Covering Convergence: Tony Bedard Talks Green Lantern/Parallax

Evil Hal Jordan is coming back to DC Comics...well, kind of.

It's not even a matter of Convergence being a world-in-a-bottle type of story, where the heroes of the Zero Hour era will be seen as they were in that era -- but also that, stripped of Parallax's power and influence, Hal Jordan will be spending the first bit of Convergence in a jail cell, where he's being held after having killed the Green Lantern Corps.

Of course, in the main line DC Comics continuity, it was later revealed that his actions as Parallax were not acts of madness but essentially possession by a powerful parasite that preyed on the latent fear in the mind of its host. So this Hal is genuinely remorseful, and the question becomes what will happen when he gets his powers back as the dome comes down...!

Series writer Tony Bedard joined us to discuss Convergence: Green Lantern/Parallax.

You've done some Green Lantern work, but always in the Yellow Cosmic Fear Bug era, when it was assumed that Hal was "possessed" not crazy. Will you be playing with that a little bit in this story?

Tony Bedard: I have Kyle drawing a distinction between Hal and Parallax, essentially saying that Hal didn't kill the GLC and the Guardians, Parallax did. But he's saying that assuming Parallax is like a split personality, not that its really the Fear Entity. This is before the Emotional Spectrum and the different color entities were even known of. For the most part, I tried to play the story true to what was known back when ZERO HOUR came out.

Obviously Hal/Parallax was sometimes able to overcome his baser urges to be somewhat more heroic; it certainly seems like that's a key theme of this story. What can you tell us about this version of Hal?

Bedard: CONVERGENCE: GREEN LANTERN/PARALLAX is definitely about Kyle trying to reach Hal's more heroic aspects lurking inside his Parallax persona. In the year that they've been under the dome, Hal has been more himself and he's taken responsibility for the things he did as Parallax. That's been plenty of time for Kyle to befriend him, and that friendship is tested when the dome comes down.

All that said, even if the dome is cutting Kyle off from charging his ring, Hal's powers are intenal. Do we know why it's affecting him?

Bedard: The assumption I made is that the green energy, whether it's in Kyle's ring or Hal's body, has been essentially dormant under the dome. Neither of them could access it.

Are we going to see any other characters from the GL mythology in this issue? Is that a bit problematic, since the story takes place in Metropolis so you kind of have to explain where everyone comes from?

Bedard: I managed to keep it just to Hal and Kyle. At this point in time, the other GLs were dead, and I didn't bring Guy or John into it. We only had 2 issues to work with, after all, and I wanted to keep the focus on Hal and Kyle and their friendship.

Is this just before the events of Zero Hour, or just after? Obviously we had very different versions of Hal in each of those time periods.

Bedard: Um…is "during" a good answer…? Actually, I'd say it's just before the universe rebooted. Parallax had just met the heroes in Metropolis and beaten down Superman when the dome went up.

Most of the Week 2 books are dealing with incursions from Kingdom Come. Will that play a role here, or is this more a character piece dealing with Hal and Kyle?

Bedard: No Kingdom Come presence in GREEN LANTERN/PARALLAX. In fact, their adversary is the last person you'd think of: the daughter of Lady Quark who appeared on, like, 1 or 2 pages of CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. And while there's some cool stuff with her, the focus is definitely on Hal and Kyle. It's less a question of if they can beat Princess Fern and more of a question of whether Kyle can bring Hal back to his senses once the power of Parallax consumes him.

Obviously Ron Marz, who orchestrated this whole period in GL's publishing history, is working on Convergence as well. Have you talked to him at all?

Bedard: I haven't. Ron and I are friends from our days at CrossGen comics, and I was a big fan of his GL run when it first came out. But spending a few years writing GREEN LANTERN CORPS and GREEN LANTERN: NEW GUARDIANS left me feeling very, very comfortable writing Kyle and Hal, so I went ahead and just told my story. But I'm definitely looking forward to reading Ron's CONVERGENCE stuff!