Warning: contains spoilers for Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Crisis on Infinite Earths #1!
For Green Lantern Corps, but it just might be his greatest weakness too. Arguably the most well-known of the earth-born Green Lanterns, Hal is utterly fearless, and he has to be. When your quietest day of the week involves breaking the sound barrier in experimental aircraft, you have to cultivate a stiff upper lip.
There are certain requirements that it takes to be recruited into any of the John Stewart and Salaak are two that immediately spring to mind), Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Crisis on Infinite Earths #1 from Steve Orlando, Mike Perkins, and Andy Troy just made it clear that it's a failing found throughout the ranks of the Corps, and one for which Hal Jordan often pays the price.
In Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Crisis on Infinite Earths #1, Hal Jordan is given a gruesome end and his "no fear" mindset receives a harsh critique. Telling the story of an alternate aftermath of Crisis on Infinite Earths, the comic sees Norse fire demon Surtur slaughter the entire Justice League with relative ease, leaving the classic heroes of the Justice Society to face down the giant. While they do succeed after great sacrifice, Surtur's comments to original Green Lantern Alan Scott at the beginning of the issue are quite literally a biting critique of the Green Lantern Corps and their greatest hero.
As brutal as his death at the hands of Surtur is, it's a fitting end for Hal Jordan. Overcoming fear is one thing, but throwing all caution to the wind is another, and it's a mistake that Hal has made all too often throughout his career. His loose cannon approach is something he has constantly been reprimanded for by the Guardians of the Universe, who govern the Corps, and whose orders Hal routinely chooses to ignore. He's gotten himself killed or trapped in various afterlives more than almost any other hero in the DC Universe. Hal even willfully re-bonded himself to the fear entity Parallax during the Blackest Night event, despite the devastating consequences that has held for him before. There's no denying that Hal Jordan is fearless, but Surtur is right, he's also foolhardy to the extreme.
Hal embodies this quality, but it's not unique to him, and plenty of Green Lanterns like Guy Gardner, Isamot Kol, Sodam Yat, Thaal Sinestro, and even Abin Sur - who ed his ring onto Hal - are marked by their relative disrespect for authority and tendency to throw caution to the wind. The Green Lantern Corps is an intergalactic organization, and Surtur is right about the consequences of their approach: many, many lanterns have "died stupid." While their rings are powered by pure will, a side effect of this is that the average Green Lantern is a Type-A adrenaline junky, and Hal is no exception. Chasing criminals through space takes a certain kind of mindset, and it's one that tends to be less helpful where a slower, more tactical approach is needed.
But it's that reckless and self-destructive nature that makes Hal Jordan (and other Lanterns) so compelling. Would Top Gun be as beloved if Tom Cruise's Maverick was even-tempered and careful? Hal Jordan, the Maverick of the DC Universe, is daring to a fault. Hal would be a better Green Lantern and hero if he wasn't so willful, but he would be a weaker character as a result - as would the rest of the Green Lantern Corps.
