Some things are the same no matter the timeline.
What They Say:
FLASH FACT! He never got the ring!
The Review:
While we’ve had some radical changes here and there with characters, one that didn’t get changed all that much is that of Hal Jordan. So much so that the opening few pages of his youth and defining characteristics are laid out pretty much the same as every other version of him presented to readers and audiences for the last decade or more. So much so that in starting this Flashpoint version of the character, there’s a fear that we were going to get largely the same thing, making it fairly redundant. While we know that Hal hasn’t become Green Lantern earlier in his life like in the main continuity, having had the Abin Sur book already, it’s apparent that it was really needed because he hasn’t grown up otherwise. The reckless and inconsistent boy and young man that he was is exactly who he still is.
The problem is that with the war that’s raging now across the world, his kind of actions can cause a whole lot more problems. Because of the scale of events that are going on, the government has brought a lot of things under its purview and that includes Ferris Aircraft. With the planes that they have and the experienced pilots that can at least do recon, they’re able to handle coastal patrol a fair bit. The problem is that even though the world is at war, people are coping with it in rather predictable ways. For Hal, he’s acting like he always does and spends a lot of his time still trying to woo Carol at some really bad times. It’s a very forced series of events even if you do go with the usual idea that fighter pilots and test pilots live their lives with this kind of humor in order to cope with the stress. There’s such an emphasis on his reckless behavior that it simply comes across as being a worse thing here.
Where it tries to change up the origin story beyond just including the war in it is when while out on patrol with Carol, the two have King Shark literally jump into the air and onto Hal’s plane. Of course, there are no real introductions here and Shark has some of the worst dialogue and motivation here, which is saying a lot, because his entire presence is summed up with “Die, airbreathers!” And honestly, that didn’t work thirty years ago in comics, never mind now. The whole flight and action sequence is awkward in general because of how it unfolds and the silliness of it, which is made worse by the awful dialogue. I mean, we get it that Jordan is cocky and reckless. We’ve seen it a million times over. But he’s not this bad with the jokes and the sushi one isn’t even groan inducing. It’s the type that makes you put the book down and shake your head in disbelief that someone got paid to write that.
Digital Notes:
This digital edition of the Hal Jordan from Comixology features just the first printing cover of the issue with no additional extras included in the book.
In Summary:
Hal Jordan has some obvious changes to the origin, but it’s more in the set dressing overall than in the real meat of the character. The shift of the war being what keeps him flying while being a cocky and annoying bastard is something fits in terms of updating it for this timeline, but it doesn’t actually make it enjoyable. In fact, because there are realistically so little changes made to the origin, it’s too much of a retread and not all that interesting. While other books with familiar characters haven’t exhibited much in the way of deja vu, it’s all we get here and it reminds us heavily of just how the tweaking of Hal’s origins of the years have made him more and more of an ass in an attempt to portray him as reckless. Hopefully the next two issues will provide some real alterations to things and actually have fun with the ground in which it can play, but so far this one is leaving me thoroughly disenchanted.
Grade: C-
