Is Hal Jordan Really the Greatest Lantern of All Time?

Hal Jordan is back in the spotlight thanks to Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp’s Green Lantern series, and it prompted us to ask a big question, one that gets bandied about from time to time and starts arguments left and right: is Hal the greatest Lantern of all time?

It’s not like there’s no significant competition for the title, after all. So with Lanterns like Kilowog, Guy Gardner, Kyle Rayner, Sinestro, and others as competition, what sets Hal apart from the rest? We’re going to consider a few factors, including sheer power and ability, but being a Lantern is also about what obstacles you’ve overcome along the way. Everyone is human (well, not everyone is strictly human, but you get the point) after all, and more important than falling itself is how fast you manage to get back up. Being a Lantern takes not only trust in the system, but also an ability to go outside of it when the situation calls, and most of all it requires heart. Does Jordan have all that? We’re about to find out, because it’s time to put Hal under the microscope.

Jordan has quite a bit of history to unpack, but let’s start out on a more even playing field. Every Lantern wields a Power Ring and is only limited by their imagination. Some are more creative with their constructs or put more effort into defining them, but few get the job done quite like Jordan. That’s a small thing in the grand scheme of it all, but then you also have to consider what Jordan has done with the power of will outside of just ring-slinging. Jordan at one point literally became pure willpower, destroying one of the Lantern’s greatest foes Sinestro in the process, even though he did eventually come back because, you know, comics.

Not only that, but name another Lantern who’s ever created their own ring? Sure Sinestro gave Hal a ring he said he created at one point, but that was merely a construct — though an impressive one to be sure. So in the power department, Hal is pretty high, but here’s where it gets tricky.

While Hal is one of the most respected Lanterns, he also has just about the worst rap sheet this side of Sinestro. After Coast City was destroyed by Hank Henshaw and Mongul, Jordan frankly lost it, killing several Lanterns for their Power Rings and all the Guardians save for Ganthet in order to restore his lost city. Once the plan was foiled, he kept that power and attempted to rewrite the universe in “Zero Hour”, and though that ended up only making a few changes to the timeline, it remains a pretty big blot on his record.

The only Lantern to actually get in his way during all this was Kyle Rayner, a then newly recruited Lantern by Ganthet who was the sole Lantern in the universe for a time with Hal’s old ring. Hal (at this point going by Parallax) tried to take it from him, but Rayner ended up convincing him to let him keep it. At that point, Hal went off into space, but the first step of his redemption was already on the way thanks to the Sun Eater.

The previous two paragraphs are pretty damning, but hear me out. After all of this, Hal would then go on to save the Earth from the aforementioned Sun Eater, absorbing it into himself and dieing in the process. That’s definitely a heroic way to go out, but he wasn’t done. Later the mantle of the Spectre needed a host, and while not all were sold on it, Hal (in purgatory at this point) was up for the job, convincing the Spectre to join him after a pure and honest reveal about how he didn’t deserve it. That’s the second step to redemption.

The third step involves “Rebirth”, which put his previous killing spree and Parallax days into context. As we learn it was the Guardians that opened the door to all that when they kept Parallax (the fear entity) inside the Power Battery. When Coast City happened, Hal let fear in, and thus the entity infected his ring and drove him forward into lunacy, causing him to do all those things. He still did them, mind you, and he knows that, but it wasn’t his fault that it happened in the first place.

That’s the thing with Hal Jordan, and something “Rebirth” managed to leave intact. The reason why Hal Jordan is the greatest Lantern of all time is not because he’s the most heroic (that would probably go to Kyle Rayner), the toughest (Kilowog or Guy Gardner), or the best leader (John Stewart). He’s the greatest Lantern because of what he’s overcome and lived to tell the tale. A Lantern takes an oath about fighting in brightest day and brightest night, and as Hal has learned, that applies even when the evil is inside you. He still kept pushing, kept trying to make things right and overcome his past, and now he’s as respected as he ever was.

That takes heart. That takes determination, and most importantly it takes willpower, and thanks to those flaws and bumps along the way, Hal can safely say he’s the role model of what a Lantern should be.