Super Groups: The Green Lantern Corps

It’s time for another Theme Week! This time around I’ll be talking about the Green Lantern Corps, more specifically, the Homo Sapiens that represent us in this intergalactic police force. I know what you’re thinking, “Green Lanterns, wouldn’t that be better for March? What with the Green and All” to which I say, Negative Nancy how do you keep getting in here? I’ve got a few ideas about what to do next month that’ll be more appropriate for the Month of St. Patrick’s Day. Now, before I get into the first human GL’s background, I’ll cover the group as a whole. Let's get to it.

Group: The Green Lantern Corps

Created by: The Guardians of the Universe

Leadership: The Guardians of the Universe, Honor Guard Green Lanterns

Green Lanterns Light!

The Green Lantern Corps was founded by a group of Immortal beings that called themselves the Guardians of the Universe. They were one of a few races that evolved on a planet called Maltus, and are thought to be one of the first forms of Sentient life in the Universe. After a few generations of scientific expansion and evolution, one of the Maltusians named Krona did something really, really stupid. He used a machine to bend time that allowed him to observe the beginnings of the Universe. This caused several unspecified disasters and distorted reality from the “perfect” form the Maltusians knew. Essentially, Krona created Entropy. Thus, he made death possible. Dick.

Feeling responsible for Krona’s mistake, the male Maltusians felt that they needed to protect the universe after having, you know, wrecked it. Their female counterparts argued “It’s not our problem.” Now, since the Maltusians had become Immortal, the whole reproduction thing wasn’t an issue any more, so they went their separate ways. The Males took up residence on Oa, a planet that they claim is at the center of the Universe and started being called The Guardians, while the Females took up residence on a planet called Zamaron and started going by the Zamarons or the Star Sapphires.

A small sample of the Lantern Corps diversity.

Now the Guardians made two attempts at an intergalactic police force. The first (made about 3.5 Billion years ago) was the Manhunters, named after the Martian Manhunter police force, a race of robots designed to uphold the Guardian’s will and bring law and order to the chaotic universe. For a while things were fine, but unfortunately the Manhunters grew resentful of their servitude and protecting inferior lifeforms. They obliterated most of the life in Galactic Sector 666, wiping out nearly all life in the sector. For scales sake, there are 3600 sectors of Lantern Space, each comprised of several galaxies. So they killed a LOT of beings. The Guardians, upon learning what their creations had done, used their full power against them and destroyed them. The few remaining Manhunters were banished to the far reaches of space, and set up their own society. I’m sure they’ll be fine out there without supervision.

The central power battery.
It's quite the sight seeing stop.

The Guardians new plan was to use living beings as their enforcers and gave them power to do so. They tapped into what they called the Emotional Spectrum, using the Green Light of Will to create powerful rings that would give their new Corps the power they needed to protect the galaxy. On Oa they created the Central Power Battery, an enormous structure that is fuels the smaller Lanterns that the GL’s use to recharge their rings. They assigned 3600 Lanterns, later expanded to over 7200, to patrol the sectors of space and protect the innocent. The Earth is part of Sector 2814, and since apparently ours is a heavily populated part of the Galaxy we have several Lanterns flying about. Each Green Lantern is given Autonomy in their own sector of space, though the Guardians have been known to step in if one of their Lanterns oversteps their bounds. They act as a combination Police Officer, Judge, Jury, Diplomat and general Superhero. Being chosen as a Green Lantern is considered a great honor among most of the cosmos, making Hal Jordan’s desire to keep his identity a secret to be looked at with confusion by other Lanterns. Any sentient organism with the right kind of Willpower can be chosen to be a Green Lantern, the ring reshaping itself to work with its host’s physiology. Don’t have hands? It becomes a handy bracelet. Don’t have arms or your appendages don’t work well jewelry? It becomes a fashionable necklace. Giant Planet (yes, this is a thing)? Well, it’ll just float around your core.
           There are two tiers of Green Lantern. The most common variety are the ones paroling the individual sectors. Two or more GL's flying around being space cops. The second tier is known as the Honor Guard. The Guard protect Oa, and aren't placed into specific sectors. If the usual GL's are cops, the Honor Guard are more like Marshals. Universe Marshals. They are given leadership positions over the rest of the Corps, and take command if the Guardians are ever incapacitated. The four big Gl's Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Kyle Rayner have all been or are members of the Honor Guard. Feels good to know that most of the human members are given the highest honors, right?

Each of the various Corps that utilize the power of one of the seven colors of the Emotional Spectrum has a Cosmic Entity that lives within their central power battery and gives the Corps rings its power. The Entity for the GL Corps is known as Ion, and takes the form of a giant Lantern Fish (Get it?) like organism. He is said to have been created when the first organism moved of its own accord.

The ring that the Corps use gives its host a number of powers. When fully charged, the ring creates a protective barrier around its host. It lets the Lantern fly, create “Hard Light” projections from the ring, and creates a nifty costume based on the host’s desire. Now, these powers seem cool, but keep in mind that not everyone can use it. You need a particularly strong Will to manipulate the Green Lantern ring. And despite its immense power, there are limits. One GL actually attempted to reform a destroyed planet with his ring’s power, but it essentially shorted his ring out, prompting it to tell him that the desire exceeds the hosts Will. 

Don't let the simple design fool you, its one of the most
powerful objects in the Universe.

The rings need to be recharged every now and then. To do so, the Lantern must place their ring against their personal lantern and recite "In Brightest Day, In Darkest Night, / No evil shall escape my sight / Let those who worship Evils Might / Beware my power, Green Lanterns Light!" The oath can vary from person to person, but this is the most common one made famous by GL Hal Jordan.

Another important tool of the Lantern Corps is known as the Book of Oa, a massive tome that is located on Oa. The book houses all of the knowledge that the Guardians have amassed from their eons of life. Each Lantern ring is tied to the book, it gives the Lantern a well of knowledge and lets them translate any known language to their own. For example, if I had a GL Ring and talked to a say a Chinese person that’d never spoken English before, they would hear me speaking in Chinese, while I would hear him/her in English. This works for any language save the most ancient, like Apokaliptian or New Genesisian.

The biggest weakness of the Green Lantern is the color yellow and the emotion tied to it, Fear. Early versions of the Green Lantern Corps couldn’t affect yellow objects. This has more or less been written out. Now, if Green Lantern feels a particularly intense amount of fear, they lose most of their powers and the ability to make constructs.

The Green Lantern Corps has been shown in several DC series.

If you want the best example of the Green Lantern mythos, I suggest Green Lantern: First Flight it covers the origins of Hal Jordan and the history of the Green Lanterns. It covers the Yellow Impurity, and demonstrates how powerful a force both Fear and Will can be in the right hands.

The powerful Guardians.

The Green Lantern Mythos is also explored in the Justice League Series. One of the earliest episodes, entitled Darkest Night, centers around GL John Stewart being put on trial for destroying a planet. The entire trial is revealed to be a ploy by the Manhunters to draw the Guardians away from Oa, so they could attack the planet and regain the power that the Guardians had stripped from them when they were fired. GL were also important to the Episode The Return, where a villain known as the Amazo android returns from deep space and seemingly destroys Oa on his way to Earth. Its revealed he simply moved it to another dimension, since it was in his way.

An episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold shows the Corps being destroyed by the intergalactic villain Despero. He was attempting to subjugate the Corps and make them his slaves. Hal Jordan sacrifices himself, destroying the bulk of the Corps present. His ring travels to Earth and Batman, whom is brought to Oa to investigate. Learning that Despero is going after the most powerful remaining GL Mogo, Batman, and Gl’s Guy Gardner, Sinestro and G’nort set out to stop him. The three GL’s give Batman “Lantern Armor,” since he can’t wield a ring that works on the same principle as the Rings. He gets to kick Despero’s butt while Guy fights Sinestro to save Mogo.

Green Lantern: The Animated Series centers on the adventures of Hal Jordan and longtime friend and mentor Kilowag traveling in Deep Space, an area known as the Lantern Frontier, to battle the encroaching forces of the Red Lantern Corps. Along the way, they come across the Star Sapphires (Violet Lanterns) Agent Orange (Orange Lantern) and help found the Blue Lantern Corps. Heck, if the show had gotten a second season we might have seen a war of the Lanterns brewing. It would have been awesome.

The first Green Lantern movie sucked, despite my love of the source material and how I felt Ryan Reynolds was perfect for the part. As a matter of fact it sucked so bad that Green Lantern in the combined DC-movie-verse won’t get his own movie until 2020 at the earliest.

I like the Green Lantern Corps. Their powers are unique, their goal admirable, and their methods are sound. I always like the intergalactic peacekeeper angle, and the Lanterns do a good job keeping Law and Order in the Universe. I like the diversity of the group, countless alien species working together for a common goal, it’s kind of a beautiful thing. Next time, I’ll be focusing on the First Green Lantern in comics. No, not Hal Jordan, his immediate predecessor, Alan Scott.

 http://greenlantern.wikia.com/wiki/Green_Lantern_Corps

 http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Green_Lantern_Corps

 http://greenlantern.wikia.com/wiki/Green_Lantern_Central_Power_Battery

 http://www.dccomics.com/blog/2011/05/07/free-comic-book-day-special-edition-green-lantern-the-essentials

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_the_Universe