Green Lantern: Emerald Twilight/New Dawn

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Green Lantern: Emerald Twilight/New Dawn (Green Lantern)

by Ron Marz, Darryl Banks (Illustrator), Bill Willingham (Goodreads Author) (Illustrator), Derec Aucoin (Illustrator), Steve Carr (Illustrator), Craig Hamilton (Illustrator), Jamal Igle (Illustrator)

3.69 of 5 stars 3.69 · rating details · 184 ratings · 8 reviews

GREEN LANTERN: EMERALD TWILIGHT/NEW DAWN chronicles the tragic fall of one of the universe's greatest heroes and the unpredictable rise of the unlikely man that was chosen to continue his legacy. Centuries ago an ancient race of alien beings called the Guardians sought to maintain order throughout the cosmos by creating the Green Lantern Corps, a battalion of peacekeepers...more

Paperback, 192 pages

Published October 1st 2003 by DC Comics

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Nov 18, 2012 Alan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Ah, good old 1990s superhero comics. Whenever deadlines, work, or any other real world stressor gets the best of me, it’s great to know that I can always turn to the completely mindless, though thoroughly enjoyable, action romps of my youth to dull my senses. I can’t always turn to 1980s superhero comics for this because, while they laid the groundwork for the angst-fuelled “grim ‘n’ gritty” stories of the ‘90s that I poured over as a child, the decade is too well known for stories like Alan Moo...more Ah, good old 1990s superhero comics. Whenever deadlines, work, or any other real world stressor gets the best of me, it’s great to know that I can always turn to the completely mindless, though thoroughly enjoyable, action romps of my youth to dull my senses. I can’t always turn to 1980s superhero comics for this because, while they laid the groundwork for the angst-fuelled “grim ‘n’ gritty” stories of the ‘90s that I poured over as a child, the decade is too well known for stories like Alan Moore’s ‘Watchmen’ and J.M. DeMatteis’ Spider-Man masterpiece, ‘Kraven’s Last Hunt’ – superhero adventures which explored the inner-core of their characters, creating a level of depth that revolutionised this bastard genre. Nor can I turn to the last decade to satiate my need for entertaining testosterone-fuelled heroics. Because, while the 2000s saw some pretty mindless action, it was largely an appeal back to the glory days of the ‘90s, nothing more than a pale imitation (though, just so I don’t give anyone the wrong impression here, there were indeed some incredible superhero comics produced in the 2000s). But the ‘90s – they really were unique in their own way. And, let it be clear that I say none of this disparagingly. For what they were, I absolutely love 1990s superhero comics. The grimness and violence of these “heroes”, and the sheer absurdities of the stories, are so downright fascinating. It’s a world of entertainment that only a select few of us “get”, and colourful action and over-the-top soap operas don’t come any better.

Out of all the many long running superheroes that were redesigned, rekindled and rejuvenated for the “extreme” image of the 1990s, perhaps none are epitomised quite as perfectly as the Green Lantern. And the two stories collected together in this trade paperback, ‘Emerald Twilight’ and ‘New Dawn’, represent the starting point of that new take, reprinting the “last” story of the second-generation (1960s-1990s) Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, and the first story of the third-generation (1990s-2000s) Lantern, Kyle Rayner.

The first story, ‘Emerald Twilight’, depicts the downfall of the greatest of all the Green Lanterns, Hal Jordan. The premise is strong, one of the all-time classics of modern superhero comics, in fact. What could possibly push this brilliant superhero over the edge, cause him to turn against his own allies and become “evil”? How about witnessing the destruction of his hometown, the deaths of millions of people, and being “robbed” (in his eyes) the chance to set everything right again by the very people who gave him his great power in the first place? The idea that even a great hero like Hal Jordan would snap is believable but, unfortunately, the execution is anything but. This is mainly because so much is crammed into so little. The book opens up with Jordan kneeling over in the destructed Coast City with a broken arm (which magically seems to heal 15 panels later). A few pages later, and he’s already snapped. A couple more pages later, and he’s taking out other Green Lanterns and craving power, like a true supervillain. I don’t care how angry Jordan is, but there’s no way he can take on all of those Green Lanterns and come out standing. A potentially brilliant storyline wasted, as we’re rushed through fight scene after fight scene, hurrying Hal Jordan’s descent into madness in an entirely unconvincing manner.

The next story, ‘New Dawn’, introduces us to the new Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner. This is probably the better written of the two stories. Kyle is immediately likable, and so it isn’t entirely surprising that he took off, despite the overwhelmingly negative fan response against turning Hal into an evil supervillain. But it requires some serious suspension of disbelief to follow the premise that this handsome, athletic American young man was randomly selected out of everyone in the world to become the new Green Lantern. And though it’s a compelling idea that Kyle, unlike Jordan and every other Green Lantern in history, has to learn the ropes by himself, the appearance of Superman at exactly right place and time to help him in his first major supervillain battle ruins that all. Deus ex machina is a large problem in this story.

A big gripe I have with this collection as a whole is that it’s incredibly disjointed and incomplete. First of all, we never really learn what actually happened in Coast City and why. In order to get that story, you need to read ‘The Return of Superman’, which is actually the final chapter of a trilogy which began with ‘The Death of Superman’. Then, towards the end of the story, Alan Scott (the original Green Lantern) appears out of nowhere, confusingly filling us in on the exploits of Hal Jordan since he went crazy. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for that stuff to have been collected alongside ‘Emerald Twilight’?

This collection presents one of the modern-day staples of DC Comics lore, the transformation of Hal Jordan into Parallax. The writer, Ron Marz, became a beacon of anger for “destroying” Hal Jordan in such an out-of-character fashion, and I can’t really say that that hatred was unjustified. Furthermore, it also lives on in infamy for the fate of Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend, an episode which has since become synonymous with chauvinism in superhero comics (see: “Women in Refrigerators”). I wanted to love this book, but there are just too many problems with it to make it essential. To be honest, this story is so important to the continuity that you can’t really get into DC Comics without hearing everything you actually need to know about it somewhere else (just about every Green Lantern since, for example). I did enjoy it though, so if you must read it for yourself, and you’re not expecting anything challenging in any way, then you probably won’t go wrong. But it is, ultimately, a missed opportunity.(less)

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Nov 25, 2012 Ardhan Yoga added it Recommends it for: All Green Lantern's fans

This book is an essential core for someone who looks up for the whole Green Lantern mythology. The twist in this story arc is so overwhelming for a hardcore fans. Many fans said their stricture to this saga, yet many more find that this story brought a great impact on the DC universe.
First, Emerald Twilight.
The story tells us about Hal Jordan, the one who many believed as the best Green Lantern, overcome his life's disaster of founding his city, Coast City, where all his life and childhood and m...more This book is an essential core for someone who looks up for the whole Green Lantern mythology. The twist in this story arc is so overwhelming for a hardcore fans. Many fans said their stricture to this saga, yet many more find that this story brought a great impact on the DC universe.
First, Emerald Twilight.
The story tells us about Hal Jordan, the one who many believed as the best Green Lantern, overcome his life's disaster of founding his city, Coast City, where all his life and childhood and memories had been spent, was destroyed by the evil Mongul in the Reign of Superman story arc. Hal was so distressed when he found that his city, with its people have been destroyed so much that even nothing left, just dust and a big hole on the area where Coast City was located then. At first Hal was trying to recreate his city by developing his image of Coast City, with all over included, via his ring. It lasted for a moment, but then it was gone because he used his ring up.
Hal, cannot accept this tragic point of his life, decided to visit Oa to overtake Central Battery and killed everyone who stepped on his way, included his fellow green lantern corps, the guardian, and Sinestro. Luckily there was one guardian left who still lived, and used his power left to make the last green lantern ring and sent it to the earth, to find the new Green Lantern, which lead us to the next event, New Dawn.
The plot is very dynamic, the twisting from the main protagonist to the main villain (when Hal consumed the Central Battery power, he freed Paralax, who consumed his body) was very briliant IMO. The conclusion of the event, Hal's way to overcome his deppresion was so tragic. But twisting the main protagonist was a bold move for then, which made this event became contoversial. This book is very influencing the main Green Lantern universe, and it was worth to read. Extremely worth.
Now for New Dawn.
Kyle Rayner, the earthmen, was lost in the alley when he was approached by the "old blue midget" (or we know as the guardian) and received his Green Lantern ring, but suddenly this old midget dissapeared. Kyle, confused, tried to put on his ring and BAM! He became green lantern, but at first he has no idea what's going on, until he visited Alex, his girlfriend who told him that he is Green Lantern, because he wore the costume as Hal (Which recalled by Alex as the old green lantern). Alex trained Kyle by giving him tips and trick to creating and developing his image into real thing via his ring, even they defeated a suppervillain with Kyle's debut. But when Kyle was in the middle of his training, Mongul appeared and tried to kill him, confused him with Hal Jordan who beated Mongul all out back there when Hal knows what Mongul did to Coast City. Kyle tried to fight, but the gap between their power is so wide. Luckily Superman came and fought Mongul with help of Kyle. This fight gave Kyle his position among other superheroes, moreover Superman admitted that Kyle was great when using his ring.
This New Dawn is a quite fresh story about developing a new character. I like Kyle way better than Jordan, because his personal is gratify. He is laughing a lot, makes jokes, teasing his girlfriend, and so other thing that so boy-ish, make Hal and Clark looks like an uncle. Maybe DC tried to create the character who has an easy going personality like Marvel did to Spidey and Deadpool, and Kyle Rayner is the one. The story itself is refreshing. Giving this story the title as "New Dawn" is just exactly what it is. A new, fresh story about Green Lantern universe which is just destroyed by our loved main character, Hal Jordan. It has so many fun case, like Kyle's arrogance when fighting his first foe, Kyle's imagination about Alex and so many other. And those things had appeared rarely in Green Lantern's issues before this. You'll love Kyle when you read this. This event linked to the arc story "Emerald Fallout", Guy Gardner : Warrior.(less)

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Aug 26, 2012 Kevin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics, green-lantern

- Emerald Twilight 3/5 Stars
This was occurring just as I was getting into comics as a kid. I loved the concept of Parallax and I still think these three issues hold up really well. Hal wracked with the loss of the things he loved and going crazy. He slowly loses his sanity and finally crosses the line. Awesome.

- A New Dawn 1/5 Stars
Then we get the 90's Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner. This story is controversial even today for the death of Kyle's plot device- I mean girlfriend. In re-reading it I f...more

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Dec 11, 2010 Gregory rated it 5 of 5 stars

I really had become interested in Green Lantern following the Death and Return of Superman storyline including the Knightfall trilogy. I didn't care much for Hal Jordan at all before then. After showing Hal's fall from grace and the introduction of Kyle Rayner, I was hooked. I know that some GL fans hate Ron Marz for what he did, that had taken a lot of guts to deconstruct an established character from the ground up.

Marz's run on GL was great and don't listen to some people who have issues with...more

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Feb 11, 2011 Scott rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: dc, graphic-novels, own

This was a good book, but I was looking for more of the Hal Jordan/Parallax storyline then was presented here. Yeah this has a good chunk of it, but really only tells half of a story and then jumps into Kyle Rayner's story. I just wish there was a more comprehensive collection of the Parallax story than what I found here.

That aside, the two completely separate stories told here are great in and of themselves. But you get exactly that, two separate stories.

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Feb 04, 2013 Eric rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: green-lantern

This was decent. The Hal Jordan stuff was interesting and it was cool to finally see how his fall actually went down. Kyle Rayner had a nice introduction, but the death of his girlfriend is as horrible as its reputation says it is.

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Dec 18, 2010 Justin rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Green Lantern fans

Recommended to Justin by: Everyone

Shelves: comics

Four stars, but tentatively. The two stories are great, but New Dawn contains a moment that feminists rally against (probably rightly; although it works in the story, it's indicative of a larger problem in comics).

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Jun 17, 2009 James rated it 4 of 5 stars

It was very enjoyable to see an overrated character snap and transition into an actually interesting ring bearer.

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Dec 09, 2008 Andrew Lenards rated it 3 of 5 stars

It's tough seeing Hal Jordan an a villian, but enjoyed the collection overall.

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May 20, 2013 Malik Peña rated it 5 of 5 stars

May 16, 2013 Aaron marked it as dc-comics

May 10, 2013 Brendan Ferraro rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels-read-in-2013, graphic-novels

May 04, 2013 John marked it as to-read

May 13, 2013 Guilherme Bernardo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Apr 30, 2013 David rated it 3 of 5 stars

Apr 25, 2013 Ciaran Lee rated it 5 of 5 stars

Apr 11, 2013 Alex marked it as to-read

Apr 10, 2013 Lucas rated it 4 of 5 stars

Apr 07, 2013 Raditya Pratama marked it as to-read

Shelves: graphic-novels

Mar 23, 2013 Jcorle00 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Mar 21, 2013 Eric Moss rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels

Mar 06, 2013 Tema marked it as to-read

Shelves: comics

Apr 04, 2013 Mitchell added it

Feb 22, 2013 Cristian Stier rated it 4 of 5 stars

Feb 21, 2013 Scribblescribe rated it 3 of 5 stars

Feb 20, 2013 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

Feb 16, 2013 Crosby Carpenter marked it as to-read

Feb 14, 2013 Reggie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics

Feb 12, 2013 Marvin Asuncion marked it as to-read

Feb 03, 2013 Joshua Wayne rated it 4 of 5 stars

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About Ron Marz

Marz is well known for his work on Silver Surfer and Green Lantern, as well as the Marvel vs DC crossover and Batman/Aliens. He also worked on the CrossGen Comics series Scion, Mystic, Sojourn, and The Path. At Dark Horse Comics he created Samurai: Heaven and Earth and various Star Wars comics. He has also done work for Devil’s Due Publishing’s Aftermath line, namely Blade of Kumori. In 1995, he h...more

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