For four episodes now, influencers and commentators and YouTube talking heads have been trashing Hal Jordan, saying he’s old, bitter, an asshole, a drunk.

They are all wrong.

Hal Jordan is not old, he’s experienced in a crucial way that people are missing.

He’s not bitter, he’s watching everyone and making assessments lightning quick in the moment and enacting plans before anyone else catches on to him.

He’s not an asshole, he’s playing everyone with an act that conceals exactly how deep and thoughtful and heroic his actions are.

See, Hal doesn’t care about being a hero, doesn’t give a damn about acting or looking the part. He does what is right, what is needed, and being perceived as washed up lets him do that more efficiently than anyone else involved.

For example, he’s not a drunk, he’s using the smoke and mirrors of claiming to drink all the time, and being “found” in bars and strip joints as a way serve justice as he sees it needs to be done. He’s not a role model for the world like Superman. He’s a space cop whose beat includes Earth.

He’s Columbo, the famous 1970’s TV detective who played a buffoon, appearing baffled right up to the moment he arrested the guilty and explained the whole case brilliantly.

That’s right, Hal Jordan, Green Lantern is Space Columbo.

And everyone is too busy judging Hal and tearing him down to see what he’s actually doing. That was Columbo’s specialty every episode.

The Venn diagram between these two is almost a full circle:

• both avoid their official uniforms unless absolutely necessary, opting instead for rumbled, worn out clothes that present an unimpressive visual to those with whom they interact, encouraging negative judgments;
• both behave in ways designed to annoy; they suggest shoddy unprofessionalism, the better to be underestimated;
• each embraces uncouth habits—drinking for Hal, cigars for Columbo—which re-enforces a sense of annoying unprofessionalism, perhaps even a loser addict sensibility;
• both investigators never seem to be investigating although nothing escapes them;
• each will act surprised or distracted while gathering information and evidence;
• and both will act with surprising efficiency when the moment warrants it.

Hal Jordan wasn’t drunk in a strip bar when that government official let slip the location of the arms dealer. He planted himself there because he knew that official’s appetites, then plied said source with drink and shop talk up to the moment he gave up the criminal’s location. It is reported that Hal immediately dropped the act and sped to said location. Once there, he demonstrated extremely fast, clear efficiency that would have been impossible if he had been inebriated. In seconds, he encased the thugs in a bubble so they couldn’t shoot him, destroyed the mansion so they had nowhere to hide and no access to bigger weapons, then swept up the bad guy that at least two governments were allowing to roam free, and flew off, dropping him very publicly at Guantanamo, forcing the U.S. to act. Why? Because it was the right thing to do.

By the way, he did all this with no knowledge of John Stewart’s existence, let alone his sniper assignment. What the military did in response (meaning to cover up their involvement) is not Hal’s responsibility—he did what they didn’t, he brought the criminal to justice.

What supports all of this supposition? Hal’s behavior in the Rushville bar. He isn’t drunk there, he’s annoying, on purpose, and in multiple ways.

He is annoying to John Stewart as part of his plan to push his trainee to think on his own, not the way his parents or the military trained him to think. Hal suspects John Stewart is being molded into an unthinking soldier, and he knows that will get a good man killed. Hal believes it is his responsibility to prevent that from happening.

And Hal is annoying to the bar patrons to cause a fight so he can get arrested and there by being placed closer to that alien he suspects is a danger to the entire town. And while his plan seems dumb, it puts events in motion that eventually place him across a table from said alien, allowing Hal to reveal him for what he is and, once the alien self-detonates, save the town from destruction.

He does all this while maintaining the disrespect of just about everybody, Columbo-style.

By his own design, Hal Jordan comes across as a burned out sloppy loudmouth wise ass has been, just like Columbo did every week in the 70’s. Meanwhile, Hal is ahead of everyone in figuring out what is actually going on in Rushville and with John Stewart, partially because his “gut it never wrong” and partially because he’s the most observant person in the room. Just like Columbo.

Yes, the Sheriff seems ahead of him for awhile but she has information and perspective she’s not sharing with him. He finds out anyway.

Yes, Macon seems to have the upper hand as far as firepower and clout, but that is mostly because Hal has chosen to do little if anything with the ring so far. To paraphrase Hal, use of the ring is the whole show, so giving away how much he can do before it needs to be done helps no one. Once again, he underplays his hand, Columbo style.

And yes, John Stewart seems designed to be a better Green Lantern than Hal, but only if you perceive the job as requiring a paramilitary yes man. Actual Green Lanterns are most often working alone far from back-up. The job literally demands independent thinking, an indomitable will, and the courage to overcome all fear, three things John has not been trained for…until he starts working with Hal Jordan. Every slight Hal deals him is tailored to force John to reassess what he thinks he knows, his self-perception, his definition of what is right beyond what his orders are.

John doesn’t seem to get this yet, but he does recognize that he’s being lied to by almost everybody. Once he finally puts it all together for himself, Hal style, he’s going to be a formidable Green Lantern indeed.

And that is what Hal’s been training John for throughout this whole case…Columbo style.

Oh, and, uh, just one more thing: that is what everyone is missing about Lanterns.