Green Lantern: Rebirth - Background

Background

In 1994, DC Comics decided to do away with Hal Jordan, who had been the primary Green Lantern of Earth since his first DC Comics appearance in 1959, and replace him with a new character to carry on the Green Lantern legacy, Kyle Rayner. The storyline, ”Emerald Twilight”, which began in Green Lantern (vol. 3) #48 (January 1994), involved Hal Jordan descending into madness following the complete destruction of his home town, Coast City, by the villain Cyborg Superman and becoming the villain Parallax. Jordan went on a rampage on the planet Oa, the planetary citadel of the Guardians of the Universe, who oversee and administer the Corps. He killed some fellow Green Lanterns who opposed him and all the Guardians save for one, Ganthet. He also destroyed the Central Power Battery, with which all Green Lanterns recharge their power rings, and even killed the renegade former GL, Sinestro, whom Jordan himself had exposed as a criminal who used his power ring to enslave his planet and whom the Guardians apparently freed from his imprisonment in their Central Power Battery in a failed attempt to stop Jordan. Jordan then attempted to destroy all of existence so that he could recreate it to his liking in the 1994 miniseries and crossover storyline, "Zero Hour."

Emerald Twilight, as scripted by Ron Marz, provoked severe outrage amongst many Green Lantern fans. While retaining Kyle Rayner as the sole remaining Green Lantern, DC responded with more than one attempt to redeem Jordan’s image and hopefully placate the irate fans, first in the 1996 Final Night miniseries and crossover storyline, in which Jordan sacrificed his life in order to re-ignite Earth’s sun, and then in the 1999 Day of Judgment miniseries, in which his soul, languishing in purgatory, was chosen as the newest host for God’s “Spirit of Vengeance”, known as The Spectre.

These attempts, however, failed to placate the fans. In 2004, following the cancellation of the Hal Jordan as The Spectre comic, and a dropoff in sales of the Green Lantern comic as well as the character's prominent appearance in the popular DC: The New Frontier, DC decided return Hal Jordan as a Green Lantern. First, the Green Lantern monthly series was canceled with issue #181, and Geoff Johns was assigned to write Green Lantern: Rebirth, which would pave the way for Jordan's return as a Green Lantern. The series would also answer lingering questions about Jordan's character, as well as reveal the decades-long mystery of why the Green Lantern power rings, the powerful weapons assigned to each Lantern that allow them to conjure virtually any form of matter or energy, were unable to affect anything yellow in color.

Geoff Johns first announced his plans to resurrect Hal Jordan in an April 2004 issue of Wizard, noting that he had been working on the five-issue miniseries for a year and that it was due for an October release. As research for the story, Johns spent time with the test pilot department at Edwards Air Force Base and cleared his facts with a major.