Alan Kistler's Green Lantern Files
Monday, September 8, 2008 at 05:32AM 
OUR HEROES IN A NUTSHELL
Some heroes are born with great abilities. Some receive super-human traits through some kind of bizarre accident. And some, much to their surprise, are chosen to wield power that they never asked for nor imagined.
Long ago, the people of the planet Maltus achieved great power and near-immortality. But when one of their scientists, Krona, accidentally unleashed terrible forces across the universe, the Maltusians decided to make up for this crime. Based on the planet Oa, said to be located in the center of the universe, several of them appointed themselves Guardians of the Universe, dedicated to bringing order to the cosmos.
The first step the Guardians took in helping to establish order was to gather much of the random magical energies that were scattered throughout the universe, collecting it all into what they called the Starheart. Afterward, the Guardians created their first soldiers, robot warriors known as Manhunters. But these robots later went rogue, believing the only way to ensure order was to enslave or kill all life forms capable of ever choosing to do evil. They scattered across the universe, forming cults of followers, always declaring "No man escapes the Manhunters!"
After the failure of the Manhunters, the Guardians began recruiting sentient beings. Each recruit was armed with a power
ring that accessed the green energy of the emotional electro-magnetic spectrum created by the feelings of all sentient life. The green part of this spectrum was the collected willpower of the universe, and so a soldier had to be both "honest and without fear" in order to access its incredible energy with his or her power ring. Each ring had a 24-hour time limit and so each soldier was given a lantern-shaped power battery to recharge their weapon when needed. And thus, the Green Lantern Corps was born.
Over the centuries, the Green Lantern Corps acted as volunteer rescue workers and police officers across the universe, each patrolling one of the 3600 sectors of space that the Guardians had mapped out. One Green Lantern named Abin Sur patrolled Sector 2814, which included, among other worlds, the planet Earth.
When Abin Sur traveled to Earth in the 1940s, he found that a human being had been chosen by the Starheart to wield its magical energies. With his magical ring, this man named Alan Scott had become a noble super-hero, beloved not only by the citizens of his home of Gotham City but by his entire country. He was called (perhaps not coincidentally) the Green Lantern and he was a founding member of the Justice Society of America, the world's first ever super-hero team.
Just as Superman is looked up to by modern-day heroes, Alan Scott was looked up to by the Golden Age heroes of World War II. He was their Emerald Knight of justice. 1951, he retired along with many of his contemporaries, though would return in dire emergencies when he felt his presence was needed.
Decades later, Abin Sur came to Earth again, having been mortally wounded by an enemy. His ring chose test pilot Hal Jordan as his replacement. As Earth's new and first official Green Lantern, Hal became a founding member of the new Justice League of America and was soon hailed as the greatest member of the Corps.
Hal was honest and without fear, smiling half the time when he went into battle, always sure that justice and good would win out in the end. He had many enemies, such as the energy-leeching Black Hand; the similarly powered Star Sapphire (a warrior of the Zamarons who were also originally from the planet Maltus); the twisted magnetic villains Dr. Polaris; the Qwardians, warriors and "weaponeers" from an anti-matter universe; and worst of all, Sinestro, one of Hal's own teachers who went rogue and armed himself with a yellow ring.
Hal also made many allies during his career. He and Oliver Queen, the hero called Green Arrow, became fast friends. He developed a brother-like bond with Barry Allen, the second man to be called the Flash. He teamed up with Alan Scott several times, who was older now but still couldn't stand by when lives were in danger. And different circumstances led to two other Earthmen named John Stewart and Guy Gardner also receiving GL power rings.
But Hal was later corrupted by a being known as Parallax, an avatar of fear itself. And after his home of Coast City was destroyed, Hal gave in to Parallax and became a villain himself, destroying the Corps by killing the Guardians and rendering all but one power ring inert. The last remaining ring went to a man chosen at random, a commercial artist named Kyle
Rayner. Kyle joined Earth's heroes and fought Hal on several occasions.
Eventually, Hal sacrificed himself to save Earth's sun from an alien threat, leaving Kyle as the last empowered member of the Green Lantern Corps, "the torchbearer." Though he was far from fearless and had no Corps nor Guardians to support him, Kyle proved himself a hero time and time again, both to the people of Earth and to Alan Scott, who mentored him on more than one occasion despite having never been a member of the Corps.
Years later, Kyle helped recreate the Guardians of the Universe and then aided in the resurrection of Hal Jordan, who finally freed himself from Parallax's influence. A new Green Lantern Corps was formed, this one twice as large, and Hal, Guy, John and Kyle are helping to lead it into a brighter future. Meanwhile, Alan Scott still fights for justice and, as a member of the newly reformed Justice Society of America, is helping to train the next generation of super-heroes.
Below is the histories of these different men who have all wielded a weapon of light limited only by their imagination and their spirit.
History of the Green Lantern Part 1 - Covering the Golden Age and Silver Age eras, including the introduction of Alan Scott, Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner.
History of the Green Lantern Part 2 - Covering the 1970s up to the events of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, including the introduction of John Stewart.
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