spectrehalstan

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because I couldn’t get the idea of La Femme Spectre Helen out of my head

notes, close-ups, and sketch under the cut!

i was talking w birdie about how we would reintroduce Helen from the Spectre 2001 timeline back into main GL comics, and we thought it’d be cool if Helen got her reality warping powers back and called herself La Femme Spectre (as a legacy thing, not bc she holds the Spectre, bc i’m think the actual Spectre is Jim Corrigan again rn and he’s also maybe at god level so he can’t be a main character???).

We were thinking smth, like, Monsieur Stigmonus is back and he’s trying to threaten the world so that Helen would remember the pre-Johns timeline and he could hasten the bad half of her destiny, and it turns out that Materna Minxx purposefully blocked Helen’s memories of that timeline because she didn’t want Helen to have those powers in the new timeline without the protection of Spectre Hal and is also maybe disguising herself as Janice Jordan.

ANYWAYS. Notes for my design of La Femme Spectre!Helen:

- i ofc wanted to take inspiration from both Hal’s “main” Spectre form and his La Femme Spectre variant, which is mainly shown here in the green cloak, the flame pin on her forehead, and the heart-shaped mask

- i also wanted to do a callback to Helen’s iconic nightgown from The Spectre 2001, so i HC that after she’s brought to the Geoff Johns timeline and forgot what happened in Spectre01, she still had that nightgown and could never let go of it even when she outgrew it, so she upcycled it into a cute dress. I also like to HC that Helen gets into fashion and textiles, so that also fits with that <3

- purple shoes and the insides of her pink dress to reference Materna’s influence on her

- I was waffling on what color to do for her pants and dress pockets since I wanted them to be the same color and landed on just keeping it white because I feel like it gives her the slightest bit of a ghostly vibe/edge

- light green bracelet to 1) remind u that she might be a teenager but she’s still a kid and 2) perhaps be a connection to her favorite uncle…

- also. Who is the letterer of the spectre01 i just wanna talk. that shit was genuinely the hardest part of drawing this, was copying the lettering for la femme spectre.

Here r some of the images i used as inspiration:

That last image is one that I got from my Helen Jordan civvies fashion pinterest board btw <3

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Hal Jordan and Helen?

off camera is jim jordan terrified that he’s just realised his wife has birthed the second coming of harold jordan. that fears going to be fuelling the yellow lantern battery for a while fellas

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page redraw from final night #4 i did on a whim. there is NO reasoning behind this except i love them

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injured halbarry

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god told me to draw whatever i want so unfortunately i drew hal shirtless

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universe

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He’s from 2001 😔

HER SHES HERE

MY SPECTRES ALL TOGETHER

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HER SHES HERE

MY SPECTRES ALL TOGETHER

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It's so funny to me that DC sleepwalked into writing a fascinating story the cycle of abuse, the predatory nature of military-like structures, and the stifling nature of hegemonic masculinity with Hal Jordan and just pretended it never happened.

Like Hal's story is about how patriarchal authority figures punish 'boys' for failing to fit their standards of masculinity by hurting them or rejecting them. But if you play your cards right and model themselves after the patriarch then you can assume that role and access the power and freedom it brings. All you have to do is shut away any part of you that doesn't fit into the mould to be that man, and lie to yourself that this is who you have been all along.

Hal's story is about how well meaning young people can become tools to be used and discarded by authority. You are given the opportunity of power, of freedom, to help people so of course you take it. But remember what your father taught you, what failing to acquiesce to their rules means. So you make them unfalible Gods, and yourself their willing disciple, agreeing with them to the point that their oath becomes your own mantra. Sure they may break you, and dismiss you, and push you to ignore your gut feelings, but that doesn't matter. You're a hero and what you're doing is right. But that doesn't make it hurt any less when they push you past the limit you didn't believe you have, you have a taste of rebellion, and they cast you out as if you meant nothing to them.

Hal's story is one of being terrified of the cycle of abuse. You know your father was a cruel man. And yet you model yourself off him because what else could you do. He was a titan in your field, the sort of man people tell legends about. And more than that, despite everything, he was your father. you watched him die before you could even comprehend what abuse was, much process all that it meant. So you modelled yourself off of him, trying to take the good and leave the bad but unsure if that was ever possible. If your father was both a cruel man and a hero what does that make you? Is the monster there lying dormant as well? And how can you defeat it when you're scared of losing the things that made you a man.

Hal Jordan's story is one of growing past the masculinity forced upon you, of embracing your queer and feminine side as an act of radical healing. God has made you pay for your sins and in doing so gives you both boundless power and a role more harrowing then any you have had, with eons of history behind it. So you reject it. You make something new. Something kinder. Something that looks beyond the fire and brimstone and revenge and cruelty to find love and forgiveness and a brighter future. You search without yourself and find the feminine and the androgynous hidden without you and you begin to embrace them little by little.

You're not what your father wanted, nor the guardians, and maybe not even God (although maybe this is what they had planned all along?)

But there's a little girl in standing front of you with the fate of the universe resting on her shoulders. She calls you Auntie Hal. And with all the emotional walls you put up being brought down you can say you love her with an ease you never had before. And to her even now, the opposite of everything that your father and your society and your world said you should aspire to be, she thinks you are the most amazing person she has ever met.

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may we never forget the time dc comics made hal jordan canonically genderfluid and essentially an adoptive father to his niece and that when they made him go back to being green lantern they just never mentioned any of it again. and they can write off helen by retconning it so her parents never died all they want but they still have never actually addressed the genderfluid thing

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"So... When will you forgive yourself ？”

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Thought about Helen for to long and now I want to cry.

Because I was specifically thinking about the issue where Jack and Janice die.

And what Stigmonus shows Hal. How he says Helen is destined to die by her own hand. And how Hal is determined to not let that happen. How He’s determined to help Helen fulfill her other destiny of being The Redeemer.

And then in GL: rebirth we get this:

The insinuations he forgets. I just. It’s genuinely the worst thing ever.

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they’d be unstoppable

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I love Hal Specter so much.

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Every time I use this panel for a halollie edit I giggle btw