MBTI: Green Lantern supporting cast

We find, in Green Lantern, a core cast - a stable of supporting characters - who show up again and again, and can be typed.

This article was inspired by Taylor's magnificent typing of the Breaking Bad supporting cast. Until I read this article, I didn't think that one could type every recurring character on a TV show or in a comic book - even the most peripheral characters. But it can be done, providing you keep your eye open for what I call the 'defining moments' - little pieces of screen time here and there when the character reveals its type to you. Taylor found it hard to type Hector Salamanca - until Hector revealed himself in one little incident (read Taylor's article and you'll see what it is).

My rule here is that I'll only list recurring characters. Quite a few characters appear in the John Broome / Gil Kane run, but I can't include them all here. (But I've made one exception, see below, and included a once-off character).

Carol Ferris / Star Sapphire - ESFJ

Hal Jordan's on-again / off-again girlfriend, sometime supervillain and President of Ferris Aircraft, the first that strikes us about Carol is that she cares. Like Hank Scorpio in The Simpsons, she appears to us as the nice type of corporate executive and leader you'd like to work for - except that she possesses none of the guru-like and manipulative tendencies of Hank (an ENFJ). She displays a maternal and caring instinct at all times - which makes her an ESFJ. Even when she's a supervillain (Star Sapphire), she doesn't really want to injure and kill Green Lantern: no, she wants him alive - so she can marry him and abduct him to another planet where he can be her consort. Hal Jordan doesn't take her up on her offer, of course, because, dammit, he has obligations.

 (I'm sure that many male comic book readers would like to be Star Sapphire's consort. But, if you're a little boy reader, you would look at the below cover and say 'Ugh'. Be married to a girl and give up superheroing - no way).

Thomas 'Pieface' Kalmuku - ISFJ

Hal Jordan's best friend, mechanic Thomas 'Pieface' Kalmuku (an 'Eskimo Grease Monkey') worships Green Lantern and keeps a 'Green Lantern Scrapbook' chronicling all of the Lantern's adventures. Like John Watson in the Sherlock Holmes stories, or Alfred Pennyworth in Batman, Pieface plays the role of loyal buddy to the hero - reliable and unstinting in his support. In other words, Pieface is a stock ISFJ type.

Jim Jordan, ISFJ; Sue Jordan, ENFJ

Hal Jordan's brother and his sister in law respectively. The Silver Age Green Lantern  ran with a yuk-yuk subplot for a while wherein Hal's brother Jim was constantly mistaken by the Jordan family for being Green Lantern. The grovelling and henpecked Jim is constantly nagged by his wife Sue, who wants him to admit to being Green Lantern and face up to it 'like a man'. Through a comic series of mix-ups, Jim Jordan was caught a number of times wearing a Green Lantern outfit and participating in adventures - all of which only deepened the Jordan family's suspicions.

Jim clearly marks himself as an ISFJ. Sue, however, poses a mystery. I think one has to understand that she does what she does out of a desire to improve Jim - she wants him to be all he can be. She reminds me of a life-coach or guru - and that makes her an ENFJ. Not a good combination for a marriage, one would think.

Thomas Titus Jordan - ESTJ

Jordan family patriarch and bully, Hal Jordan's wealthy and irascible uncle Titus Jordan appears in a number of stories. He finds himself in league with Jim's wife Sue in her crusade to prove that Jim 'really is Green Lantern'. In his first appearance, Jim concocts a scheme to get himself robbed by a supervillain called the Bottler - in the hope that Jim will change into Green Lantern, spring to the rescue and thereby reveal his identity.

Because of his bullying, his occupying an executive position (and the fact that he travels with a posse - EJ Arendee remarks that ENTJs, unlike ESTJs, always travel with a posse), his acting without thinking, I make Uncle Titus out to be an ENTJ.

Doug 'Hip' Jordan - ENTP

Black sheep of the Jordan family and an evil hippie (of the Charles Manson variety) from Tennessee, 'Hip' Jordan only appears once, unfortunately. But, seeing as he's such good value, I have to include him here.

 I don't think that Green Lantern writer John Broome liked hippies. Hip's appearance in 'Hip Jordan Makes the Scene!' (published in 1969) represents Broome's takedown of the burgeoning hippie culture. (Titus, on seeing walk through the door at the Jordan mansion, remarks 'I think you need to go upstairs and take a bath').

Here we can find a summary of this story:

Once again the Jordan clan has another family reunion. This years festivities however are marred by the arrival of Doug "Hip" Jordan, Hal's cousin from Tennessee who is the black sheep of the family. Always hating the rest of his family for their good fortune, Hip plans on stealing Uncle Titus' Rolls Royce. When Sue overhears this, and still thinking her husband James is really the Green Lantern, she tells her husband and demands he go into action to stop Hip. When James tries to convince her that he is not Green Lantern and that he doesn't have a GL costume, she finds one in the closet (unwilling to believe that it's a left over from last years Halloween party) and forces James to put it on and try and stop Hip.

Black sheep of the family and rebel against society and the family patriarch, Hip can't be anything other than an ENTP. As we shall see later on, ENTPs more often than not appear as rebellious, 'Luciferian' characters who defy the will of Man and God. In Green Lantern terms, that defiance entails annoying your wealthy uncle, trying to steal his Rolls Royce and murdering Green Lantern.

Alan Scott / Green Lantern of Earth-2 - ESFJ

As readers of Green Lantern know, the original Green Lantern (from the 1940s) lives on Earth-Two. In one of his first crossover stories with Hal Jordan (of Earth-One), Alan discovers that his power ring has lost its one defect (its inability to affect anything made of wood). He reasons that his pal Hal Jordan's ring must have likewise lost its one defect - the inability to anything made of yellow - and hurries off to Earth-One to tell Hal the good news. What a guy! From that point on, I had Alan typed as a caring guy - an ESFJ - and nothing he did or said afterwards disconfirmed that initial impression. Alan Scott belongs in the same group as caring and maternal superheroes such as Superman and the Fantastic Four's Thing.

'Doiby' Dickles - ISFJ

Cab driver, 'Joisey' boy and loyal pal of Alan Scott, 'Doiby' serves as the Earth-Two equivalent of Pieface. Broome must have modelled Pieface on Doiby: loyal to a fault, worshipful of Green Lantern and always there to help Alan in a scrape.

Princess Ramia - ENFP

Outer-space princess from the planet Myrg on the planet Bez, this character appears in a few stories and winds up as Doiby Dickles' wife. Impetuous, impulsive, defiant of rules and regulations, she rejects the suitors proffered to her by her government and travels to Earth (Earth-Two, to be exact) in search of thrills and excitement. She adapts well to her environment, makes friends with a lot of people, falls in love with (or has crushes on) more than one man, is scatterbrained and zany - in other words, an ENFP, through and through.

Abin Sur - INFJ

Cosmic, mystical and eerie, Earth's original Green Lantern crash-lands in Sierra Madre and, upon realising that he's dying, chooses Hal Jordan as a successor Green Lantern for this galaxy's 'sector'. Because of his Yoda-like and Gandalf-like qualities - his strangeness, his playing a mentor role, his powers, his concern for all living things - I categorise him as an INFJ. This type always appears to be mystical and unearthly, and cosmic, and Abin Sur is no exception. In terms of looks, he reminds of the Vision - another INFJ.

Guy Gardner - ISTJ

In a fantasy 'What If'-type story, we get to see what would have happened had Abin Sur chosen someone 'equally as worthy' as Hal Jordan to be Earth's next Green Lantern. Guy Gardner, a high school physical education teacher, turns out to be Abin Sur's second choice.

While he performs admirably as Green Lantern, he (in this alternate reality scenario) contracts a space-virus and dies.

Before his death, he selects Hal Jordan to be his replacement.

The fact that Gardner likes to take care of his body indicates that he's an introverted sensor. In his first appearance, Gardner makes a suit of armour for himself and tells off some children on an outer space planet for making war on one another. Wagging his finger and wearing his helmet, he looks quite foreboding. This, in combination with his athletic proclivities, tells me that Guy is an ISTJ. The helmet for proved to be the clincher: ISTJ types such as Cyclops, Judge Dredd, Darth Vader and Orion of the New Gods like helmets and visors of all kinds. Metallic head pieces make them look more official. It can't be denied that Guy, in his first appearances in Green Lantern, is a rather official and square-looking guy - he's quite different from the character he become in the 1980s. 

Mark Hootsen signing off.

Hal Jordan / Green Lantern: ESTJ

Hal Jordan / Green Lantern II debuted in 1959. The first Green Lantern (Alan Scott) had been around since 1940 and had suffered the same fate as many Golden Age characters after WWII (such as Captain America): lack of interest from a younger generation of comic book readers. So DC decided to relaunch the Green Lantern character for a post-war audience just as they did for the Flash. A younger Green Lantern took the place of the original, was given a sleek new costume and a superpowered weapon which was scientific in origin (as opposed to magical).

The new Green Lantern was suited to the times - and to the tastes of boy comic book readers. He worked as a test pilot, and was a sober, conscientious and hard-working man - and perhaps a little bland. The Green Lantern series up until the 1970s really shines because of the artwork by the consistently great Gil Kane, but will strike today's comic book audience as being somewhat dull. I find most of the DC books of the Silver Age dull - especially Justice League of America, which I can't stand reading. As to why, I suspect that it's because most of the DC characters strike as SJs or TJs (in Keirsey's language, Guardians or Rationals). We look at the Justice League line-up and find Superman (ESFJ), Batman (INTJ), Wonder Woman (ENFJ), Green Lantern (ESTJ), the Flash (ISFJ)... A few Artisans (SPs) and Idealists (NFs) would have livened things up a bit. As it stands, the Green Lantern series, like the Justice League-, serves as a premier example of Guardian fiction.

As students of comic book history know, the Green Lantern series changed dramatically after Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams took the series over. Green Lantern teamed up with an Artisan character (Green Arrow), Neal Adams broke ground with his spectacular artwork and Denny O'Neil wrote stories on topical themes - the Manson Family murders, consumerism, overpopulation, environmentalism, feminism, native American rights, slums and most notoriously, drugs. The Green Lantern series featured the first, and perhaps the last, death by heroin overdose in a mainstream comic book.

Despite all the changes the series has gone through, Hal Jordan remains the same type - an ESTJ. Originally, when I picked up my Showcase Presents collection (which goes until the late 1970s), I found him difficult to type him straight away. I speculated that he was either an TJ or SJ, possibly an ESFJ or an ISTJ or ESTJ - I couldn't be sure. But I came to the conclusion that he wasn't an ISTJ for a number of reasons. The first of these was that a number of ISTJs appear in the Green Lantern series (especially in the O'Neil era) who are clear contrasts with Hal Jordan - that is, they are usually the bad guy. The second reason was that ISTJs in the series seem cold and unpleasant people. For all his faults, Hal Jordan comes across as a warm, pleasant, open, friendly and generous man. Related to this is the fact that the difference between the ESTJ and ISTJ lies in introversion and extraversion. When assessing the type of a character, you have to ask yourself: does he exude energy or does he draw it in? The ISTJ and ESTJ share extraverted thinking and introverted sensing. In the case of the ISTJ, the introverted sensing makes up the primary function and energy from the environment and the people around him flows into the type. The ISTJ may act upon the world using extraverted thinking, but the extraverted thinking function acts as a conduit - into his primary function, introverted sensing. Look at Judge Dredd, Darth Vader and Batman - do they exude energy or do they draw it in? The question answers itself. And, if we're to look at Hal Jordan, we see fairly quickly that his primary function - whatever it is - is an extraverted and not an introverted one.

If Hal Jordan doesn't display introverted characteristics, and if he uses extraverted thinking (like the ISTJ) to act upon the world, then he must be an ESTJ.

The ESTJ sees himself as being part of an organisation, a hierarchy, which he respects. I call the ESTJ type the Captain or the Lieutenant - in an organisation, he usually occupies the rank of a mid-level officer. He stands as the man in the middle, and finds it just as easy to receive orders as to give them. His motto may as well be, 'Learn to command by obeying'. That fits Hal Jordan to a tee. The ESTJ may break away from the organisation he belongs to - e.g., Big Barda (Mister Miracle), Two-Face (Batman) and even Captain America at times. But all that means is that the ESTJ will formulate his own idiosyncratic set of rules which he'll rigidly adhere to. (On that note, we see an unusual career trajectory for Hal. He starts the series as a test pilot, then becomes an insurance claims adjustor, then a toy salesman, and by the end of the 1970s, a bum sleeping in his car (!). By the eighties, he returns his old job as a test pilot. The point is that he remains Hal Jordan - an ESTJ, a Green Lantern in good standing, and something of a stick in the mud and authoritarian - throughout these bewildering career changes).

Introverted sensing, when it fills the secondary function in an EJ type, gives the type a conservative philosophy and worldview. The introverted sensor retains and accumulates past sensory impressions and tends to compare them favourably to the present; he will interpret the principles and first causes of the universe through the prism of these sensations, as it were. This entails conservatism (which can, but doesn't necessarily, translate into political conservatism). Again, we see that this another close fit for Hal Jordan.

On top of this, the ESTJ type will tend to jump into the fray and may seem quite impulsive. At his best, he shows admirable courage. But a fine line exists between courage and stupidity. Often when Green Lantern's power ring conks out, he'll take on the bad men without it. Like Captain America, he'll dive past a hail of bullets and wade into a pile of bad guys with his fists. Hal Jordan's impulsiveness and courage owes itself to the fact that the primary function of the EJ fills the action role (decisions, organisations, planning).

In the Socionics model, we see eight functions at work as opposed to four in Myers-Briggs. In the fourth slot in the ESTJ (LSE or ESTj in Socionics), we find Ni - introverted intuition. This makes up the 'point of least resistance' or most 'vulnerable' function in the ESTj. Ni here represents the complete opposite of the ESTj type and is eschewed, even abhorred. 

At Sociotype.Com, we find this description of Ni in the ESTj:

LSEs are usually concerned with the situation immediately in front of them, and with their personal experiences. They usually focus their productive efforts towards matters that they can personally see, hear, feel, or experience, rather than on pursuing speculative or theoretical ideas. Many LSEs concern themselves only with what they can experience or control, and do not always attempt to expend undue energy to understand what is extraneous to their experience. Being grounded in the concreteness of reality, most LSEs are not deeply aware of fantasy, mysticism, symbolism, or any otherworldly esoterics. For this reason, they may be perceived as dry and unimaginative.

LSEs may be minimally adaptive to previously unforeseen consequences. They may attempt to plan and organize their schedules in advance in order to avoid any uncertainty, and they may avoid digressing from these schedules even when they are impractical. Ever proactive, they may commit themselves to too many obligations and responsibilities...

LSEs internal mental worlds are often neglected. They are generally disinclined towards personal and existential reflection. They are focused on what is in front of them and might regard extensive philosophizing as confusing and secondary to their experience. They tend to be perpetually in motion, and may feel restless, dejected, and unproductive if forced to suspend their activities.

Now, go and read through all five volumes of Showcase Presents: Green Lantern and you'll see that the above nails Hal Jordan.

Most of the Green Lantern stories up until 1970 were written by John Broome, who inserts 'fun scientific facts' in just about every story (usually in a footnote at the bottom of the panel). This gives the book a Scientific American flavour and shows, to my mind, a lot of Te (extraverted thinking). Jung characterises the thought of the extraverted thinking as a mass of undifferentiated, usually 'scientific' facts - a jumble of empirical (about the outside world) data not organised by any central principle, i.e., any distinct theme or idea. That sums up Broome. The Green Lantern series could be seen, not only as an example of 'Guardian' fiction, but as extraverted thinking fiction.

But hey, I'm not disparaging ESTJs here: my message to them is - we need you. And we need Hal Jordan.

Mark Hootsen, signing off.