Hal Jordan; one of the several human Green Lanterns and protector of Sector 2814. COURTESY / DCcomics.com
Hero Spotlight: Green Lantern
Published: 12/2/2012 6:00 AM
Last Modified: 12/2/2012 8:56 AM
This is Hero Spotlight, where we place a superhero on a pedestal and examine just what kind of hero they are.
First up is a hero that I have had a complete 180° on: The Green Lantern. The Green Lantern and I have had a shaky relationship since I was a kid. Back then this was a hero who ranked among the weakest in my eyes, but over the years I have not only grown to respect the hero, I have pretty much come to love them.
Weaknesses
When you first looked at Superman, as long as he was in a system with a yellow star, he pretty much had an infinite well of energy. So when you saw Green Lantern and was told he had the universe’s “most powerful weapon,” it was rather hard to believe that when his ring needed to be recharged every day. And this wasn’t some standard recharge. The Green Lantern had to reach into a pocket dimension, stick his ring into his power battery and recite an oath that took roughly 10 seconds to say. That kind of thing really takes a hero out of a fight.
Along with the recharge, Green Lanterns also had a weakness to the color yellow. This was before the Sinestro Corps was ever created, so it was anything that was colored yellow. So if Green Lantern had to save a school bus full of children from plunging into a ravine, those kids were pretty much in trouble as a ring couldn’t react with it directly.
The Scale of Things
Over the years, The Green Lantern, along with pretty much every superhero, has been given a real big overhaul with story material becoming more mature. Even though a Green Lantern was suppose to be a super powered space cop, it always seemed to come back to the hero only taking care of the planet Earth.
With that kind of storyline, you could rarely see just how important a Green Lantern was suppose to be in the universe and it was the scale of the Corps that is suppose to make it seem that this group of super space cops are defenders of the entire galaxy. With the storyline The Sinestro Corps Wars, you actually got to see the Green Lantern Corps as true guardians of the universe.
Thaal Sinestro, once one of the greatest of the Green Lanterns, forms his own Corps and enacts a plan to subject the galaxy under his cruel regime of fear and dictatorship. Compared to other DC Comics superheroes, Green Lantern clearly has the upper hand when it comes to scale. A character like Batman has “If I don’t stop Mr. Freeze, the city of Gotham will be left to freeze to death.” where Green Lantern has “If we can’t beat Sinestro, the entire galaxy will become enslaved and cities on the planet Earth will become mass graves.” So take whatever plight Batman is perhaps facing at the moment and multiple it by 1000. That is a Green Lantern’s plight.
Storylines to check out:
Note: Since I am still going through the Green Lantern stories, there is quite a lot I have not read yet, but these are some of the ones that have really grabbed me.
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The Sinestro Corps War – By far one of the greatest collections of comics I have ever read. Within every page there is a sense of dread, excellent splash pages filled with action and surprisingly a lot of blood with a huge body count. |
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Green Lantern: First Flight – Not a comic book, but rather an animated movie, but should still be checked out; tons of action throughout and some shocking moments that will drop your jaw. |
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Green Lantern: The Animated Series – A greatly executed Saturday morning cartoon that captures the scale of the Green Lanterns as the first arc has Hal Jordan and Green Lantern Drill Sergeant Kilowog going all across frontier space. |
Written by
Chris Moore
Web Production Tech
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