Green Lantern not an A list character? (2025)

It's odd that Green Lantern never reached the fame of Batman & Superman when it comes for movies or cartoons.

Was it because of the horrible 2011 Green Lantern movie making the character look bad?.

The Green Lantern brand had a chance, but I feel that it was an over-reliance on nostalgia that crippled it. That and the watering down with the rainbow corps. It just cheapened the uniqueness of the ring.

Also, if they didn't make the whole thing about "what kind of hijinks will Hal get into next?" they could have built up the characters around him to strengthen the GL brand as a whole. There was every opportunity to explore the universe and go to different world's. Maybe interstellar battles between other alien life they could have engaged in. Instead, all we got was different colored rings and more lanterns that just watered it all down.

I really used to love Green Lantern. Now I can't tolerate the brand.

kingmyth said:

It's odd that Green Lantern never reached the fame of Batman & Superman when it comes for movies or cartoons.

Was it because of the horrible 2011 Green Lantern movie making the character look bad?.

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NO that movie had nothing to do with it.

Unlike Batman & Superman-you had more than one Green Lantern in a lead/co-starring role on a show.

Thus the legendary war of Hal vs John fans.

While certain fanboys in posts of power want Hal and others want John.

Hal has the advantage as folks in charge like him-thus the books and merchandise.

John does not outside of Justice League related stuff.

While many hope the GLC movie will do that-that hope is dashed with Hal fan number one Johns & the guy who ruined the Blade franchise in charge. And the mindset for many is John will NEVER be equal to Hal-no matter the loss of profit it brings.

You want an A list franchise-you have to balance the attention out. It seems to work for the Power Rangers.

It was multiple things. There was time when GL was the biggest thing in DC. People were calling for Hal to replace Wondie in the trinity.

The movie killed a lot of the cross-media momentum the franchise was getting. Then when Geoff Johns left the title so did much of it;s comic fan base. It was a slow process of one meh storyline after another until that whole renegade Hal Jordan thing put the final nail in the franchises coffin.

Wow, I just happened to finish some YouTube vids where various YouTubers were discussing the upcoming movie and acting like he is not.

Sigh

For me, it looks like the big mistake that DC made was not capitalizing on the success of Green Lantern when there was all this momentum from the VERY WELL RECEIVED, VERY WELL WATCHED cartoon series and video game (Justice League Heroes)

Rather than do that, they were busy trying to make Hal Jordan happen. A similar storyline went on with Barry--it was just easier for Barry to 'pass'. Is he A list? Not the way that Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are A list. They are iconic and from a performative standpoint are in a club all their own having been the only three to endure the great collapse.

From a comic reader's standpoint, I do feel Green Lantern WAS A list. There was a time that the Justice League felt incomplete without Green Lantern. However, DC kind of thumbed its nose at its rich history with Flashpoint/52 and that kind of killed the A-list status for the next tier heroes like Flash and Green Lantern. Aquaman was saved by virtue of being the darling of Geoff Johns eye. Poor Martian Manhunter may never recover.

Today the A-list is short. The Trinity are A-list.

Then there is everybody else.

skyvolt2000 said:

NO that movie had nothing to do with it.

Unlike Batman & Superman-you had more than one Green Lantern in a lead/co-starring role on a show.

Thus the legendary war of Hal vs John fans.

While certain fanboys in posts of power want Hal and others want John.

Hal has the advantage as folks in charge like him-thus the books and merchandise.

John does not outside of Justice League related stuff.

While many hope the GLC movie will do that-that hope is dashed with Hal fan number one Johns & the guy who ruined the Blade franchise in charge. And the mindset for many is John will NEVER be equal to Hal-no matter the loss of profit it brings.

You want an A list franchise-you have to balance the attention out. It seems to work for the Power Rangers.

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Please, before Hal vs John it was Hal vs Kyle. And back when that was happening it seemed like Kyle had way more "fanboys" in charge than Hal did. That didn't stop the GL book from having Batman sales about a decade later. This has nothing to do with fanboy wars about who should carry a legacy mantle. Fans have been arguing about Barry vs Wally way before John Stewart showed up on that cartoon, and yet Flash is clearly A-list, regardless of who is the "main" Flash. Green Lantern has proven to be A-list in the past regardless of who is the so-called face of the brand as well, what keeps that brand from really getting off the ground is naturally incompetent decisions. The movie's performance was a result of incompetent decisions, the sales drop was the same thing. We can sit here and debate all we want about how DC treats this Green Lantern as compared to that Green Lantern, the fact is they don't seem to have their act together about the Green Lantern property in general. When it comes to GL there doesn't seem to be much of a planning going on, they seem to be flying by the seat of their pants, much like the guy they like to call the greatest of all Green Lanterns tends to do. Flash got off the ground because it was handled the right way by the right people, and the current Rebirth sales can attest to that. The Flash fanboy wars didn't stop that from happening, didn't stop the character from having a popular TV show and it won't stop it from doing anything until DC just drops the ball with him. Flash had an overall solid plan and undoubtedly a solid execution, Green Lantern simply needs the same thing, regardless of which character is riding shotgun.

Maximum said:

The Green Lantern brand had a chance, but I feel that it was an over-reliance on nostalgia that crippled it. That and the watering down with the rainbow corps. It just cheapened the uniqueness of the ring.

Also, if they didn't make the whole thing about "what kind of hijinks will Hal get into next?" they could have built up the characters around him to strengthen the GL brand as a whole. There was every opportunity to explore the universe and go to different world's. Maybe interstellar battles between other alien life they could have engaged in. Instead, all we got was different colored rings and more lanterns that just watered it all down.

I really used to love Green Lantern. Now I can't tolerate the brand.

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This is a great post.

Well, Green Lantern was never an A-list property. DC have three of those, the Trinity. Those three characters have way more recognition value than anyone else. Pretty much anyone over the age of 3 and under the age of 80 would recognise a picture of Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman if it was put in front of them. That's not the case with anyone else. Not amongst DC's rota of characters anyway.

The GL property certainly worked wonders for a long period though. You can boil this down to DC's top writer being given 9 years to build the brand up and deepen the characters universe and mythology. Johns' influence was enough to propel the GL books to the highest echelons of both the sales charts and DC's publishing schedule. Crossover events like 'Sinestro Corps War' and 'Blackest Night' were essential reading at the time and positioned GL firmly in the centre of the DCU. Even non-GL fans were picking them up. Once Johns left (which was an inevitability) and the increasingly regular crossover events started to give diminishing returns then the brand stagnated and tumbled down DC's pecking order in terms of importance.

The 2011 film didn't help. It was a major disappointment and got a deserved kicking at box office. That film could, and should, have been so much better. All it needed was a strong director and a unified vision as opposed to being made by committee. That never works well in Hollywood. Thing is, had the GL comics not been such a storming success at the time, that film would never have gotten off the drawing board.

Please don't let the 'Well, they focused on the wrong GL' argument hold sway. It's just rubbish. Some GL fans suffer from a perpetual sense of grievance, often rooted in hindsight and at odds with reality. The franchise was always gonna lose momentum after Johns left. He certainly did favour Hal Jordan as the lead character in the franchise but it paid massive dividends for DC for years. Legacy characters always create bitter factions amongst fans, particularly those that feel that their favourite isn't getting his or her due. The huge sales that the Johns-era GL titles enjoyed are ample evidence that focusing more on Hal than the other Lanterns (all of whom I'm a fan of incidentally) helped the franchise prosper, not held it back.

NeathBlue said:

The DC 'A list' has always been Superman, Batman and WW.
The reason they are is because they continued to be popular through the Golden Age even when all the others disappeared.
The Silver Age Flash and Green Lantern (Barry and Hal) are probably an A- if that makes any sense, as they were the two characters who gave superheroes another breath of life.
Everyone else is a B lister or lower...

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Batman and Superman are just about no brainers.

But Wonder Woman? I can't see how she's in category above Flash...for me absolutely pivotal in DC history...Dick Grayson, and Green Lantern.

JackDaw said:

Batman and Superman are just about no brainers.

But Wonder Woman? I can't see how she's in category above Flash...for me absolutely pivotal in DC history...Dick Grayson, and Green Lantern.

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It's simple really. There's only ONE Wonder Woman, and that is Diana. She's also had an ongoing comic since she debuted in 1941, no other character apart from Batman and Superman can claim that.

Dick has only recently gotten his own title but before that he was just a lame sidekick. Plus it seems Damian is getting more love than him in outside media.

As for The Flash and Green Lantern well there are multiple versions of each character (unlike the Trinity) which has resulted in massive fan wars. Plus GL isn't even in the upcoming JL movie which just shows how important DC/WB view that mantle.