I actually like how they explained the colors in “The Batman”. It was his new acrobatic suit that hadn’t debuted before his parents were murdered, and he wore it (and chose his name) to honor their memory.
One of the best episodes of that series.
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I love all these responses. You all have made this a blast to read 
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New52 Green Lantern New Guardians. #1-2
Emerald Twilight erased on the way?
So we begin the story of the New…New Guardians with a flashback of the carnage following Hal’s rampage as Parallax
Ganthet then recruits Kyle Rayner
But rather than just vanishing, Ganthet starts to train Kyle
In issue 2, the Flashback continues with a mind warping retcon!
Ganthet takes Kyle to Oa.
Where suddenly, everything is hunky-dorey?!? No carnage no destruction, and Guardians and Green Lanterns flying around as if Emerald Twilight never happened in the first place!!!
Now I get that Emerald Twilight ticked off a lot of readers.
And I know not everyone is a fan of Kyle Rayner.
But this Retcon was just eighteen kinds of ridiculousness. and it happened just in the short time it took Ganthet to fly from Oa to Earth and back.
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As someone who,s fav character is Kyle and that first started reading DC during the emerald twilight run, I completely agree.
Other than maybe Grayson, no one has been more mistreated by DC than Kyle Rayner. Last GL? Ion? Rebuilt the Corps? Don’t care, Hal’s back so move along, take your honorary title while we all talk about how Hal Jordan is gods gift the the corps.
Yeah, no thanks Geoff Johns
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This bugged me too.
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I feel the same way about Connor Hawke. I really like that character. He was Green Arrow for quite a while, and now he’s just ignored. Doesn’t even exist actually. Kyle was a good character once he got going. I prefer weird alien Lanterns because they feel more fun, but he is my favorite Earth Lantern for sure!
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I’m of the opinion that neither Hal nor Barry should have been brought back to life in the post-Crisis timeline. HOWEVER, I do think that they should have been given their own Silver Age-esque parallel universe (Earth-Johns?) after Infinite Crisis. In fact, Superboy-Prime could have even racked up a much bigger body count so that certain characters would suddenly be “freed up” to appear on this alternate Earth while legacy characters filled their roles.
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Agree completely, bringing them back ignored that an entire generation had grown up with Kyle and Wally. It also lessens the sacrifice that Barry had made and eliminated Hal’s redemption arc which quite frankly was the best thing about his character. There should have been more thought as to what to do with the legacy characters beyond just pushing them aside.
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This is my opinion on his entire Green Lantern run. Maybe it’s just me not liking GL in general, or maybe it’s just that post-crisis legacy characters are my favorite part of DC, but the whole thing just rang hollow.
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I think Johns has a lot of great ideas and I loved his run on Aquaman but it’s always seemed he’s a lot like Dido in his hatred for legacy characters ie that’s not my flash!
I’ve been reading DC for decades and I don’t remember hearing anyone screaming we want Barry or we want Hal circa 2008 lol
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I don’t think Johns has a hatred for legacy characters…his whole schtick seems to be Legacy…rather, he’s trying to create a world where all the characters can exist.
Well, all of them except for Pantha. Poor Pantha.
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I agree with many of the cases brought up above. I’ll add that I’m not a fan of how Superboy abruptly went from making jokes about being a clone to angsting about it, without build-up or explanation. Suddenly, he’s an angry, angsty loner. Then they pulled the “half Lex Luthor” retcon from out of nowhere, with no justification or rationale (what, was Lex’s biological clock ticking?). Lex was suddenly the secret head of Cadmus, too; despite the fact that that flew directly in the face of everything that had been established up until that point.
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Guy Gardner: Warrior. Particularly, the idea that he is connected to Vuldarians and can form weapons out of his own body. The warpaint he wore was really embarrassing.
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Damn! I totally forgot about the Superboy retcon. Yea, to this day it’s never sat well with me that he’s part Lex. There was nothing wrong with having it be Paul Westfield. Superboy and Westfield had an antagonistic relationship, so when we found out he was the human portion of his DNA, it was a gut-punch.
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I get your point, but for my circle of comics fans it was 50/50 on wanting back Hal and Barry from the moment they were gone. I love Wally and Kyle too but prefer Hal and Barry. I want a world where treating Hal/Barry right doesn’t dump on Wally/Kyle.
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That’s why I think something like what @AlexanderKnox suggested would have worked post infinite crisis. Put Hal, Barry, and others on a separate Earth where they can do their own stories.
I concede that there are plenty of Hal and Barry fans out there and there have been great stories (Sinestro War for example) I just wish that they could have figured out a way to do it that was more respectful of Kyle and Wally.
Controversial Opinion: I’m not against change by any means and I think my biggest problem with New 52 was it wasn’t bold enough. I would’ve preferred if they had just cancelled everything and truly start from scratch. Supes, Bats, WW all start over heck the first 30 issues of Batman could’ve been him training. I’m just saying that by not fully committing to a reboot they put themselves in an even more convoluted continuity where we are trying to figure out 4 Robins in 5 years lol
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I don’t know about that. That’s basically telling the reader, “hey, spend three years watching this guy become the character you already liked, but now he’ll have a smartphone and mention hashtags”.
The New52 was more about change for vanity’s sake, not change for necessity’s sake, a problem that continued long after they dropped the banner.
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The Robin situation was a huge mess in the New 52. I liked a lot of what they did, but the Batman sidekick timeline became gonzo.
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Lmao agreed I meant more they shouldn’t have been all it’s a reboot buuuut year one is still cannon and such. If you’re gonna reboot reboot.
And yeah there was a lot of new 52 I enjoyed (Aquaman, Animal Man, JLD, All Star Western) but trying to cram the Robins into that short of a timeframe was just one of many Bat problems they created.
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See, I actually do think you bring up a good point; Geoff Johns is sort of at the vanguard of legacy character authors. Stargirl is a pitch-perfect revitalization of the Star-Spangled Kid, the whole JSA is basically just a legacy hero bonanza, and he cut his teeth working on Flash while Wally West was in the suit. That said, he really has a thing for Hal Jordan and Barry Allen. And I really don’t. They’re both the most boring versions of their respective characters, at least to me. I wasn’t a huge fan of Parallax Hal either, but I prefer it to a giant yellow space bug and an overwrought explanation of how “the signs were there all along.” Or something. He even decided that there had to be a reason given for Hal’s graying temples. And, look; I’m not a GJ fan in general. He’s written a few comics I really like (I’ve mentioned it in like five other threads, but Stars and STRIPE is delightful), and a whole lot that I don’t. It’s not my bag, and that’s fine, but it doesn’t mean that I’m not going to defend my stance.
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