History YMMV / GreenLantern

** According to the Christmas comic, [[spoiler:Larfleeze]], as it's revealed he misses his family above everything.
** Also, Guy Gardner. When you look at his history, it's no wonder he's constantly pissed off-- he had an alcoholic father, he's been struck by buses, had Hal's power lantern explode in his face, which [[ItMakesSenseInContext somehow caused him to get stuck in the Phantom Zone to get tortured by General Zod]] ([[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer no, really, that happened]]), rendered comatose, it all affected his personality to make him the Guy Gardner we all know. It's telling that Guy's character development started after he gained powers that helped heal his brain damage from that incident...
** [[CatsAreMean Dex-Starr]]. He may be one of the most feared Red Lanterns around, but considering that his beloved owner was murdered and he was nearly drowned by some street punks afterwards, he has a ''damn'' good reason for behaving the way he does.

* MemeticPersonalityChange: In FanWorks focused on the Justice League where Hal is a secondary character, he'll usually be portrayed as a tryhard constantly attempting to prove his worth to the rest of the league. In fact portrayals of him like this are more common now than ones with ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}, which is saying something. This has only gained more steam following his appearance in WesternAnimation/TheLegoMovie and WesternAnimation/TheLEGOBatmanMovie as TheFriendNobodyLikes.

* MisBlamed: When [=McDuffie=] took over the ''Justice League of America'' comic, he was told to use John instead of Hal as the Justice League of America's Green Lantern on orders from above (partly because Hal was being given [[ComicBook/JusticeLeagueCryForJustice HIS JLA TEAM!]]). Sadly for [=McDuffie=], fandom took the change badly, not helped in the least by the fact that Hal's JLA spin-off was delayed and reduced to a mini-series when it became apparent that James Robinson's artist was never going to get the book done on time. This lead to Hal returning to the title until his book was ready, followed by John's reinstatement just long enough for him to be bounced again and replaced with Hal until he was quickly replaced with Jade when they needed a book to focus on her ''ComicBook/BrightestDay'' storyline. The entire process was made progressively worse and worse by ExecutiveMeddling, in case you couldn't tell. And when [=McDuffie=] had the ''gall'' to describe this and the other creative difficulties on his forum (without assigning blame or complaining), DC [[ShootTheMessenger responded by firing him]].

** The first version of the Star Sapphire's origin have them choose Carol Ferris as their leader on the basis that they ''have'' to choose a leader who looks exactly like their previous leader. Yeah...

** Guy Gardner's [[http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/One_Punch One Punch]] knockout at the hands of Franchise/{{Batman}}.

** John Stewart: Letting Xanshi get blown up. [[spoiler:Blowing up Mogo did not help that "Destroyer of Worlds" reputation, despite Mogo's eventual reformation.]]
** Many readers (and a few writers) seem to have trouble forgetting that Kyle Rayner's girlfriend was the trope namer for StuffedInTheFridge, and his seeming parade of dead girlfriends has [[MemeticMutation become a source of dark humor amongst the fanbase]].
** Hal and the Spectre making sure Linda Danvers would never see her child again during ''ComicBook/ManyHappyReturns'' is a particular sore spot for fans of that version of ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}, especially when the narration made it clear Linda was more or less dead inside now.

** Green Lantern is older than ''ComicBook/WonderWoman'', but Wonder Woman had a ''Literature/{{Lensman}} inspired SpacePolice force in the form of "The Golden Police Women'' well before Green Lantern got a space police corps.

** Interestingly, a few writers ''did'' make Kyle work for his place in the DC Universe. A number of writers, like Creator/GrantMorrison, had characters like ComicBook/WallyWest look down on the rookie Lantern for just being there and made to bust his chops to earn his place in the greater scheme of things.

** Wonder Woman actually had an emotions-visible light spectrum thing well before Green Lantern too. The difference there is that in Wonder Woman's book which color represented which emotion didn't actually matter(hers incidentally was Orange or Gold, which definitely wouldn't line up with how Green Lantern did it), what mattered was that Hades had found a way to separate people's emotions as "color bodies" from the physical ones, which became inert and helpless, and the best thing he could think to do with such a thing was [[MundaneUtility use color bodies as a source of light]] before Wonder Woman ultimately defeated him, introduced electricity to his kingdom, and the plot point never came up again.

** The Star Sapphire is generally known as a Green Lantern adversary, but a Star Sapphire first appeared as a Golden Age Flash enemy in All-Flash #32, December 1946. This Star Sapphire's identity was unknown, but she would later be retconned as a failed and exiled queen of the Zamarons.

** Green Lantern and Flash always tend to evoke this, no matter which Flash or Lantern it is. Alan/Jay, Hal/Barry, Wally/Kyle and Wally/John in the DCAU, etc. Bart and Guy are the only two who don't have this with anyone from the other side of the dynamic, mostly because Bart is too busy having it with Robin and Superboy and Guy is too busy having it with Kyle. This even applies to their DistaffCounterpart characters too, with Jesse Quick and Jade getting some scenes in their short-lived tenure together in the JLA.

* MemeticLoser: It's either Hal, for losing his mind despite supposedly being one of the most willful individuals in the universe and [[BecameTheirOwnAntithesis becoming his own antithesis]] ([[AdaptationDisplacement and having a panned movie]], as well as his cases of PlotInducedStupidity in the Silver Age) or Kyle for [[TraumaCongaLine not being able to catch a break to save his life]].

** As society marched on, fans began to raise eyebrows at Hal's origin, specifically the fact that the most fearless guy on the planet conveniently turned out to be a straight, white, male American. A story was eventually done that showed there were many Green Lantern candidates all throughout the globe, and Hal was chosen because he just happened to be the one closest to Abin Sur's crash site.

** John Stewart's earliest appearances were little more than AngryBlackManStereotype{{s}}, but John was also shown to be objectively correct in his anger (just short-tempered). He was also always the most-educated of the earthbound Green Lanterns, being an architect when Hal was a pilot who never attended college and Guy's original status as a public defender all but forgotten in {{Flanderization}}.