People love Hal Jordan. Kyle Chandler brings a full charm offensive to every episode of Lanterns, making us smile at Hal Jordan’s antics, even when he’s being a cocky jerk. Hal can start fights with barflies, impede a local investigation, and condescend to John Stewart at every turn, and yet we find ourselves loving him all the more. Which comes as a total shock to comic book readers. Although Hal Jordan has had fans since his first appearance in 1959’s Showcase Comics #22, his popularity faded over the years, and he’s been one of the more divisive mainstream heroes of the past few decades. cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});Nonetheless, Lanterns makes Hal into a hero again, an incredible feat. With that in mind, let’s look at some other hated heroes and offer a challenge to James Gunn and the braintrust at DC Studios: Can you make us love these guys as much as you made us love Hal?The Flash (Barry Allen)Anyone who watched Grant Gustin‘s charming performance on the CW, or even those who liked Ezra Miller’s neurotic take in the DCEU movies, might be surprised to see Barry Allen listed here. He’s so likable in those works! But as any comic book fan will be quick to point out, those guys were playing Barry Allen in name only. The personalities they embodied came from Barry’s successor, Wally West.Introduced in 1956’s Showcase Comics #4, Barry Allen was a more strait-laced character. Like most of DC’s Silver Age heroes, Barry went on incredible weird adventures, all telegraphed by the outrageous covers of his comics. But Barry himself was pretty dull: a science-minded cop in a crew cut, who always seemed vaguely annoyed by the odd happenings around him. If the DCU can let Wally be Wally—outgoing, a little off, but always likable—then they’ll have to find a different way of getting audiences to cheer for ol’ stick-in-the-mud Barry.Fate Or next choice has the exact opposite problem as Barry Allen, precisely because he comes from the ’90s, not from the ’50s. Amidst the flurry of legacy characters killed and replaced by hipper versions, DC Comics used the Zero Hour event (in which a crazy Hal Jordan decided to reboot the universe) to get rid of Doctor Fate, the stodgy Egyptian-themed mystical hero they’ve had around since the Golden Age, and replace him with a rad new upstart.Enter Jared Stevens, a.k.a. Fate. With his sleeveless duster, his constant scowl, and an ankh tattooed on his face, Fate oozed ’90s edginess. Gone were the blue tights and golden helmet that his predecessors wore, replaced by the tatters of a cape he wrapped around his arm and street clothes only lightly adorned by magical items. Fate managed to carry his own book for two years, but few complained about its cancelation and even fewer mourned his death in 1999’s JSA #1, as it made room for the good ol’ Doctor Fate again.GunfireGunfire has the distinction of being both an edgy ’90s character as ridiculous as Fate, but one who already exists in the new DCU, at least theoretically. Gunfire appeared on the mural in the Hall of Justice from Superman, standing alongside Wildcat, a beloved character one would expect to be in the DCU, and Vibe, a character who would be on this list had not Carlos Valdes made us love him on The Flash.Even if you didn’t know that he spun out of the terrible Bloodlines crossover from 1993, you could tell that Gunfire comes from the ’90s because of the many pouches he wore. Created by Len Wein and Steve Erwin for Deathstroke the Terminator Annual #2, Gunfire was a nondescript rich kid named Andrew Van Horn, who survived an alien attack on his father’s mansion. The alien’s blood mixed with Van Horn’s DNA, giving him the ability to turn anything into a weapon. Even in the ’90s, that concept failed to click with readers, and he quickly disappeared from the page, as did most of the Bloodlines characters. Yet, apparently Gunn wants him in the DCU, so hopefully there’s some plan to make him more palatable in live action.Robin (Damian Wayne)Like Gunfire, we know that Damian Wayne exists in the DCU, or at least is coming soon. Where the animated movie Dynamic Duo will focus on first Robins, Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, Damian Wayne will be the Robin in The Brave and the Bold, the upcoming Batman movie directed by Andy Muschietti. And that news does not sit well with all comic fans.Damian was the fifth person to don the Robin identity, and he remains the most controversial. First introduced by Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert in 2006’s Batman #655, Damian is the son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul, the daughter of supervillain Ra’s al Ghul. Birthed without Bruce’s knowledge and raised by Talia to be an assassin, Damian had a superiority complex high even by the standards of a pre-teen boy, and his snotty attitude did nothing to ingratiate him to readers—especially after he tried to kill fan-favorite Robin Tim Drake. Over the years, Damian has softened some, but he still regularly comes up on lists of most-hated DC characters, presenting a real challenge to The Brave and the Bold creative team.Superboy-PrimeAs he told Den of Geek last year, James Gunn’s favorite character is Bat-Mite, a comedic character with the ability to break the fourth wall. The fact that Gunn hasn’t yet found a way to bring Bat-Mite in the DCU is surprising, given the success of fourth-wall breaking characters like Deadpool. But when you consider the response to Superboy-Prime, maybe that’s a good thing. Superboy Prime doesn’t just know he’s a fictional character in a comic book—a fact he uses to justify the murder beloved characters like Impulse and the Legion of Super-Heroes—he also acts as a surrogate for the reader, mocking them for their own fandom.Superboy Prime technically debuted in a 1985 story by Elliot S. Maggin and Curt Swan, published in DC Comics Presents #87, about a boy in our world named Clark Kent, who loved Superman comics. One day, that boy discovered that he too had powers, and got to live out his fantasies. This Superboy somehow survived Crisis on Infinite Earths, only for Geoff Johns to bring him back with 2005-2006 crossover Infinite Crisis. Disgusted with the actions of superheroes after the first Crisis, Superboy-Prime turns into a villain, killing those who fail to meet his standards and whining about it the entire time. A frequent antagonist in DC Comics of the 2000s and 2010s, Superboy-Prime irritated readers to no end. Yet, somehow, he’s undergone a redemption arc in recent years, something that Gunn and company will have to continue if they ever want to put Superboy-Prime in the DCU.The post Beyond Hal Jordan: Five Other Hated Heroes the DCU Could Rehabilitate appeared first on Den of Geek.