Essential Green Lantern reading:
Green Lantern/Green Arrow
Green Lantern regular series in the year prior to Crisis (and during Crisis)
Emerald Dawn
In these comics we see that Hal Jordan wasn't a Guardians yes-man (he stood up to them quite a few times, and quit the Corps more than once, and didn't go crazy when the love of his life turned out to be Star Sapphire), Guy Gardner wasn't originally a moron with Moe's haircut (he was Ultimate Green Lantern before there was an Ultimate idea around, and he had close-cropped hair), John Stewart wasn't a suave architect (when he got the ring, in the 70s, he gave new meaning to the phrase "Beware My Power")...
And there's something to be said about a man that gets dropped 11,000 feet without a power ring or a parachute and simply relaxes and waits for the inevitable with a serene mind (Hal Jordan is the original "Man Without Fear"... literally).