Between the Golden and Silver ages
of Comics, the writers that were reintroducing characters took it upon
themselves to rework old characters and ideas into more modern concepts. As
such, several older characters that were primarily described as being “magic
users” were reworked, typically saying that they were actually in possession of
very advanced pieces of technology. Green Lantern is one, as is another character
called the Blue Beetle. So, yeah, Green Lantern was a magic guy, shocking I
know. Keep in mind most of the stuff I’ll be mentioning are the retcons that
came out after the creation of the Green Lantern Corps. Let’s get to it.
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| So really, the only green thing about him IS the Lantern. |
Eons ago, the Guardians of the
Universe had just gotten started with their whole crusade to bring order to the
chaotic universe. As part of their plan, they captured most of the universe’s
free flowing magic and condensed it down into a single mass known as the
Starheart. Now, capturing magic is a messy business, so naturally a little
piece of the Starheart was lost, and naturally fell to the dumping ground of
all things alien and dangerous, planet Earth. It landed in ancient China, where
the locals took to worshiping it as a God. The green flame that surrounded the Starheart
predicted that it would act three times, once to bring death, once to bring
life, and once to bring power. And, as theses prophecies tend to do, it started
happening. A lamp-maker, possibly drawn by the Starheart itself, took the green
metal of the meteor and fashioned an oil lamp from it. Now, touching the sacred
thing in any culture is DUMB. The other citizens of his village killed him for
his sacrilege. The Starheart, either pissed about this or just doing his job,
destroyed them all in a blinding green fire. In more modern times, a mental
patient got his hands on the Starheart Lamp. At the Lamp’s request, he
refashioned it into a railway style lantern. For his service, the Starheart
cured him of his psychosis, thus giving him a new lease on life. Two thirds of
the prophecy completed and it only took, oh, two thousand years, that’s just
swell.
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| The start of a LOOONNNNGGGG friendship. |
A short time later, this green
lantern fell into the hands of Alan Scott, a young railroad engineer. Not
knowing its great power he just used it as a nifty light for a bit. He was
really thankful for having the thing when a bridge collapsed while his train on
it. The flame within the Lantern ordered Scott to take a portion of its metal
and fashion it into a ring. Scott did so, slipped the ring on, and became the
first Green Lantern. Despite this, his costume consisted of a lot of red,
purple, yellow and brown. No real green at all. And he’s the only Lantern to
have a cape. For his first act of superheroing, he tracked down the crooks that
caused the bridge collapse and brought them to justice. After a rather short
career as a solo hero, he became a founding member of the Justice Society of
America. Alan has had a very active career, saving the world several times,
married a former enemy of his buddy the Flash and started a family, teamed with
other Green Lanterns like Hal Jordan and Guy Garnder, married his own former
nemesis after his first wife’s death, and spent several years in peaceful
retirement. I think it’s probably important to also note that since the reboot
of the DC Universe, Alan and the other members of the Justice Society of
America have been shifted to their own personal universes, and the heterosexual
family man Alan Scott was altered into DC’s first openly gay superhero. Rather
odd shift, not going to lie, but hey, at least their trying to be a little more
progressive. High fives all around.
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| If DC hadn't come up with this, I'd say this is close enough to the source material to call copyright infringement. |
Despite his ring and Lantern being
fueled by a different power source, Alan Scott’s powers are very similar to the
members of the Green Lantern Corps. He is able to create hard light, though
described as magic energy, constructs in any form that his mind can imagine.
Create protective barriers around himself and others, and even fly through
space. Like the GL Corps rings, Alan’s ring needs to be recharged every now and
then by putting it into the lantern again. The biggest difference between Green
Lantern and Green Lantern Corps is their weaknesses. GL Corps rings weaken when
the wielder feels fear or loses confidence in themselves, and, as mentioned
before, have difficulty manipulating Yellow objects with their rings. Alan has
no trouble with yellow, and fear doesn’t weaken him, but, strangely enough, his
ring doesn’t affect wood. He can stop bullets, but come at him with a wooden bat
and he’s powerless… well that’s dumb. They do explain it, where GL Corps rings
are fueled by Will, Alan’s ring is tied to the force of life itself, and thus
his ring has no power over the green growing things. This is particularly
damaging to Alan Scott when you consider his major antagonist is Solomon
Grundy, a zombie like abomination that is filled with wood and muck of a swamp.
Giant, powerful, monster that his ring can’t stop. Well that sucks.
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| He went through a Knight-phase, as we all do from time to time. |
Of the six lanterns I’ll cover this
week, three are used a lot, three are hardly used at all. Alan Scott is one of
the hardly used. Unlike his friend Jay Garrick, Alan has had difficulty being
meshed with the greater DC series, probably because his powers and origins
differ so much from the modern Lanterns. He’s still used, but he’s regulated
mostly to nonspeaking cameos. Nobody likes Alan, apparently.
A character modeled after Alan
Scott appeared in the Justice League episode
“Legends.” In it, the League travels to a parallel universe where they have a
Justice Guild of America, all of the members being homages to the Golden Age
versions of characters. Alan Scott’s homage is the Green Guardsman, a very
Green Lantern style hero whose ring doesn’t affect aluminium. Oddly specific
weakness.
To my knowledge that’s the one
major appearance of Alan Scott’s Green Lantern. On to the Cameos!
In the TV series Smallville, in the episode “Absolute
Justice” Clark Kent and his superfriends come across the old JSA. Scott himself
doesn’t make much of an appearance, we see him along with several other heroes
being arrested by the US government as a part of a plan to stop the JSA. His Lantern and
ring are kept in a case with memorabilia of other JSA members. He and the other eleven members of the JSA, including Jay Garrick, are featured on a large mural.
He didn’t appear in Green Lantern: The Animated Series, but
he’s referenced. In the episode “Steam Lantern” Hal Jordon is blasted into a
parallel universe after fighting the Anti-Monitor. He lands on a British planet
with a lot of Steampunk technology and meets the local hero, Steam Lantern, Gil
Broome. Gil explains he got the idea for costume and name from a Green Lantern
he’d met who wore red and a cape. Hal looked at him like he was on something. A
little tidbit, but interesting.
Now, much like Jay Garrick’s Flash,
I really don’t enough about Alan Scott to definitely say whether I like him or
not. I will say, that I respect the heck out of the precursor to one of my
favorite Superhero franchises. His take on the Green Lantern powers while
simplified are interesting, even though he can’t stop a bat. Serious, dumbest
weakness ever! Any, way, he’s the Lean Mean Green Magic Machine, Green Lantern
(version 1). Next time, the First human member of the Green Lantern Corps, Hal
Jordan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Scott
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/File:Green_Lantern_Alan_Scott_0014.jpg
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Scott_Mason_%28DCAU%29
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/db/GreenLanternJSA14.jpg
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