Lanterns: Inside the Failsafe

It comes as no surprise to learn that Hal Jordan had a messed up relationship with his father. Taking a brief detour to 1975, we meet young Hal in the aftermath of a disastrous baseball game, where he provoked a brawl with every other boy on his team. They wound up forfeiting the game because Hal refused to let go of the ball, protesting his coach’s decision to replace Hal with a supposedly inferior player. The coach now wants Hal to apologize and make amends to his teammates, but Hal stands his ground, firmly convinced that he’s in the right.

When his dad arrives to pick him up, it becomes clear where Hal’s attitude came from. Martin Jordan defends his son’s actions, arguing that Hal being the better player is “all that matters” in this situation. The ensuing dispute soon escalates into a fistfight between Martin and the coach: like father, like son.

Ironically, there’s not a great deal of distance between the parenting philosophies of Martin Jordan and Bernadette Stewart. Both believe in success and excellence above all else, regardless of whether their sons are happy or socially well-adjusted. From here, it’s easy to see how Hal ended up the way he is as an adult: isolated, confrontational, and incapable of respectful collaboration. His post-incarceration apology tour of Rushville is a tragic case of too little, too late.

Sporting matching bruises from their respective fights, Martin and Hal go to a local airfield for a heart-to-heart, where Martin tells Hal about his own father. When Martin was a young boy, his dad went to war, leaving Martin a key to a safe containing money, keepsakes, and private documents: his “failsafe.” When Martin’s father died overseas, Martin was ready to handle the responsibility of being the man of the house.

Now it’s time for Martin to do the same thing for his own son. “Shouldn’t mom have this?” asks Hal when Martin hands him a similar key. “It’s not something she can carry,” Martin replies. “But you can, Hal. It’s in your blood. The Jordan boys’ legacy.” 

Martin then assures his son that he’ll live to 100, but we know this isn’t true. Martin will soon die in a fiery crash during his job as a test pilot, making this their last important conversation, concluding with Martin advising Hal to throw away his baseball because holding onto it forever would be “fucking exhausting.” It’s a mixed message that Hal clearly fails to internalize, given his unrelenting grasp of the Green Lantern ring in 2016. Learning from his father’s example, Hal developed an inflexible belief in his own superiority, leading to his eventual downfall in Rushville.