I may have mentioned this before, but DC deserves all the shit they got over the last eight years on this.
They forget that every character is SOMEBODY's favorite.
You can kill the hero off (Flash), you can have him retire (Starman), you can ever have him take a break for less than heroic reasons (Iron Man), but yo. But you damn sure shouldn't make him a villain. It's like a slap in the face.
When DC turned Hal into a mass murdering psycho, largely on what seemed like a whim, it told a lot of fans that they'd wasted their loyalty on Hal. They didn't like that. Furthermore, given the age that most of us start(ed) reading comic books, it was a bit of the proverbial "raped my childhood" feeling.
If they had let Hal die a hero the fans would have accepted it. ANd we wouldn't be having this discussion today.
