The Hidden History of GREEN LANTERN: EMERALD TWILIGHT 

What's your favorite Green Lantern story?

From panel to panel, from page to page No story shall escape his gaze Let all who watch him be amazed Behold Matt Draper...shower with praise!

I think it's hilarious that the writer was SO busy he didn't skip going to a concert with a deadline coming up.

As rushed as Emerald Twilight was Ron Marz did an admiral job with what he was given and with out it Geoff Johns could never have done everything that he did in his epic Green Lantern saga.

Having the Guardians kill hals dad in the past instead of just an accident is what made this story dead on arrival. Why? Because in that one move it completely cheapens the whole idea of a Green lantern Corp. It destroys the mythos of His origins and what the theme of being a lantern is. See after a lantern dies the ring goes on to find someone worthy of using its power, someone who has the will to rise up when most can't. When you make the Guardians be the masterminds behind the death of his dad that means they have known of him for awhile and hand picked him. To me that destroys the idea of the ring going to find someone who is worthy and has will now it's just some guy who got chosen by big head lil' blue people.

Emerald Twilight's an interesting story to change directions, but I much prefer how Geoff Johns brilliantly revitalized the GL stories without having to wreck Hal's character.

I think Emerald Twilight is interesting. I don't think it was the story that completely ruined Hal's character, that was Zero Hour. ET did lead to that story though. Also, while making Parallax a space bug might have exonerated Hal of some blame, most of the Corps during Johns' run, especially the Lost Lanterns, still put the full brunt of the blame on Hal since he let himself become susceptible to Parallax. It wasn't really until Sinestro Corps War when the Corps fully accepted him again. Great video though.

They went through all that to put Kyle Rayner into the spotlight and now they barely use him.

Οh dear. This story still hurts me. But without it we would never get Hal's awesome redemption by Johns and Kyle Rayner who ended up being a beloved character on his own right. Though mostly thanks to Grant Morrison's JLA, not so Ron Marz. Speaking of Morrison's JLA, do you plan on doing a video on it? It's my favorite incarnation of the team.

This storyline really made me take notice of Green Lantern. It was jarring in spots, but I found it compelling. I like Kyle Rayner learning how to be a GL in the aftermath of the story, too.

This story was such a classic. I kinda wish it wasn't as rushed but I enjoyed this story a whole lot. Seeing a hero turn heel is really interesting done right.

Since you're talking about 90s era dc would you ever consider doing a video on james robinsons starman?

"May not be actual Green Lantern boycott footage" LOL. Interesting story behind the development of Emerald Twilight. There are some great visuals in that miniseries, my favorite of course being the one that you used for the thumbnail with Hal looking like a maniac consumed with power. Cool video!

I wish they'd had the guts to keep Hal evil rather than retconning it to take responsibility away from him. It would be amazing if they actually did this in the movies. Start off with a movie or two of him being the hero then see him become a villain. It would be something I don't think we've seen before.

Without this series, which I loved, we wouldn’t have had Rebirth, which is one of the greatest comic books I have ever read. This series took a fun character that was just good, and eventually made GL one of DCs finest books.

The 90's were a dark time for DC, with stories like The Death of Superman The Kinightfall Trilogy and Emerald Twilight. Which I think are the best story-lines (arcs) in comics history.

Emerald Twilight is Green Lantern's "The Dark Knight Returns".

I didn't know that the story was rushed like that, makes sense... I loved ET when I read it (and Hal's deranged look with all those rings on GL 49 cover is iconic), but it clearly came out of nowhere... when you are reading Reign of Supermen and then go to Emerald Twilight and see Hal going absolutely bonkers it's just insane xd (but entertaining). I wonder how the story would've turn out if it was told in 6 issues or more... Btw, reading a big part of Marz run made me like Kyle a lot and I do find him more similar to Spider-Man, as you said. Anyways, great video, man! I almost never comment, but I love your channel, keep up the good work! And hello from Chile :) PS: I would die if you make a video of Ostrander's Suicide Squad, at least the first issues

I always heard about the editorial mandate behind it, but this video is so well put together! Hal the fourth wall breaking comment still chills me

We need a great Green Lantern film. The 2011 film was not good. When that film is made, I need John Stewart needs to have a major role: He was the Green Lantern I grew up with while watching Justice League and Justice League Unlimited.

12:02 Unfortunately, that was the mindset that Dan DiDio adopted when he took charge during The New 52, and post Rebirth. And this also contributed to him wanting to make characters' lives miserable. In my opinion, editorials like this, kind of bring out the worst of readers and creators alike

Emerald Twilight is one of my favorite, albeit rushed, stories of all times. I didn't know about the original story though, appreciate it. As much as I love Goeff's run I wish he made the Parallax entity a bug that controlled Jordan, it made the whole story less impactful in retrospective.

It was a tight schedule to finish the comic but he was still able to make for the Peter Gabriel concert. Priorities

I cant believe you only have 20K subscribers. This is the comics channel Ive been looking for!

Don't make the suit green. Or animated!

What are you talking about? C'mon, it makes _perfect sense_ that Hal, while possessed by Parallax, was a crazed, but guilt ridden character. He felt the guilt because as far as anyone knew, *including him,* he was responsible and was making those decisions on his own. They made it very clear that in _"Rebirth"_ Hal didn't know he was ever possessed, even after death. We learn the truth as his spirit learns the truth, then he's reborn and.... Pissed.

Holy cow! Your channel is amazing! You never disappoint.

My favorite part of a Matt Draper video is when he recites the dialogue. Another great one!

As a huge Green Lantern fan, I really liked and appreciated this great video! Never knew all that happened in the background of Emerald Twilight. Great job! New subscriber!

I think this story is pretty good and would be great as an elseworld, alternate story. I would love to see an animated film based on this with ofcourse, the obvious corrections to some parts of the story, make Hal's progression into evil more natural. The action in it would be fantastic.

You r one of the best on RU-vid to give a retrospective on comics 👍

Supes died, Batsy got a broken bsck, Wonder Woman lost a good friend, Jim Corrigan's soul got elevated to heaven leaving The Spectre without a host, then GL turned villainous...yeah, great times in the editorial in the '90s.

Great video and I dig the music you used!

If you do a Women in Refridgerators video....remember that Steve Trevor and Larry Lance were killed before Gwen Stacy.....or just thereabouts.

That's crazy! I just read this story last night! Great video as always man!

On the subject of Denny O’Neill, will you do a coverage of his Question run?

You have a great taste in comics, and in music. Well done, Matt!

I actually liked this heel turn. It was a good study into how a great hero can descend into madness. A shame Green Lantern : Rebirth ruined it with the possession by space parasite cop out. The behind the scenes politics don't take away my enjoyment of this story.

I would have loved a Green Lantern movie starring Nathan Fillion.

Emerald Twilight is to Hal Jordan what The Bells is to Daenerys Targaryen.

Y’know. Considering the circumstances, I understand why people took issue with this. That being said, I wish DC and Marvel would take more chances with changes like this.

This is such a fantastic video. I’ve realized that, next to Batman, Green Lantern is my favorite DC character. The Geoff Johns run is just amazing (though I’ve haven’t read everything, only up to Blackest Night), Green Lantern/Green Arrow is just a fun road trip that deals with mature topics such as racism and drugs, Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps I thought was a pretty underrated series in Rebirth, DC: New Frontier is a masterpiece and the current Grant Morrison run is just as weird as it is fascinating. The animated series is also a very underrated show and should’ve gotten a second season. Haven’t read every thing, but I’m glad you were able to explain why Hal Jordan turned evil. Goes to show that DC editorial keeps making dumb decisions for the sake of sales, especially currently. Hope there are more Green Lantern videos in the future. Also: First Flight + Emerald Knights >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Green Lantern (2011); no contest

I was just getting started on comic collecting when Emerald Twilight dropped. The negative reaction to it was really the first instance of nerd rage I'd ever witnessed. At the risk of sounding offensive and/or insensitive, one could draw a fairly straight line from HEAT, who led that charge against Marz and Co, to Comicsgate, which was to HEAT what a skirmish is to a military campaign.

What a tragic tale. Thank you so much Matt Draper...

Been looking for this beauty for years!

Damn it, Matt. You brought me back here. Haha! Still an excellent video.

Love the Midnight track in the background!

I love that Storym and Siniestro was the greatest Green Lantern, that should be a clue for those cosmic smurfs

grew up on GL rebirth myself. Ty for another great story Draper

Excellent work

Thank you matt for doing a green lantern video.

3:14-Hal Jordan’s dummy thicc.

Also Geoff Johns run and Rob veditti's and Geoff thorns gl stories are incredible as well

Imagine if Green Lantern in 2011 had been so brave wow, wow, wow that would have been some DCEU

Great Analysis. Sometimes I wished Hal stayed gone, even though what happend to him behind the scenes was foolish and wrong. If possible, could you explore the controversy of the clone saga?

I enjoyed "Emerald Twilight" (ET) although I could see some issues, the biggest one being how fast Hal fell after several issues of Hal having no reaction to the destruction of Coast City. It should have been the beginning of a series of traumatic events that ends up pushing Hal over the edge. Although the selection of Kyle Rayner was a random selection, they have done some retcons to explain it. Among them was that Ganthet approached John Stewart and Guy Gardner first but they turned him down. With his time running out Ganthet had to choose someone and that was Kyle. There is a line from "Infinite Crisis" where if the Original Multiverse had continued Kyle Rayner would have been the Green Lantern of Earth-Eight, so it is possible that that was the reason that Ganthet chose Kyle to be a Green Lantern, since The Guardians have multi-versal awareness. It is possible that Ganthet knew that Kyle had the potential to be a great Green Lantern and thus he chose him. Kyle proved himself to be a great Green Lantern. Consider that despite having literally no training he managed to master the ring and hold his own against some tough opponents like Major Force and Mongul II.

Emerald Twilight is a story I felt that could have been so much better than it was. It made sense for the character but felt so rushed. I liked to see a character who was so pure and optimistic face so much tragedy that in his grief he falls from grace. Had they had the six issues to tell it I feel they may have been able to show that slip gradually and thus feel more believable and relatable for the readers. That this wasn’t a madman wanting to destroy the universe or rule over it as a god, it was a man who just wanted to bring back the city and people he loved. Had then had the time they could have really gone deep with his stages of loss. Hell even name the issues after them (and changing the order a bit to best serve the story)... Depression - him grieving the loss of coast city which people have sorta ignored instead grieving over metropolis and Superman’s death. denial - him recreating coast city as his way of undoing the tragedy that has happened. bargaining - after his power ring runs out of power he bargains with the guardians. Showing how much he has done and sacrificed for them in his years of service. Asking only for them to let him have this one thing. Anger - him going after the power the guardian deny him and steamrolling over anyone that gets in his way. acceptance - him attaining his power but now realizing his descent to get it has come at an awful price. His friends and comrades are dead, the GL are gone, the guardians are dead. That he is no longer a hero.

Watching your vid makes me miss the GL animated series so badly

For green lantern fans i recommend green lantern the animated series

Matt Draper:"emerald twight remains a controversial but compelling story of one hero's fall from grace, it's sharp shocking edge softinened by knowing that hal Jordan would one day return as the hero we all know him to be" Hal Jordan: in brightest day-- Me:( puts on green lantern ring) in blackest night Hal Jordan: no evil shall escape my sight-- Me: let those who worship evil's might Hal Jordan: beware my power-- Both of us at the same time: GREEN LANTERN'S LIGHT!

In brightest day, in blackest night, No evil shall escape my sight Let those who worship evil's might, Beware my power... Green Lantern's light!

I am kind of intrested to see the orginal form of emerald twilight. A elseworlds miniseries or as a stand alone graphic novel could give the basics.

This should have a lot more views

A pretty brutal approach to take to the character just because of low sales and wanting them to be higher. Definitely harsh to the fans to claim nobody particularly cared about Hal.

Emerald twilight sounds like a "my little pony" name

Excellent video review I love this story one of the pinnacles of 90s era DC knowing the bts drama I will still read it because it's a great story

Its funny, but I can't help but compare this to the seeming sudden fall of another 'Hero", "The Queen of Dragons" in HBO's "Game of Thrones" (can't spell her actual name ^_^). Just like Hal, she seemed to fall into insanity over the course of just a few episodes, with not enough evidence to set up her fall beforehand.

Now explain why we needed Barry?

I have a suggestion for a comic you could do a video on that being Bartkira which was a huge multi year colabrative art project where an army of artists re Drew the Akira manga but replaced everything with Simpsons stuff like Ralf wiggum as Akira and Bart as the main character.

Hal just did a genocide route for the green lantern core

WOW WE ARE BUSTING THESE OUT ARENT WE MATTY?!

The 90s also gave us Captain Planet,Freakazoid(Dexter Douglas),Gen 13, Wild C.A.T.S,Hellboy and Spawn!

Writers trained in the Mighty Marvel approach (give your character crippling flaws) tried for decades before Emerald Twilight to "fix" Hal by making him an authoritarian dope (O'Neill), a selfish whiner (Wolfman), a shiftless layabout Englehart), and a guy whose fearlessness was imposed upon him by the ring (David). All misguided. Hal is easy to write if you watch enough Westerns: think of him like a wandering cowboy hero and give him comparable adventures. As for Emerald Twilight itself, DC could have saved themselves more grief just by recasting the parts: make it SInestro who's rampaging towards Oa, and Hal dies stopping him. That way, Hal's fans (among whom I number) would not have felt like we were being served a shit sandwich.

Green lantern Emerald twilight was really interesting

Great video DC forever...but...where did you get that music? that sax is awesome

Green lantern beware my power seemed to adapt emerald twlight with john stewart replacing kyle rayner. I wouldn't mind an adaptation of green lantern rebirth in the tommorowverse.

@MattDraper Can you tell me where you got that picture of Hal Jordan from Emerald Twilight? I have been looking for so long for that image without text.

I wasn't a Batman kid, not a Superman or even The X-Men or Spider-man, sure I watched all those cartoons as a mid 80's kid that grew up in the 90s but when I read comics it was Teen Titans and Green Lantern. To this day there have been 3 works of fiction that have ever effected me deeply on an emotional level. 2 films, What Dreams May Come and A Winters Tale. I was young when I first read ET and it ripped my heart out, but I couldnt stop reading it. Batman is a broken man, he does great things but not someone you should really want to be like, Superman is just better than we could ever be. Hal, Barry, and Wally has always kind of been it for me with Hal being the very best, He struggles but through sheer force of will has overcome insurmountable odds. I met Ron Mars and Darryl Banks at a con and when I saw that Banks had posters of #48 I had to have it signed by them both even though they were on opposite sides of the center. One of my prized possessions.

Let's be honest here Green lantern rebirth ruin this phenomenal story. I would rather read about a hero accepting his darker urges than being controlled by a fear parasite.

I was only 20 when this came out but I remember getting these 3 issues & thought it was great, that 1st scene of Hal as parallax was amazing I always thought Daryl banks was way underrated

Your analysis is missing the fact that the green lantern market was over saturated at this point. DC was publishing GL, Mosaic (John Stewart), a Guy Gardner book and a GL quarterly anthology. Plus, Hal was the leader of the JLE in their book. DC editorial were misguided; in my opinion. If they were do adamant to “break” their toys; they should have committed to it long term. They scrapped all of that for one GL; which to me seems like an unbalanced trade.

Change is needed, but taking away special elements of a beloved series will alienate said fans.

Hal killing the green lantern corps was pretty traumatic for a 13 year old kid. Im 40 now and still have issues from reading those issues. Still in its plastic all these years later like the day i got them.

I am so glad that thanks to this we have Kyle. I am not a big fan of Emerald Twilight, or Hal to an extent. But I always love Kyle, he is not just a great Green lantern but a great character all by himself. Even with stupid shit like the murder of Alex, Kyle remains to this day one of DC's best superheroes

RIP KILOWOG

Right on time

Bringing the HEAT with this one.

I'm in the weird era of comics fan that arrived after Hal's redemption but refuse to see him as the Geoff Johns space Superman. He was more interesting as the fallen hero Parallax in retrospect and every other Earth lantern has more character.

You know listening to the original pitch on where to take Hal with that whole Protector thing? Really makes me glad Parallax & Emerald Twilight happened instead. Like I dunno Hal just ultimately becoming some Automaton for the Guardians & having an "sure" reaction to them killing his Father just doesn't sound like Hal. Controversial as Emerald Twilight is it's far more engaging & we got Kyle out of it so I'm forever thankful for that.

You should cover more gl stories

Westview Westcoast. Scarlet Witch Green Lantern. The heel turn in the end. So did Wandavision rip this off?

This was way too of a drastic and quick change for Hal, it’s extremely out of character with no build up. Thank god Johns retconned this story, and we got the best GL run to date. At least in my opinion.

Oh boy yeah!

Matt, have you been reading Hickman's X relaunch? You'll have to talk about that once it's donde

I’m glad Geoff Johns retconned this terrible mess

The Emerald Twilight story could have worked, if they didn't have the behind the scenes drama or was more properly planned.

I would love to have seen the original version of the story as a special. Also, the original version of Doomsday from Death of Superman before they had to rip out his backstory as an intergalactic escaped mental patient.

You gonna do idw transformers 2005 continuity video essay or something like it?

Well, this changed lasted for two decades. Up to Geoff Johns' run

Seeing Amityville horror, I think Ryan Reynolds could've pulled this off.