DC superheroes are all about legacy, and through legacy, strong bonds are formed. From the partnerships of Batman and his Robins to the various members of the Justice Society and their familial and spiritual descendants, the DC Universe is made up of powerful companions who have gone to hell and back with one another. Perhaps it’s not surprising then, that when deciding how to adapt the far-reaching Green Lantern mythos for the small screen, DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran decided to take a grounded approach that will focus on one such relationship—Hal Jordan and John Stewart.
Beginnings
Hal Jordan and John Stewart first met in response to a need, rather than a call. On Earth, Hal was the designated Green Lantern of Sector 2814, with his fellow human Lantern Guy Gardner waiting in the wings should anything happen to him. However, after Guy finds himself injured and out of commission, the Guardians of Oa command that Hal meet and train a replacement substitute. They bring him to John Stewart, a bold, young Black architect who Hal first finds loudly combating harassment from a bullying policeman.
Unsure of the Guardians’ decision, Hal goes in guarded but nevertheless offers the job to John, who responds with charming zeal. John quickly masters the basics of the power ring and decides to use his newfound abilities to embarrass a local senator who preaches white supremacy. Hal initially finds this decision to be rash, arrogant and more than a little hot-headed, but soon eats his words when John uncovers a plot by the senator to fake an assassination attempt and start a race war. When the crisis is averted, Hal confesses his biases and apologizes, but John respects their difference in style and remains Earth’s stalwart Green Lantern substitute. John would slowly over time grow more experienced as a new Green Lantern.
Resignations and Replacements
After spending a year in space, Hal Jordan returns to Earth committed to his relationship with his girlfriend Carol Ferris. But after seeing him gone for so long, Carol gives him an ultimatum: continue living at the Guardians’ beck and call, or quit the Green Lantern Corps and live with her forever. Uneasily, Hal reports back to Oa and formally resigns his post as the Green Lantern of Sector 2814. In response, the Guardians immediately summon John for duty, explaining to him that he is now a Lantern full-time.
Until this moment, John had been operating without using a mask, resulting in an intrepid reporter named Tawny Young eagerly deducing the identity of Earth’s new Green Lantern. With his identity now known, John works hard to balance both sides of his life. Fortunately, things become a lot easier when the Guardians appoint Katma-Tui of Korugar to help with John’s advanced training. Katma and John soon fall in love, showing Hal that the life of a Green Lantern doesn’t have to preclude romantic pursuits.
When Carol returns to her villainous alter ego Star Sapphire, Hal becomes desperate to become Green Lantern again. However, this is during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, and John is away to help defend the Multiverse. Tragically, hundreds of Lanterns would die in this battle, including longtime alien ally Tomar-Re. Before passing away, Tomar would give his power ring to John, allowing his current ring to return to its original owner. Hal was restored as Earth’s “first” Green Lantern and for a time, our world was gifted with two heroic men to guard her from threats both terrestrial and extraterrestrial.
The Tragedies
Unfortunately, that time would prove brief. After being tricked by the former Green Lantern Sinestro right before his execution, the Green Lantern Corps was destroyed, with the vast majority of the power rings returning to the now dead central battery. Only Hal and a couple other Lanterns managed to retain their rings.
Because of this, John and Katma-Tui—who are now married—make the decision to return to Earth to share an apartment with Hal and his alien girlfriend Aresia. Their domestic bliss is quickly shattered, however, when Hal’s lover-turned-enemy Star Sapphire finds their home and attacks Katma-Tui, killing her and leaving her body as a message for Hal. John is utterly destroyed, blaming Hal for Sapphire’s attack and resenting him for being the only one with the power to bring her to justice.
The succeeding battles between Hal and Carol would level several buildings, with the citizens of Coast City blaming Green Lantern for the destruction. The problem is that the last anyone checked, it was John who was the Green Lantern of Earth, so John is arrested for Hal’s actions. Star Sapphire goes even further, framing him for murder and exiling him to a South African prison. Looking to help, Hal offers John a newly discovered power ring, which he later uses to destroy the prison, freeing several terrorists combating Apartheid in South Africa (it was 1988). Concerned about the deaths that follow at the terrorists’ hands, Hal urges John not to take a side in the troubled country’s affairs. A brief battle ensues before John eventually relents, willing to trust in the one-time friend for whom he’s harbored nothing but hatred since the death of his wife.
When Coast City is famously annihilated by the villain Mongul shortly after, Hal loses it and steals the full power of the rebuilt Green Lantern Corps. In the process, he destroys the central battery on Oa, robbing John’s ring of its abilities. Where once Hal Jordan taught John the fine line that heroes must walk to avoid using their abilities for revenge, the Lantern had now fully succumbed to his thirst for vengeance. Earth’s heroic Green Lantern is no more. All that remains is who he has become—the cosmic super-villain known as Parallax.
Things would get worse before they’d get better. During a battle alongside Earth’s newest Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner, John is paralyzed from the waist down. When a gigantic alien entity known as the Sun-Eater threatens Earth, Kyle seeks out Hal Jordan, convincing him to help save the world and become a hero again. Knowing the effort means his death, Hal says goodbye to his friends one final time. Visiting John in the hospital, the two struggle to communicate the changes in their lives over the past several years before Hal uses his powers to restore John’s mobility.
Corpsmen Again
Years later, it’s revealed that Parallax wasn’t simply Hal Jordan going insane, but an alien being driving him mad externally. Despite Batman’s vocal doubt that Hal could be redeemed, John remains steadfast that his former best friend is a good man and a hero, a declaration which is emboldened when the truth about Parallax comes out.
With Hal’s reputation redeemed, the four Earth-born Lanterns—Hal, John, Guy and Kyle—team up to defeat a reinvigorated Sinestro and re-establish themselves as the start of a new Green Lantern Corps. With their storied history, Hal and John are seen by many of the Lanterns’ newest recruits as two of the most established and experienced Green Lanterns active today. Relying on their strength of willpower, their respective ingenuity and shared imagination, Hal and John lead the Corps into victories against the Yellow Lanterns during the epic Sinestro Corps War, Nekron during the zombified Blackest Night, and some of DC’s most powerful villains like General Zod and his family.
Despite all the tragedy and triumph, the longtime friendship between Hal Jordan and John Stewart remains as strong as their willpower, strengthened by a rebuilt Corps forged in part from that very relationship. Where once the world might have asked if Earth was big enough for two Green Lanterns, now the universe can only wonder how it could possibly thrive without them.
Donovan Morgan Grant writes about comics, graphic novels and superhero history for DC.com. Follow him on Twitter at @donoDMG1.
