Green Lantern’s Grant Morrison Talks Hal Jordan’s Journey (and His Own)
Hal Jordan has returned to the spotlight as The Green Lantern – as writer Grant Morrison returns to the roots of the ring-slinging hero.
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Fans of Hal Jordan had no idea what to expect when it was announced that Grant Morrison would be taking the helm of The Green Lantern, a brand new adventure for the DC space cop. But few at the time would have guessed the story so far.
Together with artist Liam Sharp, The Green Lantern sent Hal diving back into the beloved Lantern lore, and into a mission to save the entire universe from the villainous Blackstars. A fight Hal won by joining the dark faction, and rewriting reality to stand against Earth’s heroes alongside Belzebeth the cosmic vampire. Of course, Hal would eventually turn the tables and restore order to the universe, setting the stage for The Green Lantern: Season Two, awarding him a new power ring with new abilities, and ushering in the new generation of Guardians of the Universe. Needless to say, When Screen Rant got the chance to speak with Morrison about the latest twists in Hal Jordan’s life, we had some pressing questions. And for those looking, The Green Lantern is available now digitally from DC Comics and through comiXology.
When you first were announced to be writing Green Lantern, Dan DiDio said you seemed inspired by the idea almost instantly, coming up with ideas of where you would want to take Hal Jordan as a space cop. Did that story develop the way you originally thought of it, or were there changes or surprises along the way?
Grant Morrison: No, I mean I kind of knew it where it was going but, as with everything, on the way, when you’re actually treading the road and not just following the map you find out all kinds of new things. So yeah, I knew I wanted to do it but it changed along the way a little bit and it became more complicated or complex for me and more interesting, I think.
The first twelve issues built up to effectively rewriting reality, based on a thought. Goodbye Green Lanterns, meet Hal Jordan, the elite Blackstar. When did you realize that was the ending you were building towards for that first year? How did this story take shape to follow that story?
Well I always wanted to put Hal Jordan in a position where he had to make some kind of ultimate decision. Because part of the character is that he thinks really fast on his feet. That’s one of his great abilities, apart from his superpowers, you know? The guy thinks fast. You can throw him into a situation and he’ll think quickly and solve the problem. So it started from the beginning of what could be the ultimate challenge, and The Miracle Machine that was around was a part of the DC lore that connected to the Controllers, which connected to the Guardians, which connected to the Green Lanterns. So it just seemed like… let’s force this guy who basically has a wishing ring, and constantly uses his will to make thoughts into things. Let’s put him in a position where he has to change the entire universe in order to save the universe. What will he do, and how will it play out? Blackstars is kind of the story of how that plays out. This putting him in this ultimate challenge. The will power of man. What will he do? He has one wish to change everything.
That point comes across that there is no going back for Hal, and the Blackstars, and Controller Mu. This feels like a big, big shifting of power and almost inevitability.
Yeah, what we wanted to do was dissolve that barrier as well you know, the whole Blackstar thing is really a kind of black mirror image of the Green Lantern series. Which is hopeful, it’s upbeat, it’s about rightness and light and law and order. It’s about conquest and greed. So that’s part of it as well – the flip side of Green Lantern seeing the light and brightness and hope, and this about the darkness and mean-spiritedness and a kind of seething cynicism. So I think that, again, that’s part of how he deals with that, how does he come out of that one? How does he solve that problem? But yeah, it’s that weird twisted romance almost, an anti-romance, a vampire’s romance.
What’s interesting about it for me, once I got into [Blackstar Belzebeth], she is in control, you know, everything is seen through her eyes. Then second she is a bit of a portrayal of the Justice League and Superman is probably one of the cynical, ridiculous, cruel, mocking person I’ve ever done and I felt ashamed doing it . But it’s from her eyes, it’s through her eyes and we see everything through her eyes and it’s just prey.
Was that something you came up with that would allow you to be able to talk about the kind of things with this depiction of the Justice League?
Yeah, I mean honestly a little bit of both. To have a character like her who is so dedicated to being evil, she doesn’t care, she’s a vampire, she wants to consume the entire planet, she doesn’t care that there’s creatures that live on them. It’s a sociopathic character, but having her as a kind of point of view allowed me to go to places that I normally wouldn’t go. I’m like almost ashamed, and I have to apologize to some of my peers in the comic book industry [laughs].
You’ve said before that you write from a place of trying to communicate something to people, and using these characters that may be sacred, living, breathing, real people to fans, to do it. I’m curious to know what readers should take away from this story, because it could be seen as very, very bleak. Especially for people who love Hal Jordan to win.
Yeah, well honestly they just have to stick with the story. But yeah, they’re right – it’s bleak, it’s Halloween, you know kind of Belzebeth, it’s a vampire’s view of the universe. But it’s also… I don’t like bleakness for its own sake. Bleakness for bleakness’ sake. It’s funny, and in order to make it funny in a way that’s quite dark and, like I said, soothing and mocking and satirical, it’s how we’ve managed to undercut the darkness and the nastiness of it.
There is a lot of familiar DC lore that you’re dealing with and exploring, and changing as this story goes on. Should fans expect the status quo to continue to change?
Yeah, I mean all that plays out. Mongul had a role to play, all of them do. They’re not in there as window dressing, they’re all part of the story and they’ll play out. But like I said, it’s quite dark, you know, it’s: how does Hal get out of something like this? And also the question is: does the Blackstar way actually work? It does bring peace to planets, but it brings peace in a completely controlling way. So we have to decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
A lot of your writing in the DC Universe, and especially in the past few years, is often dealing with metafiction, almost making the reader not just an active participant in the story, but a necessary one. The Green Lantern: Season One was obviously dealing with some wild cosmic stuff, but was that decision to really dig into Hal’s story, his characters, his perspective, a conscious one? And is that something you’re sticking? Because it seems like you’re enjoying yourself.
Yeah, I’m loving it. I set rules for my stuff you know. And I’ve compared it to those filmmakers from the ’90s I think, you know the films had to be black and white, and they had to do this… so I kind of set myself rules that I wasn’t going to do the metafiction thing, I wasn’t going to do the usual stuff, and it was really just about telling stories about this guy. And if I was 14 years old again, these are the comic books that I would like to read. So I went into it like that, with very specific regulations around what I was going to do and it helped hone the stories into a particular tone. Then Liam transcends anything I write. He’s so good, that I can just give him a really silly idea and he would turn it into the best comic you’ve ever seen. So there was a decision that I’m going to stick to this. This is about Green Lantern and it’s not about metafiction. It’s not about the writer or the audience, it’s just about the comic and that’s what I think it’s been. So other than a bit of critique about comic books in [Blackstars #2], I think, there’s still that, but Blackstars is a little bit more neutral, but Green Lantern isn’t.
That feels like that would be a spiritual exercise, writing for your younger self.
Yeah, I’m trying to write like when I was a kid and I used to make up comic books, and shit would just pour out of your head. So there’s less filter, you know, I’ve learned enough to be able to control it. But that urge of you know what’s the next great thing, what’s the next mad thing I want to see, so I’ve been doing it like that. It kind of flows out and I’m not filtering it and I’m letting it be like a kid would think.
Do you think this story would be taking these same turns if you hadn’t placed those rules there for yourself?
No it wouldn’t, because it’s very much about the story. I mean, I used to get away with it because you’d say this isn’t what the story’s about – it’s about all this clever other stuff. And then you can just go read up online, and yeah, hey – the story is bigger than you think. But this one is really about the story, and there are a lot of things going on always. But, it’s not about, he’s a Green Lantern and here’s what that means on the 5th dimension. It’s just here’s his life and here’s what it’s like and this happens, and this happens, and this happens. Because he’s a space cop and alarms go off every five minutes.
The Green Lantern is available now digitally from DC Comics and through comiXology.
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