This is a story from what I think of as the “real” DC universe, the time between
Crisis on Infinite Earths, to which this book is in many ways a sequel, and
Flashpoint, which reset everything for the New 52 universe. For a long time before the crisis the DC heroes lived, like Archie or the Bash Street Kids, in an eternal golden present, but a Teen Titan called Robin wanted to grow up, and he couldn’t do that unless other people got older, and so time began to flow. The hair of Green Lantern Hal Jordan went grey at the temples, and during
The Return of Superman he lost his mind, after Mongol and the cyborg Superman destroyed his home Coast City while building a base. He betrayed the Green Lantern Corps, became the villain Parallax, and gave his life to save the world from the Final Night, the attack of a sun-eater. What a life! But it wasn’t over! He then became the new Spectre (god’s spirit of vengeance) but it didn’t stick, and eventually, like so many Silver Age heroes, he too returned from the grave, to lead the Green Lantern Corps once again, his misdeeds as Parallax retconned as a kind of possession by a fear monster by that name.
