Introduction
In this essay, I’ll be giving an overview of Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner’s relationship in canon (with a plethora of scans). This has mostly taken place while one of them has been dead and/or possessed by a powerful creature, so The Spectre, Ion and especially Parallax are also discussed. I’ll try to give enough backstory to get authors “up to speed” for writing them together. I’ve also included some trivia that, while not essential knowledge for writing Hal/Kyle, I think is interesting enough to add details to stories or generate plot bunnies of their own.
Then I’ll describe how I see Hal and Kyle, and how I write them, with some occasional commentary on canon.
The Relationship in Canon
When Kyle met Hal…
I suppose you could say Hal and Kyle got off to a bit of a rocky start. The first major crisis that Kyle, the newly minted Green Lantern, had to deal with was Hal, as Parallax, trying to ‘rewrite’ time in Zero Hour.
Kyle's first encounter with Hal.
(Zero Hour #1 by Dan Jurgens and Jerry Ordway)
Green Arrow shoots Hal in the chest while Hal is de-powered. Hal and Kyle (who was holding onto Hal at the time) get thrown outside Time and Space and, while the rest of the universe is rebooted, they end up on the remains of Oa (that Hal had destroyed when he first became Parallax). Their story picks up in Green Lantern #0, the post-Zero Hour tie-in), which is like one big canon hurt/comfort fic of Hal and Kyle alternately sympathizing with each other and beating the crap out of each other. No, really…
Hal and Kyle fight, then commiserate over the hardships of being a GL.
(Green Lantern v3 #0 by Ron Marz)
If this were fanfic, it would have ended with them shagging each other senseless, but alas, DC instead had Kyle destroy Oa to stop Hal and made Hal “Missing: Presumed Dead”.
But Hal returns in Green Lantern #63 to try to get his ring back. More beating the crap out of each other, until Hal does steal his ring back. Then a ringless Kyle contributes to Hal’s string of head injuries and whacks him over the head with a pipe. Which must be some sort of foreplay for Hal, because rather than getting mad he gives Kyle his ring back.
Kyle adds to Hal's head injuries. Hal gives Kyle his ring back.
(Green Lantern v3 #64 by Ron Marz)
The next time they meet, the Sun is being destroyed in Final Night and while the Earth waits for the inevitable, Kyle takes off to (literally) the ends of the universe to find Hal and ask for his help, once again appealing to the hero that he knows still exists inside Parallax. Kyle is usually portrayed as giving Parallax!Hal the benefit of the doubt. He’s never known him pre-Parallax, but is always reminding him he was once a hero.
Kyle goes to Hal for help.
(Parallax: Emerald Knight by Ron Marz)
Hal succeeds and Kyle can’t wait to thank him: “I don’t know how we’ll ever thank him! I don’t even know what to say when he gets here!” Unfortunately, Hal has died in the effort. Poor Kyle.
Don’t let a little thing like death come between us.
Kyle puts on a funeral for Hal at the site of the destroyed Coast City and creates a memorial (Swamp Thing turns it into a garden). You would think that Hal’s death would be the end of their relationship, but of course this is comics and death isn’t always quite so final.
After ending up in the future, Kyle is sent back in time by the Legion of Superheroes but is about 10 years short of his normal time. He shows up on Earth just in time for Sinestro to knock Hal into him. Kyle is confused. Hal is confused. Sinestro captures them in a yellow cage. Kyle amazes Hal because yellow doesn’t affect him.
They take off together to go after Sinestro, and I think Kyle is letting his crush show just a little bit...
So heroic.
(Green Lantern v3 #100 by Ron Marz)
The Guardians send Kyle back to his own time, but Sinestro manages to shove Hal into Kyle at just the right moment, so Hal ends up in the present as well. It’s up to Kyle to explain to Hal what his future holds, that Coast City is destroyed and he becomes Parallax. Kyle takes Hal to the Justice League, as they would be best equipped to get him back to his own time. Kyle gets jealous when Hal is invited to join the Justice League, ostensibly replacing him as the League’s Green Lantern, but they work things out in the end when they fight Parallax together.
What?
Yes, Parallax is roaming through time, just before his attempts to restructure time in Zero Hour, and senses his younger self is “out of place” and there’s a fight between Kyle and Parallax, then Hal and Parallax, then Parallax takes the three of them back to the moment before Coast City’s destruction, Kyle must convince Hal that he has to go back, that he can’t prevent Coast City from being destroyed or prevent Hal from becoming Parallax and destroying the Corps, because Parallax is the only one that can save Earth from the Sun Eater (Final Night). Hal reluctantly agrees. Kyle also convinces Parallax (in one of Hal’s more lucid/in control moments apparently), that his future sacrifice is necessary to save the Earth. With the combined power of their rings, Hal’s and Parallax’s memories of these events are erased and they are all sent back to their proper times.
Putting things back the way they were.
(Green Lantern v3 #106 by Ron Marz)
Hal and Parallax will not remember what happened, but Kyle does.
But that won’t be the last time Kyle sees Hal. In the Day of Judgement mini-series by Geoff Johns, The Spectre, God’s Spirit of Vengeance, has separated from Jim Corrigan and has been merged with the fallen angel Asmodel. Alan Scott and some others go to Heaven to get Corrigan to come back and become The Spectre again, but he declines, finally being at peace. So Alan and the others head off to Purgatory to find someone else. And who should they find but Hal Jordan, but while everyone else has their doubts, Alan knows Hal is the only one with the willpower to control The Spectre.
Hal in Purgatory.
(Day of Judgement #3 by Geoff Johns)
Meanwhile, Kyle has gone to Hell with another group of heroes, because Hell has frozen over and released demons into the world so they have to re-light the fires of Hell. We get to see one of Kyle’s fears and nightmares when he falls into the River Styx and has visions of becoming Parallax.
A little foreshadowing?
(Day of Judgement #3 by Geoff Johns)
The Spectre chooses Hal’s soul as its next host. Hal has some trouble adjusting, being overwhelmed by feeling the negative aspects of humanity. All he can see is the potential “to harm, to destroy” and he tells Kyle “You know what if feels like, don’t you, Kyle? You live in constant fear of the power corrupting you, of becoming—what I became?” Kyle replies that “It’ll never happen. I won’t let it happen.” (JLA #35 by J.M. DeMatteis)
A couple days later, in Green Lantern v3 #119, Hal shows up and takes Kyle on a field trip, to help him understand what it’s like for him to be The Spectre.
Hal has some explaining to do.
(Green Lantern v3 #119 by Ron Marz)
Hal brings Kyle along while he goes to help Carol Ferris come to let go of her guilt over her actions as Star Sapphire. Then he takes Kyle home.
"I don't expect you'll be seeing much of me, Kyle."
(Green Lantern v3 #119 by Ron Marz)
Right, Hal. We know you can’t stay away from him. And The Spectre does show up again, and not in his capacity as a Spirit of Vengeance. In Green Lantern v3 #142, when Kyle has been seriously injured. Hal talks him through healing himself, then tells him “Be prepared. It is coming.”
"That's very Ben Kenobi of you, Hal…"
(Green Lantern v3 #142 by Judd Winick)
Hal is apparently referring to the Ion power which Kyle receives. At this point, it’s fairly vague what exactly Ion is, other than it has joined with the remnants of Parallax. Though it is obviously meant to be something else at this time, it’s not too much of a stretch to fit the explanation of Ion into the current retcon that it is a separate entity.
So Kyle becomes Ion, with seemingly unlimited power, able to be everywhere at once fixing everyone’s problems. He thinks he’s doing the greatest good, but Superman chews him out, telling him that he is overstepping his bounds and he has to let people make their own way in life. (Green Lantern v3 #146 by Judd Winick).
Kyle has another discussion about his power with The Spectre, and Kyle offers to finally “fix things” for Hal.
"No Hal. I would just do this for you."
(Green Lantern v3 #150 by Judd Winick)
And after using his Ion powers to find his father (which has its own set of issues, which I’ll discuss below), Kyle decides to give up his increased power, using Ion to give power back to the Central Battery and recreate the Guardians of the Universe.
Hal once again shows up to give Kyle advice (so either Hal decided he’s going to do the mentor thing after all, or he’s just stalking Kyle) after Kyle’s assistant, Terry Berg, is nearly beaten to death. Kyle goes all “Batman” on Terry’s attackers and after getting chewed out by Batman for doing it, he goes out to the asteroid field to release some anger.
"I used to do that a lot. It really does get that anger out."
(Green Lantern v3 #155 by Judd Winick)
Kyle essentially loses his faith in humanity after Terry’s attack and decides to leave Earth for a while. He gives a ring to John Stewart and heads off into space.
When he returns to Earth, he gets a pretty crappy homecoming: he discovers his girlfriend (Jade) has been cheating on him, the JLA doesn’t really need him, and Major Force (who killed his girlfriend, Alex DeWitt) goes after his mom. So Kyle heads into space again.
"There has to be something else waiting for me. I just have to go find it."
(Green Lantern v3 #181 by Ron Marz)
“You’d better be worth this, Jordan.”
And there is something out there for Kyle to find. In Sector 3599, one of the most remote sectors, Kyle learns that Parallax is more than it seems.
The Day Before - Kyle.
(Green Lantern Secret Files and Origins 2005: "The Day Before" by Geoff Johns)
Hal is also having some trouble with his job meting out vengeance as The Spectre. The Spectre gives a little hint of things to come regarding Parallax.
The Day Before - Hal.
(Green Lantern Secret Files and Origins 2005: "The Day Before" by Geoff Johns)
When we next see Kyle in Rebirth #1, he has returned to Earth with Hal’s body, retrieved from the center of the sun. He gives Green Arrow a rundown of what he’s learned about Parallax.
"Parallax: A History
(Green Lantern: Rebirth #3 by Geoff Johns)
Then Sinestro shows up, seemingly back from the dead, and Kyle and Ollie learn that he was responsible for Parallax infecting Hal and that he faked his own death. In the meantime, Hal has been struggling for control with The Spectre and Parallax, which has remained attached to his soul all along. With The Spectre’s help the three of them break free of each other and Hal returns to his body, just in time to save Kyle and Ollie from Sinestro.
Hal and Sinestro start beating the crap out of each other, during which Sinestro disses Kyle and Hal defends him. We also get a little foreshadowing of Sinestro’s future plans for Kyle, regarding the “tearing out of his heart”. Sinestro returns to Qward, and Kyle and Hal meet for the first time without time travel or one of them being dead and/or possessed.
When Kyle met Hal … again.
(Green Lantern: Rebirth #5 by Geoff Johns)
"You will surpass him."
(JLA #22 by Grant Morrison)
“You’ve never flown with me.”
I think you could call this the “Holy Grail” of Hal/Kyle shippers: “Flight” from Green Lantern Secret Files #5, by Geoff Johns and Darwyn Cooke. First of all, it establishes the close friendship that has developed between Hal and Kyle. And secondly, the subtext is practically text. Hal uses the same line on Kyle that he used on Carol — “You’ve never flown on me.” — a few pages before and then there’s that flying sequence and the cuddling rings … But it’s better if you just see it for yourself:
"You've never flown with me."
(Green Lantern Secret Files & Origins 2005: "Flight" by Geoff Johns and Darwyn Cooke)
And a little follow-up to “Flight” from the Ion mini-series:
Kyle screams like a little girl.
(Ion: Guardian of the Universe #5 by Ron Marz)
"I'll always have your back."
(Ion: Guardian of the Universe #5 by Ron Marz)
Hal is awfully interested in Kyle’s uniforms. Just saying.
Parallax Returns - The Sinestro Corp War
All sorts of events go on in the meantime — Identity Crisis, 52, One Year Later — and it’s a while before the Lanterns spend any time together. But Parallax shows up to fix that.
Kyle finds a mysterious yellow ring and takes it back to Oa. He’s still grieving his mother’s death, which occurred at the end of the Ion mini-series.
Kyle is not a happy Lantern.
(Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special by Geoff Johns)
While waiting to see the Guardians, the ring breaks loose, slips onto Kyle’s finger and transports him to Qward, where he finds Sinestro’s Corps gathering. He is captured, Ion (which we learn is a separate entity like Parallax) is removed, and the thing that Kyle has always feared throughout his career as Green Lantern, following in Hal’s footsteps, comes true: he becomes Parallax.
Kyle's fears come true.
(Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special by Geoff Johns)
The Guardians Ganthet and Sayd show up and point Hal in the right direction (Qward) to find Kyle. Ganthet also warns him that their is one great fear Hal has to overcome.
While recharging their rings, Hal, Guy and John are pulled through the Central Battery by Parallax and whisked away to Qward, where Hal is subjected to the memory of his father’s death, which is the greatest fear that Ganthet had warned him about. Then he finds Kyle.
"Don't talk like you're Kyle."
(Green Lantern v4 #21 by Geoff Johns)
So we’re back to Hal and Kyle beating the crap out of each other, except this time the roles are reversed. Parallax is also more in control of Kyle than it was with Hal (which makes sense, given this is a retcon), but it could be explained away by Parallax actually being weaker when it had Hal — it had been locked up for a very long time in the Central Battery, after all. Or maybe it meant for Hal not to know it was there (because Kyle does know (as shown in Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Parallax), whereas Hal didn’t realize it was a separate entity until The Spectre revealed it to him in Rebirth #3.).
Kyle confronts Parallax.
(Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Parallax by Ron Marz)
Parallax continues to taunt Hal about his father’s death. Then the Sinestro Corps shows up, followed by the Green Lantern Corps and in the battle Parallax kills Jack T. Chance. Hal, already on the shit list of the “Lost Lanterns” for attacking them when he was Parallax, must now come to Kyle’s defense, to explain that it’s not Kyle in charge of Parallax, telling them that “It wasn’t him.”
The Lanterns rescue Ion, and head back to Oa. Hal doesn’t want to leave without Kyle, but he doesn’t have much of a choice when the Sinestros’ “Guardian” (the Anti-Monitor) shows up.
But Kyle is going back to Earth anyway, as Parallax was sent ahead to “get in position”, which apparently means threatening Jim Jordan’s family. Sinestro taunts Hal with that information, and Hal heads back to Earth.
Hal gets a new partner.
(Green Lantern v4 #24 by Geoff Johns)
The painting from his mother’s house, mentioned in the Sinestro Corps Special becomes important to Kyle here. It’s what Kyle focused on after “defeating” Parallax in his mind. And Hal suggests retrieving the real thing to try give him the will to break free. When Hal is absorbed by Parallax, he ends up in the setting of the painting with Kyle.
Kyle is wallowing in guilt about his mother’s death, but Hal gives him a pep talk (a pep talk, we later learn in Green Lantern v4 #34, that Hal got from Sinestro, who got it from Abin Sur) and together they manage to break free of Parallax.
"We don't have to do it alone."
(Green Lantern v4 #24 by Geoff Johns)
Hal and Kyle team-up to go after Sinestro and after that … they get split up. Hal stays on Earth and Kyle moves to Oa, which makes it a little more of a challenge to write them, but it’s doable.
Another picture, just because it's pretty. ;-)
(artwork by Ivan Reis from Green Lantern v4 #25)
Kyle as Parallax.
(Green Lantern v3 #123 by Ron Marz)
"Kylax"
(Green Lantern Secret Files & Origins #1: "Kyle Rayner's Sketchbook")
Writing Hal/Kyle
I won’t get into their detailed biographies, as that’s already available in places like Wikipedia (Hal, Kyle), but I’ll cover some elements of the characters that would be important to writing them.
Hal
Hal is a pilot. He is currently a Captain in the U.S. Air Force and has previously been a test pilot for Ferris Aircraft. Hal is egotistical, an adrenaline junkie, and quick to punch people in the face. Hal is definitely an Alpha Male. He doesn’t do well with authority figures. Hal isn’t afraid of anything … except commitment. (In Green Lantern v4 #23, Hal's thoughts on the subject were “Diamond rings? Sacred vows? Living together? Those are the things nightmares are made of.”) Hal has been something of a manwhore, with his share of one-night stands. He is very loyal to his friends and comrades. He hasn’t been close to his family throughout his career, but he is now close to his brother Jim and Jim’s family: his wife, Susan, and two children, Howard and Jane.
Canon Drives Aranel Crazy Sometimes: Hal’s Air Force Career
My husband is in the Air Force, so this is a big sticking point for me. Putting Hal back in the Air Force after Rebirth is, to me, a Bad Idea. First and foremost, a military career is not exactly conducive to the chaotic life of a superhero. If you have to suddenly run off to deep space for an indefinite amount of time from your civilian job, at the very worst you get fired. In the military it’s called AWOL and there’s often jail time and Dishonorable Discharges involved. And speaking of Dishonorable Discharges, if Hal did in fact get booted from the Air Force for assaulting an officer before he became a GL (Green Lantern v4 #24 by Geoff Johns), then he already has one, which means he would never have been allowed back in. There’s also no way he’d be allowed back in considering he has that huge chunk of time where he was dead. A pilot requires a high security clearance and the USAF Office of Special Investigations does not look kindly on missing time. And coming clean and saying, “Well, I’m also serving as a Green Lantern for this alien government on the planet Oa.” is only going to make them more cranky. Therefore, unless I have an Air Force related plot bunny, I prefer to get Hal out of the Air Force and back working at Ferris.
Kyle
Kyle is an artist. He has done freelance design and also worked for Feast Magazine. He is currently on Oa full-time as a member of the Honor Guard. Kyle is sweet, a smartass, and tends to wear his heart on his sleeve. Unlike Hal, commitment appeals to Kyle. He falls in love easily and he definitely sees marriage in his future — he had bought a ring for Alex DeWitt, his girlfriend who was killed by Major Force when he first became a GL, and proposed to Jade (Jennie Hayden Scott, Alan Scott’s daughter). In Green Lantern v3 #97, we actually get some insight into Kyle’s views of relationships: “…guys have a hard time keeping friends and lovers separate.” Kyle has struggled with self-doubt during his early years as Green Lantern, always in Hal’s shadow. Wally West and Oliver Queen were both especially hostile towards him trying to ‘replace’ Hal, though he did eventually ‘prove himself’ to them and developed a friendship with Wally during their time in the JLA. He also has a tendency to sulk a lot (John Stewart even says so in Green Lantern v3 #129!).
Hal/Kyle
Since Hal is so overwhelmingly an Alpha Male, I think it's easy to cast Kyle as "the girl". Which is why I like to make sure Kyle gets a chance to be in charge every once in a while, whether sexually or just in their general relationship. He is a Lantern, after all, so while he may be more easy-going about letting Hal have is way (just because of his personality), he's also got a will that's just as strong as Hal's. I would think the arguments would be quite intense.
So what do they have in common?
Hal and Kyle have some important things in common which could inspire stories. An issue Kyle has often struggled with (and others, including Sinestro and particularly rabid fanboys have derided him on) is that he received his ring by accident, apparently being randomly chosen by Ganthet (though I think Ganthet would have to see at least some qualities of a Green Lantern—willpower, for one, to even control the ring in the first place—in a person before handing over the Most Powerful Weapon in the Universe). But, you could argue that Hal got his ring by accident as well, since it’s been stated that he was chosen “because he was closer”, because if Guy Gardner had been closer to Abin Sur, he would have been the first choice (which is discussed in Booster Gold #2 by Geoff Johns).
Family
Both Hal and Kyle were fatherless from a young age, which had an enormous impact on both of them. Hal lost his father, Martin Jordan, in a plane crash at Ferris when he was a child. Kyle’s father, Aaron Rayner, left when Kyle was very young (before he was three, according to Green Lantern v3 #77). This also led to conflicts with their mothers, and both of them had periods of time where they were not speaking to their mothers. Hal’s mother, Jessica, forbade him from ever flying after his father’s death and he ran away to join the Air Force at eighteen. She died without them ever reconciling. In Kyle’s case, “My father taking off like he did was always this unspoken…thing…hanging between me and mom.” (Green Lantern v3 #88). Kyle fought with his mother, Maura, as a teenager, and did not speak to her for many years after leaving home, going so far as to tell people (including girlfriend Donna Troy) she was dead. However, he eventually patched things up with Maura and they had a good relationship up until her death in the Ion mini-series.
Hal has since come to terms with his father’s death during the Sinestro Corps Wars story arc. Parallax uses his father’s death against him, as his greatest fear, and Hal finally faces that fear and therefore overcomes the Yellow Impurity.
Kyle’s father issues are a little more complicated. His father is presumably still alive somewhere, so could be a factor in writing fic. There were a lot of a clues about Kyle’s father dropped throughout Ron Marz’s run. There’s also been some inconsistencies.
Aaron Rayner worked for the government and left his wife and son when Kyle was a toddler. According to Secret Files & Origins #2 (“Keeping Secrets” by Ron Marz) he worked for a secret government agency. He had a brother, Zachary Rayner, who tricked Kyle into believing he was Aaron Rayner when Kyle decided to go searching for his father with the help of Connor Hawke (Green Lantern v3 #76 & #77 by Ron Marz, Green Arrow #110 & #111 by Chuck Dixon). Zachary was killed and at the end of the story Aaron Rayner, still apparently working for the government, receives notice of his brother’s death. We also learned that Aaron Rayner hated his own father, Roderick “Snowy” Rayner. (Green Lantern 80-Page Giant #2: “Everybody Goes to Guy’s” by Chuck Dixon ).
So what is the problem?
During the Power of Ion story arc, Judd Winick introduced Gabriel Vasquez as Aaron Rayner’s true identity, saying that “Aaron Rayner” was only an alias. It doesn’t make sense that the entire Rayner family—Roderick, Aaron, Zachary—were using the same alias of “Rayner”. But Ron Marz gave some indication that the identity of Kyle’s father is still up in the air in Ion: Guardian of the Universe #12, when Kyle refers to Vasquez as “My father … At least the guy who says he’s my father…”, showing Kyle’s own doubts about the situation.
Kyle has a father-figure in Alan Scott. Alan has always been a mentor to him, being the first Lantern Kyle met and the one who explained the whole situation with Hal to him. After Jade's death, Alan tells Kyle that he considers him family.
When I write them as parents themselves, I tend to make Kyle over-protective, given his history of people close to him ending up dead. Especially since the only child he was apparently ever close to (Donna Troy's son Robert) died in a car accident. Poor Kyle.
God-like powers
Both Hal and Kyle have had extraordinary powers (besides Parallax): Hal as The Spectre, God’s Spirit of Vengeance, while Kyle had nearly god-like powers as Ion. Hal stated in Green Lantern: Rebirth that he did not remember his time as The Spectre, but that doesn’t have to be true for fanfiction (perhaps he just said he doesn’t remember). I think Hal would at least remember the moments when he was “himself” rather than The Spectre, such as the times he gave advice to Kyle.
Ion is a little easier to deal with, since unlike with The Spectre and Parallax all of his actions were positive (if a little over-zealous at times). But it may be something that Kyle will miss from time to time, especially now that Ion has been “passed on” to someone else, Sodam Yat.
Dealing with Parallax
Parallax is going to be a big issue with these two. They have fought each other while the other was possessed by Parallax. They were also important to freeing each other from Parallax. They both know what it’s like to be “murderers”, which has to take its toll on them even if they know they weren’t in control, because they have the memories of killing their fellow Lanterns. An issue I have with canon is that we never saw them dealing with the aftermath of Kyle’s possession. You would think this is something they would help each other out with, but Kyle only had a short discussion with Guy, but that was it. Nothing with Hal, who had actually gone through it himself. But that is what fanfic is for, yes?
Conclusion
There’s really no reason needed to write Hal/Kyle other than “Whoa! That’s hot!”, but there’s also quite a bit of story between them to develop their relationship. They are good friends, both Green Lanterns, they’ve been through a lot together, and they have a lot of common experiences.
There’s not a whole lot of authors who write them and I seem to be the only person completely obsessed with them who writes them almost exclusively (at least according to Google searches). I’ve started a LiveJournal community, hal_kyle, to try to grow interest in them, so if you want to write them or just read them, please stop by!