Skip to main content

dc - Why does Earth have 4 Green Lanterns?


The following are 4 Green Lanterns active on Earth:



  • Hal Jordan


  • Guy Gardner

  • John Stewart

  • Kyle Rayner


I know that some of these characters died, then came back to life. But why would they still be a GL if they were replaced?


What sectors do these Green Lanterns protect? If they all protect Earth, I thought that there was only 1 GL per sector.



Answer



Earth originally had one Lantern: Hal Jordan.


Guy Gardner was selected as Hal's backup. When Abin Sur was dying, both Guy and Hal were qualified to be Green Lanterns; Hal go the ring because he was closer. (from Green Lantern v2, #59)


When Guy was injured such that he couldn't serve as a backup, John Stewart became the back-up GL. (from Green Lantern v@, #87)



Guy recovered and served as the backup when Hal was unavailable on at least one occasion after John became the backup backup. Guy was injured further when his power battery exploded; in fact, he was presumed dead, but had actually been tossed into the Phantom Zone. He was eventually retrieved from the Zone, but the combination of his time there, his first injury, and the power battery explosion left him with brain damage, and comatose. (circa Green Lantern v2, #116-123)


This left John as the backup Lantern again. When Hal decided to retire from being Green Lantern, John took over the role. (circa Green Lantern v2, #182).


This lead into DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover. During this story, one group of Guardians brought Guy out of his coma and gave him a ring and a mission. His personality was radically different (presumably due to the brain damage), and he took to considering himself the one true Green Lantern. Hal got his ring back at that time as well. The events of that story lead to the Guardians leaving the universe, and the GLs being allowed to stay where they wished. For a time, not only were Hal, John, and Guy all Green Lanterns, but 5 other GLs came to Earth and worked with them. Well, with Hal and John; with his personality issues, Guy did not work well with this little Earth GL Corps. (circa Green Lantern v2, 193-200; Green Lantern Corps v1, 201-224)


A lot happens from there for all three characters, but little that's relevant to the question for a while.



  • The GL Corps was basically disbanded for a while, when most of their rings were destroyed (though all three of the above kept theirs).

  • Hal helped work to rebuild the GL Corps, splitting his time between Earth and space, until his home town was destroyed (in the Death of Superman storyline and following); then, he went kinda berserk and killed or maimed a lot of the Lanterns. He ended up destroying the Corps, caused Zero Hour, and then sacrificed himself to restore the sun during the Final Night storyline.

  • John technically became a Guardian for a short while, then (following Hal's destruction of the Corps) joined another intergalactic peace-keeping organization, the Darkstars.

  • Guy wound up getting involved with the Justice League when it reformed following the Crisis. Eventually, he got booted from the Lanterns for a while. During that time he first acquired Sinestro's yellow ring, then a different power set altogether.



Following Hal's destruction of the Corps, Kyle Rayner of Earth was found by a Guardian - Ganthet - and given the last ring. He served as the only Lantern for years, before helping to refound the Corps. During the rebuilding period, Kyle convinces John Stewart to accept a ring again.


Eventually, Jordan was restored to life (and cleansed of an alien entity which had been responsible for his evil actions). During this, Guy lost his other power set, and was given a ring back as well, leaving all four of Earth's Lanterns alive and active again.


In recent times, the Corps has doubled in size: each sector now has two Lanterns. Officially, Hal Jordan is GL 2814.1 and John Stewart is GL 2814.2 (Earth being in Sector 2814). Guy and Kyle are members of the Green Lantern Honor Guard - described as Lanterns with no sector. The Honor Guard are 3rd in line as decision makers on Oa, and are free to act in any Sector they choose.


Other members of the Corps have been known to complain about the number of 'Earthens' represented in the Corps - most species have only a single active member at a time (if that many).


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...
1 comment
Read more

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...
Post a Comment
Read more

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...
Post a Comment
Read more

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...
Post a Comment
Read more