DC Earth One Made One Change To Green Lantern That I’m Amazed Took So Long

Green Lantern has fought evil with the power of will on his side for decades, and DC’s Earth One graphic novel series finally made a major and long-incoming alteration to Hal Jordan’s backstory. DC Earth One was a graphic novel label in which many of DC’s most famous heroes and villains were re-imagined with radically new origin stories and heroic journeys (similar to DC’s ongoing and highly popular Absolute Universe). These included DC Earth One’s versions of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, while Hal Jordan also got a very memorable Earth One treatment in both volumes of Green Lantern Earth One.

Among the alterations to the Green Lantern canon made by Earth One, Hal’s fellow Green Lantern John Stewart begins in DC Earth One as a Yellow Lantern, and that’s just one change. Right alongside it is Hal’s pre-Green Lantern occupation taking him into space as a de facto astronaut. Given Green Lantern’s very space-heavy adventures, this was one of the most compelling changes Green Lantern Earth One made to his origin story.

Hal Jordan Finally Becomes an Astronaut in Green Lantern Earth One

In DC Earth One’s re-imagining of the Green Lantern mythos, Ferris Galactic is a deep space mining company harvesting minerals from asteroids. Hal Jordan is a space miner employed by Ferris who stumble across an alien spacecraft on one of the mined asteroids, and with it the Power Ring and battery alongside the deceased Lantern Abin Sur. From there, Green Lantern Earth One takes Hal on a wild space-faring adventure and his new origin story as a Green Lantern, but it also does something completely new in effective making Hal Jordan into an astronaut.

To be sure, Hal isn’t a NASA space explorer from NASA, but the nature of his job mining asteroids calls upon him to undergo effectively the same kind training as a traditional astronaut in order to deal with the inherent dangers of space. Given that being a Green Lantern essentially puts Hal through astronaut training of a different, alien sort, his new space mining job helped make his re-imagining in Green Lantern Earth One another of the comic book lines many compelling changes to DC’s iconic heroes.

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Hal Jordan’s Test Pilot Background Fits Green Lantern (but Earth One Takes Him to His Natural Evolution)

In traditional DC lore, Hal Jordan has a more Top Gun-esque backstory as a test pilot, which has always suited him well in his Green Lantern origin story. Hal as a pilot established him as daring, thrill-seeking, and above all fearless, all qualities required of new recruits to the Green Lantern Corps. Hal’s fearlessness would eventually become an even more essential quality in the Green Lantern mythos with the concept of each Lantern Corps representing a specific emotion, such as green embodying will and yellow embodying fear.

With the Sinestro Corps specifically tied to the yellow energy of fear, the capacity to overcome fear through will is a trait shared by Hal Jordan, John Stewart, and all other human and alien Green Lanterns alike. Hal being a test pilot (or John being a Marine) made their backstories thematically fitting for Green Lanterns, but by taking Hal to the stars as a space miner before his beginning as a Lantern placed him into an even more natural space for a human Lantern to emerge from.

Hal Jordan (Or Any Green Lantern) as an Astronaut Took Too Long, but It Was Worth the Wait

Whether it is Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Kyle Rayner, Guy Gardner, or any other human or alien Green Lantern, all fall under the job description of “space cop”. While it might seem a little on the nose to place Hal that much close to his eventual role in the Green Lantern Corps with an occupation that takes him to space, it is ultimately highly fitting for a Green Lantern re-imagining story, as if Hal has literally been called to the stars his whole life, with the Power Ring giving him to ability to go further than he ever thought possible.

The fact that it took until the DC Earth One era to place either Hal Jordan or any other human Lantern into space as a direct foundation of their Green Lantern origin story is, in hindsight, a little surprising to reflect upon. Nonetheless, with the sprawling space adventure that Green Lantern Earth One delivers upon right from its origin of Hal Jordan as a miner in an astronaut suit, it was decidedly an adventure that delivered in spades upon its belated arrival, and one that still holds up as an enthralling re-imaging of the Green Lantern mythos.