In the 1993 Reign of the Supermen! storyline, the villainous Hank Henshaw disguised as a reborn Cyborg Superman enlists the alien tyrant Mongul and his forces and comes to Earth in a plot to take advantage of the death of Superman. In the process, Coast City (Jordan's former home) is destroyed and all of its seven million inhabitants murdered, bringing Jordan to take revenge on Mongul, who has replaced it with Engine City, with which he plans to turn Earth into a new Warworld. Jordan was off world at the time of the attack on his hometown, having returned well after its destruction. Angered, he flies into Engine City and makes short work of Mongul's guards. Jordan then bum-rushes Mongul, who at that moment was seconds away from killing a weakened Superman. Since Mongul's skin pigment was yellow and Engine City was powered by Kryptonite gas, Jordan had a somewhat difficult time fighting the hulking alien. After the fight results in Jordan's arm and knee being broken, he takes advantage of Mongul's arrogance and uses his ring to create power armor for himself with which he used to lift Steel's (John Henry Irons') hammer and strike Mongul with it. The blow was so powerful that the hammer was shattered into pieces and Mongul was knocked out and eventually incarcerated. It was later revealed that the Cyborg Superman's wife came from Coast City, and he destroyed it as he wanted to remove all traces of his past life.[4] This leads into the Emerald Twilight three-part arc: Jordan uses his power ring to recreate Coast City as an instrument in the process of overcoming his grief, talking to ring created versions of his old girlfriend and parents. After his ring's power expires a projection of a Guardian appears and admonishes him for using the ring for personal gain and summons him to Oa for trial.[5] Angered at what he sees as the Guardians' ungrateful and callous behavior, Jordan absorbs the energy from the Guardian's projection, goes insane and attacks Oa to seize the full power of the Central Battery, destroying the Corps in the process, taking their power rings as his own and leaving them to die in space, and ending the arc when he kills Kilowog, Sinestro who has been resurrected to fight him but has his neck snapped, and all the Guardians except for Ganthet who was protected by the other Guardians and survived without Jordan's knowledge.[6] He then renounces his life as Green Lantern, adopting the name Parallax after absorbing the Power Battery's vast powers. After he emerges from the Central Power Battery, he walks past and looks at the dead Guardians and steps on his former ring, crushing it in the process.
Jordan is replaced by Kyle Rayner by Ganthet as the Green Lantern of Earth when Rayner comes into possession of the last power ring, created from the shattered remains of Jordan's. Shortly afterward, Guy Gardner has visions of the Green Lantern Corps' destruction and his yellow power ring's energy (being powered by residual Green Lantern's energy) starts to fluctuate. Soon after, Gardner goes to Oa to investigate. He brings Martian Manhunter, Darkstar (Ferrin Colos), The Ray, Wonder Woman, Captain Atom, Alan Scott and Arisia with him for back up. Upon arrival they discover Kilowog's corpse. Jordan uses the element of surprise, attacks them, and quickly and easily defeats them. Although Guy tricks Hal into thinking that he is dead by making a fake dead construct of himself. He engages in battle with Parallax, absorbing his energy as they fight. But ultimately Jordan is too powerful for Gardner and defeats him in minutes, destroying his yellow power ring and punching out his eye putting Guy in a coma. After the battle Hal sends them all back to Earth warning them to leave him alone in the future. Not long afterwards, Parallax attempts to rewrite history to his own liking with the help of Extant in Zero Hour: Crisis in Time. Parallax destroys the Time Trapper and attempts to remake the universe into a perfect, peaceful place. The process causes time disruptions throughout time. Superman, Kyle Rayner and Metron call upon Earth's heroes to stop this crisis. Parallax reveals himself as the enemy by knocking out Superman with a single blow. Parallax and Exant battle the wide array of heroes. They are eventually defeated, with Green Arrow shooting an arrow into Jordan's heart as Kyle Rayner holds him in a full-nelson. Later, in the 1996 Final Night miniseries/crossover storyline, Jordan returns when the Earth's sun is in danger of going out. He starts to reevaluate himself and the decisions he's made and attacks and kills the Cyborg Superman (although he is later revealed to be alive) and visits John Stewart in the hospital who was recently paralyzed in battle. Jordan talks to his old friend for a final time and uses his powers to heal his paralysis. He then uses what appears to be the last of his powers and sacrifices his life to reignite the Sun (which had been extinguished by the Sun-Eater).
During the Emerald Knights storyline, when Kyle Rayner goes on an accidental time-travelling trip, he ends up unintentionally drawing a past version of Hal into the present where Hal is shocked to learn of the crimes his future self had committed as Parallax.[7] Although Hal briefly thought about remaining in the present to escape his actions as Parallax, Parallax's appearance in the present while preparing to recreate the universe, he had been travelling back to his present from the future and became aware of his younger self existing where he should not[8] forced Kyle to realise that both Hals had to go back where they came from in order to ensure that the Sun-Eater is defeated.[9]
In the 1999 mini-series Day of Judgement, Jordan becomes the newest incarnation of the Spectre, released from Purgatory after a fallen angel attempted to take that power.[10] Soon after assuming this mantle, Jordan chooses to bend his mission from a spirit of vengeance to one of redemption, also making other appearances through some of DC Comics' other story lines, such as advising Superman during the Emperor Joker storyline (Where the Joker steals the reality-warping power of Mister Mxyzptlk) and erases all public knowledge of Wally West's identity as the Flash after his terrible first battle with Zoom, which led to his wife miscarrying their twins. He also appeared in a 4-part story arc in the series Legends of the DC Universe (issues #33-36). A new series based on this premise, titled The Spectre (volume 4), ran for 27 issues from 2001 to 2003.
During the Identity Crisis storyline, Hal is visited by Green Arrow asking to exact revenge that he had might knew Sue Dibny's killer is, although Hal refused as the Spectre to a higher purpose.[11]