Batman and Green lantern (and why i love these two so much and they're the perfect polar opposites)
Disclaimer: this is a casual mini essay , and its my personal opinion and view on the characters
first of all I'd like to breakdown the characters which is something i really love doing lets start with hal
hal jordan aka green lantern a kid that saw his dad jet explode in front of him , but didn't make that stop him and grew to be a pilot himself (which is a profound difference than batman , hal had courage and moved on and didn't "choose" to be something like a superhero rather just not let his past rule over him (which is so cool and already sets the whole "willpower" thing for when he gets the ring and becomes gl))
then came abin sur with the whole ship crashing thing (nice parallel , ik its an alien and space thing but still) and surprises hal with this duty\role and gives him the ring , and over time hal becomes the greatest and most powerful green lantern , he's guided by will , he has knowledge and he's smart , sure he prefers action first rather than talking or thinking of doing (his S is so dominant) but he's still smart enough and good on his feet in the field to adapt with and tactically remove threats. which is why he might be hotheaded for lack of a better word but he's not reckless, he acts first but he calculates the alternatives and consequences as he's doing the action. that's why we see in many of his comics that he acts quick and people always try to make him slow down or say things like "do you know what you're doing?" , but the fact is he's adaptable and he's very resourceful and got more willpower than any lantern would wish for which saves his life multiple times , that's why i love seeing hal escape impossible situations and escape death in ways i never expected , which is basically the core of the green lanterns in some way , the ring makes constructs based on the user so its totally up to the user's imagination , which is such a cool concept and one that's so expandable and can make many stories and scenarios.
Bruce Wayne aka batman, the dark knight himself , we know the classic story young Bruce is out of the theater and joe chill comes and kill both his parents in front of him and the boy is there horrified and shocked , Bruce is haunted by his past and unlike hal who gets his strength from willpower and courage , Bruce used fear cuz he himself was afraid as a kid and used that to instill fear in the heart of criminals especially since batman says that gotham criminals are "Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot" which i totally agree with, and Bruce didn't move on from his trauma and past he let it define him , shape him and it was the thing that made batman. also i hate the "batman is the man and Bruce is the mask" its so stupid and doesn't make sense since it will literally defy everything that made batman batman.
why i love these two together and their friendship
let's talk about their friendship first then the differences , batman and green lantern when they first met they hated each other since they're polar opposites of each other and both are stubborn as hell , batman thought green lantern to be ignorant and reckless and green lantern thought batman to be an arrogant lil shit (which are reasonable povs from each tbh , it would kinda be the first impression if you don't get to know them well , batman with the whole "ik everything" attitude and GL with the whole stubbornness and act first think later) that being said they both slowly but surely know that there's more to each one of them than they thought , they slowly build up respect for each other and start to ask for help in each one's special field, later on batman starts to respect the shit of hal , there's a panel where he says to simon that "he's no hal jordan " , which shows you just how much batman respects him.
i would say that the top 4 batman respects is supes, wonder woman , flash barry allen and GL hal jordan (ofc there's ted kord which is kinda the old school batman bsf after supes , also GA is a good friend to batman especially cuz of their similarities ) but these top 4 i would say that batman reach to first in the JL , and the most thing i love about their friendship is that it feels real , grounded and realistic , how their dynamic and friendship is written is so good , the conflicts the slow building friendship and respect , they even lost respect and broke up a couple of times then build it up back again and made amens , just like irl which is rare to see in- not necessarily written media but its something that either doesn't end well or doesn't live long but so far i see many writers write these two like that and i love it. here's the panel where batman and GL make amens and end it well , after the whole situation when hal became parallax.
Their polar differences
GL uses willpower ik we've established that many times , but he also uses it to fight "fear" , and fear is the most dangerous thing that can corrupt a GL and even cause their death. batman on the other hand literally weaponizes fear , see the problem here? that's why they collide and have conflict so much , they're literally on opposing sides with their whole situation , hal sees Bruce as a coward for not moving on from his past (at first) then he tried to help him to overcome his trauma by using his ring but then batman refused and said that its basically what fuels him and created batman and he's afraid that he'll lose batman when he puts on that ring , so batman is in this endless suffering loop cuz of is vow\oath and his commitment to the mission is obsessive and toxic , but no one will force him and he actually did good to gotham and many people both as batman and Bruce Wayne.
so hal just respected his decision but they both realized how they're both messed up , there's a panel i need to put it , it basically summarizes their relationship and the fact that they bond over trauma is both sad and wholesome.
oh right and hal calling batman spooky as a nickname is my fav , the fandom really digs it too , thank you for the person who came up with it.
