Hal Jordan

Hal Jordan is a former member of the Green Lantern Corps and the first human to join the intergalactic police force.

Early life[]

Smallville Lantern 1396123507830 — Hal gets possessed by Parallax.

Hal Jordan was the first human to be recruited to the Green Lantern Corps, after it was formed by the Guardians to stop the Manhunters, which were re-purposed by the cosmic fear entity Parallax as weapons of fear. Other humans who were chosen after Hal were Kyle Rayner, John Stewart and Guy Gardner. At some point Hal was possessed by the entity and turned against the rest of the Corps, killing Rayner and Gardner in the process. The ensuing Parallax war nearly decimated the entire Corps, leading the thousands of Lanterns who protected the universe, to just a dozen, including newest recruit Clark Kent.

Season Eleven[]

Smallville - Lantern 009-003 — Hal as a manifestation of John's ring.

Since the Parallax war, Hal is considered to be dead by the remaining Green Lantern Corps members. In the past he has apparently developed close friendship with his fellow human Lanterns, since John Stewart still mourns Hal's fall at the hands of Parallax.

During Stewart's battle with Parallax, the entity taunts John about Hal's past deeds while under his control and says that he can bring Hal along with the rest of the fallen Lanterns back to life. John fights back by creating a construct of Hal that attacks Parallax.

Notes[]

In the Season Seven episode Action, there is a Parallax (Hal Jordan) action figure on display in Ben Meyers' apartment.

ParallaxActionFigureAction — Parallax (Hal Jordan) action figure seen in *Action*.

Appearances[]

Smallville Miniseries: Lantern (flashback only)

In the Comics[]

Harold "Hal" Jordan is a superhero known as Green Lantern, the first human shown to join the Green Lantern Corps and a founding member of the Justice League of America. The character made his debut in Showcase #22, being a success, and it was quickly decided to follow-up his three issue run on Showcase with a self-titled series, Green Lantern (1960).

In that series many of the major characters in Hal Jordan's life were introduced, with first and foremost his love interest, Carol Ferris. She was in charge of Ferris Aircraft, and as such, Hal's boss. While she preferred Green Lantern to Hal Jordan, she took an active role in trying to win him over. Although she gave Jordan some attention, her job and company always came first. Another unique addition to Green Lantern's supporting cast was his best friend, Tom Kalmaku, who was both Hal's mechanic and the chronicler of his super-hero adventures, after succeeding in working out his identity. An Inuit (Eskimo) from Alaska, Tom's nickname was "Pie" or "Pieface". Despite the unfortunate nickname, Tom was a competent and intelligent character with a well-rounded personality, not a stereotypical buffoon and was among the first minority characters to be portrayed in this manner, breaking new ground for mainstream comic books. Tom would later be followed by another trail-blazing minority character, John Stewart, the first African-American super-hero of the DC Universe, who was also a Green Lantern.

3248240-img 6997 — Hal with his back-ups, Guy Gardner and John Stewart.

From Green Lantern #151 (April 1982) until #172 (January 1984), Jordan was exiled into space for a year by the Guardians in order to prove his loyalty to the Green Lantern Corps, having been accused of paying too much attention to Earth when he had an entire "sector" of the cosmos to patrol. When he returned to Earth, he found himself embroiled in a dispute with Carol Ferris. Faced with a choice between love and the power ring, Jordan chose to resign from the Corps. The Guardians called upon Jordan's backup, John Stewart, to regular duty as his replacement. In Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline saw Jordan again take up the mantle of Green Lantern. The new Corps, with seven members residing on Earth, included several aliens, John Stewart, and Guy Gardner. Jordan became romantically involved with an alien Lantern named Arisia, for which he came under fire; a difference in time between Earth and her planet meant that in Earth years, she was over 250 years old, while on her planet she was only 14 years old.

The character's origin story is re-told and expanded in two limited series Emerald Dawn and Emerald Dawn II. The first series expanded the role of the Corps in his origin and also provided more details about his childhood and his relationship with his father and brothers, while the sequel detailed the role of Jordan in the downfall of Sinestro.

In Reign of the Supermen! storyline, the villainous Cyborg Superman enlists the alien tyrant Mongul and his forces and comes to Earth in a plot to take advantage of the death of Superman. In the process, Coast City, Jordan's former home is destroyed and all of its seven million inhabitants murdered, bringing Jordan to take revenge on Mongul, who has replaced it with Engine City, with which he plans to turn Earth into a new Warworld. After the fight results in Jordan's arm and knee being broken, he takes advantage of Mongul's arrogance and uses his ring to create power armor for himself with which he used to lift Steel's hammer and strike Mongul with it. The blow was so powerful that the hammer was shattered into pieces and Mongul was knocked out and eventually incarcerated.

1287571-gl cv23 solicit — Hal Jordan becomes insane.

1108496-green lantern 50 — Hal Jordan as Parallax.

This leads into the Emerald Twilight three-part arc, where Jordan uses his power ring to recreate Coast City as an instrument in the process of overcoming his grief, talking to ring created versions of his old girlfriend and parents. After his ring's power expires, a projection of a Guardian appears and admonishes him for using the ring for personal gain and summons him to Oa for disciplinary action. Angered at what he sees as the Guardians' ungrateful and callous behavior, Jordan absorbs the energy from the Guardian's projection, goes insane and attacks Oa to seize the full power of the Central Battery, defeating and severely injuring several members of the Green Lantern Corps in the process, taking their power rings as his own and leaving them to die in space. The arc ends when he arrives on Oa and kills Kilowog, Sinestro who has been resurrected to fight him but has his neck snapped, and all the Guardians except for Ganthet who was protected by the other Guardians and survived without Jordan's knowledge. He then renounces his life as Green Lantern, adopting the name Parallax after absorbing the Power Battery's vast powers. After he emerges from the Central Power Battery, he walks past and looks at the Guardians' corpses and steps on his former ring, crushing it in the process. Jordan is replaced by Kyle Rayner by Ganthet as the Green Lantern of Earth when Rayner comes into possession of the last power ring, created from the shattered remains of Jordan's. In Final Night miniseries/crossover storyline, Jordan returns when the Earth's sun is in danger of going out. He starts to reevaluate himself and the decisions he's made and attacks and kills the Cyborg Superman and visits John Stewart in the hospital who was recently paralyzed in battle. Jordan talks to his old friend for a final time and uses his powers to heal his paralysis. He then uses what appears to be the last of his powers and sacrifices his life to reignite the Sun.

In Green Lantern: Rebirth, Hal is brought back to life, becoming a Green Lantern once again. His past homicidal actions were retconned to be the result of Parallax, now revealed to be caused by Hal having been infected by an ancient fear entity that had possessed him and used him as a puppet. In an effort to try to rebuild his life, Jordan has moved to the nearly deserted Coast City, which is slowly being rebuilt. The series introduces new supporting characters for Hal, a man from his past, Air Force's General Jonathan "Herc" Stone, who learns his secret identity during a battle with the Manhunters and acts as his ally and his fellow pilot and new love interest, the beautiful Captain Jillian "Cowgirl" Pearlman. The Green Lantern Corps also has been successfully rebuilt. Despite the revelation that Hal's past villainous activity was because of the influence of Parallax, many of his fellow Corps officers are unwilling to trust him. Despite being freed from Parallax, his experience also leads him occasionally to have a lack confidence and self-doubt. Jordan also becomes friends with Kyle Rayner after their first battle with Parallax.

During the Blackest Night event, Hal allies himself with six other Lantern Corps during The War of Light. He finds himself facing many of his deceased allies, enemies, and people he failed to save reanimated as undead Black Lanterns under the control of the Green Lantern Corps' ancient enemy Nekron. Hal finds himself not only teaming up with Barry Allen, who is also resurrected from his death, but also must work with his enemies Sinestro, Atrocitus, Larfleeze, and his former lover Carol Ferris.

After the events of Brightest Day: Green Lantern, the storyline continues into War of the Green Lanterns. Hal and Guy are captured by Krona. However, they escape from Krona's forces and reclaim their Green Lantern rings to fight him and his entity-possessed Guardians. During the final battle, Hal manages to free Carol, Sinestro and the others from the Book of the Black. During the process Sinestro becomes a Green Lantern once again. Jordan manages to defeat and kill Krona, releasing the entities from the Guardians. However, the Guardians believing Hal to be the most dangerous Green Lantern, discharge him from the Corps, strip him of his ring and return him to Earth. It is revealed that the Guardians are afraid of Jordan because they believe what happened to Krona would eventually happen to them if they allow him to continue being a Green Lantern.

In the New 52, Jordan is back to his civilian life on Earth and has been discharged from the United States Air Force. After he lost his ring, he finds himself empty, unable to pay his rent, and being arrested after mistaking a the filming of a movie for an actual crime. After a misunderstanding with Carol, he is left to walk home in the rain to his apartment, where he finds out he is being evicted. Sinestro is waiting for him, claiming that if he wants to return to being a Green Lantern, he must do everything he says. Sinestro then forges Hal a new ring, made from his own ring - claiming that he is giving Hal another chance to do his duty as a Green Lantern - or at least Sinestro's perception of what being a Green Lantern Corps member means. Hal tries to attack Sinestro, but it has no effect. Sinestro then reveals that he made it and that it has all the abilities of a Green Lantern ring but it is unable to harm Sinestro and has the ability to turn it off at anytime.

During the events of the Third Army, Hal and Sinestro were trapped inside the Negative Zone with still 'one foot in the living' and to their surprise they met Tomar-Re, who has no chance of coming back to the land of the living.