What are the best of the best Hal Jordan Green Lantern collections?

[vanillacyke]

Over the past year I've been really getting into DC, I've been getting all the great Batman trades and hardcovers (e.x. DKR, Year One, Long Halloween, Dark Victory, A Death in the family etc.) Now I want to get the best books featuring Hal Jordan. I'm planning on getting Green Lantern Rebirth and DC the New Frontier Absolute edition when it comes out but what are some other great Jordan stories? Also if there are any other real good Green Lantern stories that focus on other lanterns I'd like to hear what they are too. Thanks for any help guys and gals.

[astronato]

Hal's best stuff hasn't been collected yet but there are a couple of trades I've enjoyed.

Emerald Dawn 1 and 2

Willworld

The Legend of the Green Flame

Green Lantern/Green Arrow Volumes 1 and 2

and yes, New Frontier was terrific.

Get the Best of Allan Moore at DC trade, it's got three very good Green Lantern Corp stories, one of which includes Mogo, the sentient planet GL. It's really good stuff.

others have listed their favorites here: http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=66402

[SouthtownKid]

My favorite GL era is from a period of time when DC didn't do so many collections...so it's never been collected. Green Lantern (volume 2) from the '80s. Especially the second Joe Staton run from around #180-200.

The Green Lantern/Green Arrow: "Hard-Travelling Heroes" is probably my favorite of the Hal stuff that has been collected. It's very '60s, but holds up well, and is probably the single most important arc as far as defining the character goes.

The Emerald Dawn books are good, although over the years, I've started to have problems with them. The first is that they make Hal a hard-luck loser who blames all his problems on outside forces rather than taking responsibility himself. And they made him possibly an alcoholic. At the time, I thought those things humanized the character, but now I'm not so sure. Now I'm more of the mind that a drunk who blames a billboard for the car crash that put his best friend in the hospital is not more human; he's just a jackass.

The other problem is that the Emerald Dawn books start Hal off as really questioning the Guardians' judgement, and being kind of a maveric. The problem with that, is that is what he becomes later. If you have him start out that way, it completely cheapens "Hard-Travelling Heroes" (and all the later stories). Hal's main character arc was that he started as a good little soldier, never questioning whatever orders the Guardians gave him... but Hal eventually grew out of it (with a lot of help from GA) to see that 'Law' doesn't always equal 'Right'. Take that away from him, and it takes away a lot of the point of his later stories.

The other important collected Hal stuff would be the Archive Editions. Some great Gil Kane art in them, but look out... they are really a product of their times -- you really have to be into that Silver Age stuff. A lot of great concepts, but a lot of the stories read as dry as unbuttered toast. Having said that, the GL Archives hold up better than some of the other Silver Age Archives, and I like them well enough personally. You just have to take them for what they are. But I'd definitely recommend trying the $10 black and white Showcase volume first, to see if you'd like the type of stories in the Archives.