDER HOME PAGE-- to folks. However: I'm far from certain that anything I have up will impress you, overmuch. I feel soooooooo inadequate, here.                    Kent G. Orlando (a.k.a., "Cheeks, the Toy Wonder") Kent is being far too modest. His site is brimming to the gills with fun information and hilarious commentary, and I hope you'll all check out his site (after you're done with this issue of Fanzing)! Good Concept. Professionally put together. I have nothing but praise for your online magazine. In fact - it shows a heckuva lot more imagination and writing talent than Wizard Magazine.           Troy J. Edwards Okay. That's it! I'm officially blushing!

BACK           HOME           CONTACT US!           FORWARD