It was announced yesterday that Green Lantern writer, and now
DC Comics Chief Creative Officer, Geoff Johns, will be stepping off from
writing Green Lantern after a 9 year run.
This new made me a little sad since Johns writing is the whole reason I,
and I’m sure quite a few others, read GL for the last decade. Green Lantern was Johns first break out
hit. He is now known for taking
characters that were perceived as old or lame and bringing new life back into
them. He rejuvenated the JSA, brought
the original Flash, Barry Allen, back from a 20 years run in the Speed Force,
and he’s taken the most made-fun-of-character in comic books, Aquaman, and made
him the most bad ass hero in 2012.
Geoff Johns is one of my favorite writers in the business so
I’m disappointed he’ll be ending his Green Lantern run in May. When he first started writing Green Lantern it
was a sinking ship. Johns brought a
whole new mythology of characters and spectrum's to not only the Green Lantern
Corps, but the entire DC Universe, making it one of the best comics to read in
the last 9 years. A lot of plot lines
have been told in that amount of time, but I thought it’d be nice to look back
at my Top 5 Favorite Green Lantern story lines by Geoff Johns.
Green Lantern: Secret Origin
After Johns brought Hal Jordan back from the dead and turned
the villain Sinestro into the leader of his own yellow Corps he decided to take
a break and flashback to his take on Hal Jordan’s induction into the Green
Lantern Corps. This story also set-up
what Johns had in store for his next chapter in the Green Lantern saga,
Blackest Night.
We see a young Hal Jordan devastated by the death of his
father. This one event affects him
throughout his entire life until he is chosen to wear the most powerful weapon
in the galaxy and must face his lifelong fear if he has any hope of keeping
peace in sector 2814. We’re also
re-introduced to classic GL characters such as Sinestro, Carol Ferris, and Hector
Hammond.
To me this was a great jumping off point for anyone who
wanted to get into Green Lantern but didn’t want to have to catch-up on the last
40 years of story. It was said that Ryan
Reynolds kept this book on him throughout the entire production of the Green
Lantern movie. Unfortunately, I think the
film strayed a little too far from the original source material and ended up
not doing so well in the box office.
Green Lantern: Rebirth
I think Harvey Dent said it best in 2008’s The Dark Knight, “you
either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” The phrase sums up Hal Jordan pretty well I
think. In 2004, Green Lantern sales were
in a slump. Years earlier Jordan had destroyed
the Corps as the villain Parallax and then died himself, leaving one Green
Lantern in the whole galaxy. Johns came
on and changed all of that. In Rebirth
he rebuilt the Corps and brought Hal Jordan back from the dead. Everyone still perceived him as a villain,
but Johns fixed that by saying Parallax was actually a yellow entity that took
over Jordan, forcing him to do all those horrible things.
With that idea, and many other, Johns was able to construct
a story that was in-depth and entertaining.
It helped if you knew the history of the characters, but it wasn’t a
necessity. This story had classic moments
like Green Arrow trying to wield a power ring, Hal Jordan punching Batman, and
Kyle Rayner, the current Green Lantern, finally meeting Hal Jordan, the
greatest Green Lantern. It was from this
book that Johns launched his GL Universe and we’ve all been in awe ever since.
Green Lantern Corps: Recharge
After Rebirth jump started the Corps again Johns had idea for
every Lantern, all 3600 of them. For
years there was just the Green Lantern title, but with four earth Lanterns now
Johns had to give each of them their due.
Hal Jordan and John Stewart stayed on GL while Kyle Rayner and Guy
Gardner started Green Lantern Corps along with Kilowog and all the other
Lanterns.
The more I delved into the GL universe the more Kyle Rayner
became my favorite Lantern, aside from Hal Jordan of course. He was the sole torchbearer who gave up being
a god to help restart the Corps. To me
that seems like a pretty selfless and noble hero. This book paired him with the rebel Lantern,
Guy Gardner. Their yin and yang
personalities worked well together, fastly becoming best friends. They were like the Starsky and Hutch of the
Green Lantern Corps.
A new Corps also meant new members, the most interesting new
member to me being Soranik Natu. She
didn’t want to be chosen but quickly found the good in being a Lantern. She would go on to become Kyle’s girlfriend
and find out Sinestro is her father.
Move over Luke Skywalker, we got another kid whose daddy is the most
evil man in the galaxy.
Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps War
Rebirth and Recharge established the GL Universe and
characters so soon it was time for Johns to unleash the hounds of hell upon the
Corps, which just happened to be yellow.
For years Sinestro had wielded his own power ring, the yellow ring of
fear. In this story Sinestro finally
gets around to creating his own Yellow Lanterns to challenge the Green
Lanterns. His rings scoured the universe to find beings who had the ability to
instill great fear. Among the Yellow
Lanterns were Cyborg Superman, Superboy-Prime, and Abin-Sur’s son. One of the yellow rings was even offered to
Batman.
Johns put Jordan and Rayner in the center of this story,
both having to deal with their fears and overcoming them if they had any chance
of defeating the mascot of the Yellow Lanterns; Parallax. Some of the highlights of this story were
Rayner being infected by Parallax, the residents of Coast City deciding to
fight back, and Hal Jordan trying to gain back the trust of his fellow Lanterns
who he had once tried to kill and left for dead.
This all was of course just an appetizer to Blackest Night,
which introduced the Black and White Lanterns, who followed the introduction of
the Blue, Red, Violet, Indigo, and Orange Lanterns. By this point you start to see the grand
scale that Johns had mapped out his Green Lantern plans, and Blackest Night
wasn’t even the end of it.
Green Lantern: Sinestro
After the War of the Green Lanterns the Lanterns greatest
adversary, Sinestro, was picked to be a Green Lantern again and Hal Jordan was
cast out of the Corps for disobeying the Guardians, even though he just saved
the entire galaxy. This story line was
the beginning of DC’s New 52 reboot they were doing, but since the Batman and Green
Lantern titles were DC’s best-selling books they decided to leave them relatively
untouched. It’s not really known if part
of the GL history was thrown out, but in this title Johns proved he only needed
two things to make it work; Hal Jordan and Sinestro.
Sinestro goes against the Guardians wishes and enlist the
help of Jordan, using his green power ring to make Hal his own green power
ring, but since Sinestro made Hal’s ring using his own it could not be used
against him. Throughout his Green
Lantern run Johns has showcased the relationship between Hal and Sinestro and it
has helped this book continue to be interesting. Hal took the spot of Sinestro’s mentor. Sinestro became Hal’s mentor. Hal had to stop Sinestro when he went
rogue. Sinestro helped plot the downfall
of Hal through Parallax.
These two have been through a lot together, but there is
also the sense that, like Professor X and Magneto, they both want the same
thing, but are just on opposite sides of the line on how to obtain it. The way Johns writes these two characters, their
re pore alone is enough to keep this book going indefinitely.
