Lanterns has hit the airwaves, with critics and fans agreeing the show is a hit. The Green Lantern mythos were always some of the most ripe for adaptation, but up until now, we got things like 2011’s Green Lantern, a surprisingly lifeless big screen debut for Hal Jordan despite looking like it had some potential, or Green Lantern: The Animated Series, a show that did a good job with the characters but couldn’t get enough attention. Lanterns went in a very different direction than fans expected, focusing more on small town intrigue than cosmic adventures, but it was still able to pay tribute to the comics that came before it.
The history of the Green Lantern is one of DC’s most interesting, starting 86 years ago with Alan Scott and growing into what it is today. Honestly, it basically forms its own universe within the DC Multiverse, with a small army of interrelated characters out there. There are a lot of Green Lanterns and a lot to take in, but there are some events that are more important than others. These milestones opened up all new doors to the future, bringing something new to the Green Lanterns that would play a huge role down the road. If you want to understand Lanterns and what the Green Lanterns mean, you need to understand these seven important milestones, momentous events that created an amazing heroic legacy.
Guy Gardner is the most contentious Lantern – something anyone who has watched Superman or Peacemaker already knows – which is straight out of the comics. Guy is the epitome of the red-blooded American male stereotype, a mouthy, arrogant, often violent person who has no problem loudly sharing his opinion. He’s also one of the most fearless Lanterns ever, which was underlined in his first appearance in Green Lantern (Vol. 2) #59, by John Broome and Gil Kane. This issue introduced the character, revealing that the ring wanted him to be the next Green Lantern but Hal was closer to Abin Sur when he died. While this Guy wasn’t as arrogant or mean as he’d later become (thanks to a brain injury), he definitely had a chip on his shoulder for not getting the ring and believed that he would have been the better Green Lantern. Guy has since gone on to become one of the most important characters in the Green Lantern mythos; while he’s never been the Green Lantern, his adventures have made him one of the faces of the franchise.
Green Lantern: Rebirth is the 21st century’s best reboot, a six-issue series from Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver that reinvigorated the Green Lantern franchise. Hal Jordan had destroyed the Green Lantern Corps, became a villain, and was replaced by Kyle Rayner, redeeming himself and dying to become the Spectre. This series saw him finally come back to life as the Green Lanterns start to be sometimes painfully reborn. Hal returned to the mantle that had made him a Silver Age superstar, the core Green Lanterns – Guy Gardner, John Stewart, Kyle Rayner, Kilowog, and Ganthet – were reborn, and the villain Sinestro came back to life with a fiendish new plan. It explained why Hal went evil in greater detail, retconning Parallax into a fear entity who had possessed him, which made it easier to accept his evil acts. It did everything a reboot needed to do and it did it with a style and aplomb that you don’t often see. It’s still as good as it was 22 years and an integral part of Green Lantern history.
Alan Scott was the first Green Lantern, laying the groundwork for everything that came after him. While he wasn’t a member of the Corps (although his powers would be retconned to ultimately have come from the Guardians of the Universe), the whole concept of a magic ring charged by a lantern that could form anything the wearer wanted came from his adventures. He was a founding member of the Justice Society of America, had two kids – Jade and Obsidian, and has become one of the elders of the superhero community. In the 2011 New 52 reboot, the Justice Society characters were shunted over to Earth-2, just like in the Silver and Bronze Age, with the characters starring in Earth-2. In the book’s first issue, by James Robinson and Nicola Scott, Alan Scott is reintroduced as a gay man, which caused a minor uproar that faded away for the most part. When the Justice Society characters were reintegrated into the prime Earth, his homosexuality was kept, leading to the fantastic Alan Scott: Green Lantern miniseries from 2023.
An argument can be made that the introduction of John Stewart, when he took over for Hal Jordan for a time in the mid ’80s, could be on this list but the destruction of Xanshi has long been the defining event in John’s superhero career. It took place in the vastly underrated Cosmic Odyssey, by Jim Starlin and Mike Mignola, a story that saw an alliance between Earth, New Genesis, and Apokolips to stop the sentient Anti-Life Equation. John and Martian Manhunter were sent to Xanshi to stop the destruction of the planet, with John racing forward full of arrogance, only to find a yellow bomb. This was back in the days of the yellow impurity, when the rings couldn’t affect anything yellow. If John would have brought Martian Manhunter with him instead of rushing forward like a glory hound, they could have worked together to stop it. Instead, by the time J’onn got there, it was too late. The planet’s destruction had a huge affect on John; it made him much more careful and severe. It was the birth of the modern John Stewart, putting him on the road to stardom.
“The Return of Superman” brought the Man of Steel back to life in the early ’90s, which led to the destruction of Coast City by Mongul and Cyborg Superman, changing Hal’s life forever. He begged the Guardians to help him bring the city back, but they refused, and he went mad. He ended up attacking the Corps and stealing their rings, trying to harness all of the power of galactic police force, killing everyone in his way to Oa. The Guardians threw Sinestro at him, but he killed him, draining the power of the Central Power Battery and becoming Parallax. Ganthet escaped the death of the Guardians and gave the last Green Lantern ring to Kyle Rayner, a human graphic artist. Kyle was able to somehow defeat the most skilled Green Lantern ever who just so happened to have the power of the entire Corps. He was able to defeat Parallax, proving that he had what it took to protect the galaxy. He became the lone Green Lantern, building his legend solo throughout the universe and with the Justice League of America, keeping the green flame alive until the mid ’00s.
“Sinestro Corps War” is the greatest Green Lantern story ever and changed the Green Lantern mythos ever. Building out of Green Lantern: Rebirth, it revealed what Sinestro was up to in the antimatter universe – building his own fear-based Lantern Corps, all to bring order to the galaxy through terror. The two Corps’ tangled in a battle that saw the Guardians allowing the Lanterns to kill for the first time. It’s a story that you can read forever and never get tired of, with its awesome back-up stories introducing readers to various members of the Sinestro Corps and fleshing out the threat. They were just the beginning, though; Green Lantern: Rebirth brought readers the idea of the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum and this story expanded on it, laying the groundwork for the various other Lantern Corps’ that would introduced between it and Blackest Night, three years of fantastic stories that made the Green Lantern comics into some of the most popular books on the shelves. It changed the way everyone looked at the Green Lanterns and remains the best of the best.
Alan Scott was a great character for his day, but as time went on, it was time for a new Green Lantern, one more in tune with the sci-fi trends of the ’50s and ’60s. Hal Jordan first appeared in Showcase #22, introducing the daredevil test pilot, giving readers his origin with Abin Sur and his first mission on Earth. It lays out everything you need to know about the new Green Lantern Corps, or at least enough to make you want to learn more, and presented this new version of the character to a whole generation of readers. Green Lantern found all-new success with Hal Jordan wielding the power ring. Jordan would become something of an icon, to the extent that kids used to play with his toys and wear t-shirts with him on it (I was there, back in the ancient ’80s). All of that came from this amazing first appearance, taking the Green Lantern to the stars.
