Retro Toy Week: Hard Travelling Heroes Green Lantern!

Remember those halcyon days of lore, when DC Direct only released a Hal Jordan figure every five years or so? Ooh, not so fast...

This was my default Hal Jordan/Green Lantern figure for years. Probably until I got the DCUC version in 2008. Eight years on the shelf, then; which isn't bad considering...Hal has his shortcomings. A whopping nine points of articulation: neck, shoulders, elbows, hips, knees. Said knees are also a bit loose now, a problem I occasionally have as the DCD figures age. And Hal isn't as...man-pretty as he should be: the head sculpt is good from a little ways off, but seems a little long up close. Hal comes with a lantern, of course, which I have in a pile of other lanterns and did not dig up.

Ooh, dust is a hazard on these posts...

My conceit when picking this figure to post was that DC Direct used to have a little more variety in their character selection, and didn't used to put out a Hal Jordan figure seemingly every month. In my mind, I thought there was this Hal, and then not another one for at least five and maybe even eight years. Well, the "Hard Travelling Heroes" Green Lantern came out (per Wikipedia and JoeAcevedo.com) February 9, 2000; and would be re-released with the JLA/"Brave & the Bold" set in October 2002. (That link says 1990, which is dead wrong.) DC Direct wouldn't release a new Hal until 2003, a Silver Age version; and there was a Spectre-Hal in there somewhere as well; and the Green Lantern/Sinestro Super Friends set. (The latter came with a little Hall of Justice, which I wouldn't mind having!) Hal would get Green Lantern and Parallax figures in 2005, as well as an exclusive ToyFare Emerald Shield Green Lantern. 2006, the Alex Ross/Justice and a New Frontier version. Hal would have a light 2007, though: Red Son, Alex Ross Armored GL, and a reissue in a Justice boxset. I almost thought Hal wasn't going to have any in 2008, but he had two in November and December: Superman/Batman series 6 and a GL box set. And another JLA Hal in January 2009! Then another JLA box set reissue, before the floodgates really open up in 2010...And that's to say nothing of the multiple DCUC versions--check out this review from It's All True.

Incredibly, Hard Travelling Hal has a five-star rating on Amazon right now! Five stars in 2000, maybe. He's lost at least two since then. I thought the HTH Green Arrow was a better sculpt, but the articulation is likewise minimal. Need to glance at the Black Canary, though, to see how she's aged, and find her alternate head...