The book has started to close on Secret Empire, and you might be surprised to find out how the beloved Green Lantern: Rebirth informed the story’s ending.
Spoilers incoming for both Green Lantern: Rebirth and Secret Empire #10, so if you haven’t read those books yet you’ve been warned.
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Secret Empire writer Nick Spencer has made his intentions with the storyline very clear, and that included leaving the original Captain America as he found him, untainted by the actions of Hydra Cap.
Some have an issue with this decision, but Spencer revealed to Word Balloon that some of it was informed by Geoff Johns’ work in Green Lantern Rebirth.
“I think that I’ve talked about this example before, but I have enormous respect for the Hal Jordan Parallax story,” Spencer told John Suntries. “For me when you read the through-line of the Parallax story it’s really compelling, and then when you see what Geoff Johns does in Rebirth and how he kind of explains Parallax, I think it’s all really well done.”
There is one issue though with Hal’s storyline that bothers him, and it all comes down to culpability.
“There’s one thing about just as a fan that drives me crazy, which is in the story Hal Jordan has kind of a moment of weakness where the stress of the job is starting to get to him in the face of real adversity, and that gives Parallax that small opening to then infect Hal. As much as I like all the elements of that story, it always drives me crazy that there’s still a moment of culpability. There’s still a thing of Hal had this moment of weakness and that’s what let Parallax in the door and all the things that happened after that is a result of that,” Spencer said.
Spencer didn’t want any questioning of Rogers’ intentions or motives, and so used that as a guide when crafting the ending to Secret Empire.
“So when I was sitting down and breaking this story down, I was like I don’t want Steve to have that moment of weakness,” Spencer said. “That I want everybody in the Marvel Universe to look at what happened to Steve and say “there was no way you could’ve prevented that.” There’s no moment of weakness, there’s no error. There’s no example of carelessness or whatever that opens the door for all these things.”
That intention in itself might rub some the wrong way, but Spencer is okay with that.
“If you feel in any way that the ending is a cop out or a way of shielding Steve from thee things, I will happily take that over “the thing you did didn’t fix the character and now I view him as a fascist human who destroyed a city and killed a bunch of people,” Spencer said.
Ironically DC heroes are more known for being shielded from true flaws, something that has become a defining trait in Marvel Characters. It seems in this case the two have flipped, but despite not being “culpable”, Rogers is going to have an uphill climb in order to gain the public’s trust once again.
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