The irony here is that this was written by Gerard Jones (and Will Jacobs) and Jones’s plans for Hal over in the GREEN LANTERN title had already been scuppered as he was replaced by Ron Marz who wrote a different Emerald Twilight that ushered in the Parallax that we know and love.
Crisis on Earth-Prime 
Making Hal Jordan your leader is a terrible idea, unless he’s just the figurehead and someone smarter is doing the actual leading from behind the curtain (like when Waller pretended to step down as running Task Force X and hired an actor to be the public face.)
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Like Tas said in that picture, Hal was the leader who was never there. I think he got the gig just because he was an old-timer, not because he was necessarily the right man for the job.
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More than likely yeah. I think that JL Spectacular one-shot kinda explained it already, but it mostly came off as Jurgens saying that since no one else was stepping up, it fell to Clark & Hal to do it.
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Oooh, the seniority route’s not always a good idea. Although I admit I’m not sure who on that roster would have been a better option. Wally’s still too immature. Was Wonder Woman around, ’cause otherwise I feel like they’re looking at Metamorpho or Elongated Man, neither of whom scream “leader”. Or maybe Power Girl, but I don’t think she was cut out for that, either at this point.
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Aquaman was sort of leading the team before Hal came back, but after this issue, the title lasted another 6 or 7 issues so the position of team leader never got filled again.
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I didn’t read enough of this era of JLI/JLE to see just how much of a dead beat dad Hal was here, but I can certainly understand how frustrating it would’ve been to the rest of the team. That’s always a big drawback to having a big mainstream star like a Batman or Superman be your team leader; the creative team & editors on that team book have to share with the creative team & editors on the leader’s books as well.
Of course in this case, up until Marz took over, Jones was writing both books.
It’s kinda funny how the team’s looking up at Hal like a kid waiting on his dad to come back after buying milk look.
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That Jones was writing both books at the time made it even more laughable that Hal was never around to lead the JLE!
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