Absolute Green Lantern continues to deliver its mind-boggling reinvention of DC’s will-powered space cops in its second issue. The entire ethos of the Absolute Universe is to make hope the underdog, and to that end the creative teams behind each book have been majorly reimagining the origins and mythos of every single hero and villain they can get their hands on. More so than any other aside from Absolute Martian Manhunter, Absolute Green Lantern changes the most about its beloved cast of characters. Abin Sur is essentially an angelic judge that looks like he belongs in Dragon Ball Z, and Guy Gardner has been outright killed, to name just two. One major change is that this series has taken fan favorite Green Lantern Hal Jordan and turned him into one of the Green Lantern’s worst enemies.
Hal Jordan isn’t a ring-slinging hero in this universe. Instead of receiving a ring following the traumatizing arrival of Abin Sur, Hal was somehow given the power of the Black Hand. He directly called his new obsidian appendage the Black Hand in the second issue, and said that it longed to consume the life and light around him until there was nothing left. At the end of the issue, Hal’s eyes and speech bubble turned totally black, signifying that the Hand corrupted him. Hal Jordan isn’t a hero, and he might just be the series’ first and biggest villain.
What is the Black Hand?
In the main DC Universe, Black Hand is one specific person, the supervillain alias of one of Green Lantern’s oldest and most dangerous enemies. His real name is William Hand, and he was a death-obsessed man who was the black sheep of the illustrious Hand family. Either by his own genius or by virtue of the Red Lantern Atrocitus, Hand came to possess a device that could absorb the energy of Green Lantern’s ring and produce its own constructs. Later, he became the avatar of Scar, the embodiment of death, and was the first Black Lantern, kicking off the “Blackest Night” storyline. Black Hand has been to the Source Wall and back, once gaining the unwanted ability to turn anything he touched to stone.
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He clashed with the Green Lantern dozens of times over the years, a constant enemy to Hal Jordan more than anyone else. Black Hand tried several times to give up his life of crime, but he always came back, either out of fear of the heroes themselves or his deeply disturbing fascination with death and the dead. Now, his connection to Death has been passed on to the Absolute Universe’s Hal Jordan.
Hal Jordan is the Absolute Black Hand
The Absolute Universe is definitely playing with the lore of what exactly the Black Hand is, but one thing is certain; it still represents death. In the fictional Emotional Spectrum and very real light spectrum, the color black represents the absence of all light. In essence it is death, pure entropy. Hal has shown this several times already, with him trying desperately to hold back the Black Hand as it absorbs everything around him. By his own words, it is especially hungry to consume the Green Light that coats Jo. The Black Hand wants to “win the argument” and bring an end to all life. The argument, seemingly, is with the light in the best way to avoid fear.
Both Hal and Jo are being told by their strange visions that they must be without fear. This could be the Black Hand and Green Light trying to inspire both of them to the sources’ respective sides. The Green Light wants Jo to overcome her fear by rising above it, while the Black Hand wants Hal to erase his fear by destroying everything around him until there is nothing left, not even him. If the Black Hand really is connected to Death in that way, then Hal Jordan is one of the most dangerous villains in the entire Absolute Universe. It could make his Parallax days look downright tame in comparison.
I love Hal Jordan, and I really hope that Jo is able to free him from his Black Hand curse and inspire the Green Light of will inside of him. Of course, before she has any chance of saving him, she’s going to have to beat some sense back into him. I, for one, am really looking forward to how things go down.
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