Green Lantern-Green Arrow: The Collection: Hard Traveling Heroes

AUTHOR: O’Neil, Dennis J.

ARTIST: Neal Adams (illustrator); Frank Giacoia (inker); Dan Adkins (inker); Dick Giordano (inker)

PUBLISHER: DC Comics

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 1970-1971

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1992

Publication History

In the introduction to Green Lantern/Green Arrow Collection: Hard Traveling Heroes, writer Dennis J. O’Neil discusses the humble beginnings of this groundbreaking series. “There was a comic book titled Green Lantern that had once been popular, and wasn’t any longer.” Instead of canceling the title, editor Julius Schwartz asked O’Neil, who had been a journalist prior to entering the world of comics, to overhaul the title and move it away from the standard superheroic action and focus on “real-life” issues such as racism, drug addiction, and environmentalism. O’Neil agreed, with the caveat that Green Lantern be given a costar with whom he could debate these topics.

Green Lantern Hal Jordan, who had been a military pilot and had become a galactic cop and could be counted on to provide a conservative perspective, was paired with Green Arrow (Oliver Queen), a character that had been reinvented as an antiestablishment figure and could represent a progressive point of view. While critical response to the new direction was positive, sales continued to slide and the series was canceled fourteen issues later.

Individual issues of the Hard Traveling Heroes story arc were reprinted numerous times throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, often reconfiguring Neal Adams’s fluid designs to fit smaller page formats. This collection, originally published in 1992, gathers issues 76-83 of the series. While there are some minor visual updates—the famous panel featuring Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy was colored in a startling mix of red and yellow, but it was originally black and pale blue—it faithfully re-creates Adams’s original visual page layouts.

Plot

Following Schwartz’s directive, the stories collected in Green Lantern/Green Arrow Collection: Hard Traveling Heroes address specific issues faced by the United States in the early 1970’s. Writer O’Neil, ably abetted by artist Adams, manages to cover a vast amount of thematic ground with the narrative conceit that the two heroes, along with their intergalactic sidekick, the Old-Timer (Appa Ali Apsa, who belongs to an immortal, extraterrestrial race), have set out in a rickety pickup truck in order to experience the true American spirit. As O’Neil writes at the end of issue 76, the three companions “set out together moving through cities and villages and the majesty of the wilderness . . . searching for a special kind of truth . . . searching for themselves.”

As the first story, “No Evil Shall Escape My Sight,” opens, Green Lantern encounters a group of “punks” attacking a well-dressed man in front of a brownstone apartment building. He immediately swoops down to teach the attackers “a little respect,” but is interrupted by Green Arrow, who explains that the man who appeared to be the victim is actually the building’s slumlord owner, Jubal Slade, who is there to evict all of the tenants. The two heroes eventually expose Slade’s criminal activities and turn him over to the authorities. Inspired by his encounter with issues of social justice, Green Lantern decides to join Green Arrow, and a curious member of the Guardians of the Universe (the aforementioned Appa Ali Apsa) who takes on a human appearance, on a trip to find the “real America.”

In issue 77, “Journey to Desolation,” the two heroes, along with their immortal companion, drive toward the mountain town of Desolation, when they come under fire from snipers. The “emerald duo” quickly subdue their attackers, only to find out that the gunmen thought that they had been sent by Slapper Soames, the despotic owner of the town’s lone industry (a coal mine). Green Lantern and Green Arrow learn that Soames, who also controls the local courts, has arrested Johnny, one of the citizens’ leaders, and has sentenced him to death. Green Arrow is eager to help the workers, while Green Lantern is reticent to use his power against the local justice system, despite its obvious corruption. However, as Green Arrow and the workers begin their assault on Soames’s hired troops—a group that former Nazi Soames has somehow compiled from a “war crimes prison”—Green Lantern sees the error of his ways and helps rescue Johnny and bring Soames and his Nazi punks to justice.

Black Canary appears in issue 78, “A Kind of Loving, A Way of Death!” While on her own journey of self-discovery, she encounters a band of bikers in Washington State who beat her and steal her motorcycle, but she is carried off to safety by Joshua, a Charles Manson-esque cult leader. Two weeks later, Green Lantern Hal Jordan, Oliver Queen (often shortened to Ollie), and the Old-Timer come across the same bikers and, recognizing Black Canary’s motorcycle, deduce that she has encountered trouble. The heroes find her in Joshua’s compound, where he has hypnotized Black Canary and a group of followers and plans on leading them in a violent revolution. While Green Lantern battles Joshua’s followers, Joshua hands the hypnotized Black Canary a pistol, ordering her to shoot Green Arrow. However, she overcomes her mind control after realizing her love for Ollie.

The heroes stay in the Northwest in issue 79, “Ulysses Star Is Still Alive!” As Black Canary retires to a nearby reservation to recuperate from being hypnotized by Joshua, Green Arrow and Green Lantern are caught in a struggle between a Native American group and the Lumbermen’s Union concerning the ownership of the local forest. While Green Lantern heads off to nearby Evergreen City to research the case, Green Arrow disguises himself as the ghost of Ulysses Star, the legendary tribal elder who signed the original agreement, and attempts to scare off the corporate intruders. As the confrontation between the two groups turns violent, Green Lantern arrives with a congressman to investigate both sides’ claims and determine who is in the right.

Issues 80 and 81 focus on the Old-Timer and his struggle to understand humanity. At the beginning of “Even an Immortal Can Die,” he is forced to choose between saving a fishing boat in peril or the injured Green Lantern. After choosing to save Green Lantern, the Old-Timer incurs the wrath of the Guardians, who claim that saving an individual over a group violates their laws. Sent to the planet Gallo for a trial, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and the Old-Timer discover a world that has been taken over by robots programmed by the planet’s “master mechanic,” who has taken over the court. Green Lantern and Green Arrow defeat their robot guards, free the planet’s inhabitants, and rescue their companion just before he is executed.

The saga of the trial continues in “Death Be My Destiny,” as the heroes, joined by Black Canary, travel to the Guardians’ homeworld, Oa. There, the Old-Timer is stripped of his immortality and exiled to the planet Maltus, which is plagued by an overpopulation of clones. The four confront Mother Juna, who is responsible for the creation of the clones. The Old-Timer accepts his exile and pledges to help rebuild Maltus.

In the final story, “And a Child Shall Destroy Them,” Black Canary becomes disillusioned with being a superhero and begins teaching at a boarding school. As Ollie and Hal drive her to the campus, they are attacked by a flock of Hitchcockian birds, which the heroes quickly dispatch. The birds, as well as the student body, are being controlled by a psychic child named Sybil and her mentor, Grandy, the school’s cook. While investigating the events at the school, Green Lantern Hal Jordan meets up with his old lover and boss, Carol Ferris, who is engaged to the school’s owner. The heroes deal with the psychic attacks, accidentally killing Grandy and Sybil in the process, and Hal and Carol declare their love for each other.

Characters

•Green Lantern, a.k.a. Hal Jordan, is a human member of the Green Lantern Corps, ostensibly an intergalactic police force commanded by the Guardians of the Universe. All Green Lanterns, including Jordan, wield a power ring, which must be recharged periodically, that enables them to fly, create force fields, and fire rays of pure energy. In his civilian identity, Jordan is a toy salesman (among other unlikely occupations) and former test pilot.

•Green Arrow, a.k.a. Oliver Queen and Ollie, is a superhero known as much for his physical abilities as his interest in social justice and antiauthoritarian attitude. Green Arrow has no superpowers, but his skill with a bow and arrow, as well as his proficiency as a hand-to-hand combatant, puts him on an equal level with metahuman heroes. His strong personality and passionate political beliefs persuade Green Lantern and Appa Ali Apsa to join him on his cross-country journey.

•Appa Ali Apsa, a.k.a. The Old-Timer, is a member of the Guardians of the Universe sent to Earth from the planet Oa to learn about humanity by traveling with Green Arrow and Green Lantern. On Earth, he takes on the appearance of an elderly man, prompting his superhero companions to refer to him as the Old-Timer. Despite his human appearance, he does retain some of his telepathic abilities, albeit in a limited capacity.

•Black Canary, a.k.a. Dinah Drake Lance, began her career as a member of the Justice Society on Earth-Two. However, following the death of her husband, she traveled to Earth-One and joined the Justice League of America, where she met Green Arrow. There was a mutual attraction between them, but Dinah was unable to commit to a relationship. At the beginning of Green Lantern/Green Arrow Collection: Hard Traveling Heroes, she is on a journey of self-discovery somewhere in Washington State. She is an accomplished martial artist whose lone superpower is the ability to emit a “sonic scream” powerful enough to destroy inanimate objects and debilitate opponents.

Artistic Style

While much of the critical attention on Green Lantern/Green Arrow Collection: Hard Traveling Heroes focuses on its writing and themes, the book has a distinct visual identity because of the work of artist Adams. Hard Traveling Heroes was Adams’s second collaboration with O’Neil; in early 1970, the pair had created a darker Batman character in Detective Comics as a reaction to the campy television series starring Adam West. While the book is thematically intensive, Adams’s ability to portray action prevents the series from becoming too reliant on dialogue and exposition to convey dramatic action.

Adams’s work in this volume is a striking blend of nearly photographic realism and a fluid, cinematic page layout. While it naturally makes action scenes more powerful, it also makes dialogue-based scenes more dramatic and prevents them from becoming bogged down in exposition. His photo-realistic renderings of facial expression support the depth of characterization created by O’Neil.

Another important element of the book’s visual style is Adams’s ability to create the illusion of movement in a static image. This is accomplished by consistently establishing then subverting the traditional page layouts. During expository passages, Adams’s page layouts feature conventional square and rectangular panels, while scenes emphasizing action use dramatic, asymmetrical structures that emphasize scale and action.

Themes

The origins of Green Lantern/Green Arrow Collection: Hard Traveling Heroes lie in a request from the publisher to create a title that would “dramatize the real-life issues that tormented the country in the context of superheroics.” As this was the book’s raison d’être, it is work with great thematic density. While each individual story addresses a specific cultural issue—“Journey to Desolation” deals with economic exploitation, “A Kind of Loving, a Way of Death” addresses cults, and “Ulysses Star Is Still Alive” focuses on the treatment of Native Americans—there are overarching ideas that bind together the seven separate stories.

The idea that complex social issues must be addressed in a complex manner is a recurring theme throughout Hard Traveling Heroes, specifically for Green Lantern. At numerous points throughout the book, he mentions that he has been “conditioned to respect the authority of the law”; however, the more he is exposed to the complexities of the world, the more comfortable he becomes with Green Arrow’s moral relativism. Ultimately, Green Lantern develops a more sophisticated worldview, as he states, “The world isn’t the black-and-white place I thought it to be. . . . Green Arrow has made me think that maybe authority isn’t always right.”

The other major theme in the book is the idea that, because of a number of social shifts, the two heroes are at variance with the greater culture and must redefine themselves. To do this, they follow the masculine American tradition of abandoning the seemingly decentered society and head out for the frontier, allowing them to “inscribe, unhindered [their] own destiny and [their] own nature.” In order to make their rejection complete, they eschew the casual use of their superpowers and, as Green Arrow puts it, “play it strictly human.”

During the duo’s time in the frontier, Green Lantern’s lack of self-assurance is physically manifested when his ring, which acquires its energy from his concentrated willpower, fails during a battle. As the story progresses, Green Lantern realizes that this failure is a by-product of his own lack of self-assurance. As Green Lantern attempts to come to terms with the changing society, his power ring, and his identity, is restored.

While Hard Traveling Heroes attempted to address “the whole catalog of national discontent that energized the era,” it is hamstrung by the traditional, action-centric format of comics. While this is an issue, it does not diminish the historical importance of this series. However, despite its best intentions, in hindsight, it is not difficult to read Hard Traveling Heroes as dated and reductive.

Impact

The late 1960’s and early 1970’s were times of extreme cultural change in the United States, and one of the most notable shifts was the coming-of-age of American popular culture. Thanks to films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Midnight Cowboy (1969), television shows such as Laugh-In and Sesame Street, and the music of Bob Dylan and the Beatles, media that had once been treated dismissively had become major cultural forces. The stories collected in Hard Traveling Heroes exemplify this shift from a time when comics were “roughly synonymous with fish-wrapping,” to quote O’Neil, to an era when the medium could thoughtfully generate discourse regarding the pertinent issues of the day.

Despite the series’ short run, its story line was groundbreaking; it was one of only a few comics of the era that used realistic characters to address serious topics in a logical manner. (Another example is Amazing Spider-Man, issues 96-98, which dealt with drug abuse.) While this concept is hardly remarkable more than forty years after the publication of Hard Traveling Heroes, it is difficult to imagine such modern classics as Alan Moore’s Watchmen (1986) and Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986) without the trail blazed by Hard Traveling Heroes.

Despite its unquestionable importance, there are elements in the book that come across as dated. For example, while much of O’Neil’s dialogue is compelling, his narration is sometimes overwrought. Describing the trial of the Old-Timer, O’Neil commands readers to “Watch carefully . . . for you have not seen this terrible ceremony ere now . . . nor, hopefully, will you ever see it again.”

Another problematic area is the book’s treatment of minority characters. Despite Schwartz and O’Neil’s efforts to present stories that were unprejudiced with regard to racial issues, generally speaking, all nonwhite characters are portrayed as noble savages, whose oppression has given them wisdom and insight beyond that of “civilized” people. Also, the only two women who appear in this volume are Black Canary and Carol Ferris, who serves as a deus ex machina for Green Lantern in the last issue. Black Canary’s portrayal is equally problematic: Despite her superpowers and formidable martial-arts training, she is never portrayed as anything other than a victim who must be bailed out by her male counterparts.

Further Reading

Jurgens, Dan. Zero Hour: Crisis in Time (1994).

Meltzer, Brad. Identity Crisis (2005).

O’Neil, Dennis J., Elliot S. Maggin, and Neal Adams. Green Lantern-Green Arrow, The Collection: Volume Two (2004).

Smith, Kevin. Green Arrow: Quiver (2002).

Bibliography

Baym, Nina. “Melodramas of Beset Manhood: How Theories of American Fiction Exclude Women Authors.” In Feminism and American Literary History: Essays. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992.

Dryden, Jane, and Mark D. White. Green Lantern and Philosophy. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2011.

O’Neill, Dennis. Preface to Green Lantern/Green Arrow Collection: Hard Traveling Heroes. New York: DC Comics, 1992.