Student

The Green Lantern
The Green Lantern mythos has an interesting past and recently a brilliantly revived future. I have chosen to compare and contrast the 2011 Green Lantern movie starring Ryan Reynolds, and the Absolute Green Lantern: Rebirth graphic novel, a collection of six mini-series created by Geoff as a means to redeem Hal Jordon and revive the Green Lantern series. I will also discussboth the graphic novel and film in relation to Coogan’s work and theory of the superhero, versus the super-hero.
The Green Lantern is an old superhero, who first appeared as Alan Scott in 1940 under the All-American Comics (Muir, 1969). His backstory was very different from the Green Lantern of today, having escaped an explosion he carved a ring from a glowing green rock which had to be rechargedat a green lantern. The comic faded from popularity in the early 1950’s and it was not until 1959 that DC reimagined the Green Lantern into the superhero he is today (Muir, 1969). He had a very popular run but in 1994 DC decided to kill off Hal Jordan and replace him with Kyle Rayner, in the Emerald Twilight storyline; this move was met with great backlash and outrage from fans.
In 2004 GeoffJohns announced on his website that he would be reviving Hal Jordan. “Rebirth' is the return of Hal Jordan, but we are not out to wipe the slate clean and go backwards to 1975. That's immediately a response from some. Or that nothing ever changes. Or that someone 'lost' and someone 'won.' Truth is, you don't know where we're going, but we're going forward” (Johns, 2004). Green Lantern: Rebirth wassix issue monthly series that told the return and redemption of Hal Jordan as well as the revival of the Green Lantern Corps.
The 2011 movie Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, as Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris respectively, was not a box office success. However, that is not to say that it wasn’t a good movie. Campbell delivered what was expected an action packed storyline thatsaw Hal Jordan rise as a Green Lantern for the first time. Although the Rebirth and the movie have very few similarities plot wise it is not hard to see the similarities between Hal Jordan in print and on the silver screen. The Hal Jordan of the movie is a young naïve albeit cocky pilot who has almost no sense of responsibility, but is chosen by a Green Lantern to inherit his ring. After beingchosen and travelling to Oa he promptly quits, realizing that the ring must of made a mistake. However, he returns to fight Parallax on Earth and prevent its destruction using his great will power and his ability to recognize that being afraid is not cowardly but rather what makes you strong. He defeats Parallax and is herald a hero both by Earth and his fellow Green Lanterns.
This lack of fear orrather realization of it and ability to fight in spite of it is what makes the Green Lantern one of the most powerful superheroes. The movie does a good job of illustrating this in Hal Jordan and Rebirth does an impressive job of revealing it as his greatest strength. In Rebirth, it is mentioned to Batman that the reason he never liked the Green Lantern was because he wasn’t afraid and without fearBatman is reduced to a simple man. It is this lack of fear that eventually allows Hal Jordan to exorcise Parallax from his body.
Although it is a different story, the main antagonist is the same. Parallax, the embodiment of fear, must be defeated and it requires someone capable of overcoming all their fears to do it. In the movie, the defeat of Parallax qualified Hal Jordan as one of thegreatest Green Lanterns, in the graphic novel Hal has help from his fellow Green Lantern brothers; however Parallax’s defeat serves a similar purpose. It redeems his previous actions and once again shows his immense strength and willpower. At the end of both the audience is left with a sense of wonder and awe at the great power that Hal possess, not only because of the green lantern’s power but more so...