Green Lantern

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Green Lantern (formerly also Green Lantern and Green Lamp in German-speaking countries ) is a comic hero from the US DC Comics . The first Green Lantern was created by writer Bill Finger and illustrator Martin Nodell and first appeared in All-American Comics # 16 in July 1940 . There have been a number of people who have appeared as the Green Lantern over the years. The most famous of them is probably Hal Jordan , who made his first appearance in Comic Showcase # 22 in October 1959 . Hal Jordan was created by John Broome and Gil Kane .

Green Lantern logo

Several roller coasters were also built in the USA at Green Lantern. These are in the parks of the Six Flags Group.

History and background

Extras disguised as Green Lantern (left) and The Flash (right) in the Warner Bros. Movie World theme park

Skills and background of the character

The Green Lanterns do not get their special powers from an extraterrestrial origin or a mutation, but from a highly developed, extraterrestrial technology in the form of a ring. At the first Green Lantern Alan Scott , the ring was not of extraterrestrial origin, but of magical nature. With the help of this ring, Green Lanterns can materialize anything they can imagine.

The first Green Lantern Alan Scott had the limitation that his powers could not act on wood and had to be recharged every 24 hours by contact with a green lantern (hence the name of the hero “Green Lantern”). Scott's lantern, which contained the Starheart that gave power to Scott's ring, was magical in nature.

The second Green Lantern Hal Jordan and the later Green Lanterns no longer had the problem of affecting the wood, but could not influence anything yellow due to an imperative yellow impurity in their batteries. Until the central battery of the Green Lantern Corps was destroyed , all rings had to be recharged with the green lantern within 24 hours. This Green Lantern Corps was first introduced in Green Lantern (Vol. 2) # 9 (1961). It is a kind of galactic police force that was formed by aliens who call themselves "Guardians". These guardians, an ancient race, had used their power to create the rings. The Guardians had bundled all of their magical energy into a central battery on their planet Oa , from where it could be transferred to the charging batteries of the individual Green Lanterns. The 24-hour limit was originally intended to restrict the power of the lanterns.

Earthly green lanterns over time

Alan Scott

Fan in the Green Lantern costume by Alan Scott (2007)

The first Green Lantern was Alan Scott . It first appeared in All-American Comics # 16 in July 1940 .

Scott was an engineer for a train company. During a test run of a new prototype, the train derailed due to sabotage by the competition. Alan Scott held on to the green train lamp and miraculously survived. Finding that the lantern had magical powers, he forged a magical ring under the direction of the mind of the magical lamp that contained the Starheart . He called himself Green Lantern and fought with the JSA (Justice Society of America) the Nazis and other villains of the Golden Age of superheroes. Alan Scott's ring had a weakness against wood.

Later, following the crisis of the parallel earths, Scott's magic lantern was given a prehistory that Alan Scott (better) integrated into the continuity of the later Green Lanterns and their Green Lantern Corps, which had meanwhile been established . According to this, there was a Green Lantern on earth before Alan Scott, Yalan Gur , a resident of ancient China . He had adapted his costume to the clothing styles of his homeland at the time. When he was corrupted by the power of his ring, the guardians of the universe, the founders of the Green Lantern Corps, - without Gur's knowledge - changed the yellowness of his ring into a weakness against wood, because the primitive human weapons on earth at that time were mostly made of it Material so that Yalan Gur could be stopped by the people. When Gur flew off earth wounded, he died and fell back to earth, sucking his being into his Green Lantern battery. The battery fell to earth as a green comet, damaging its consciousness. A man named Chang made a lantern out of the meteor. Centuries later, a lamp maker named Billings made a modern train lantern out of it, which was used in 1940 for the test drive of a new prototype train, which engineer Alan Scott helped develop. When Alan Scott survived the train accident during the test drive of the prototype because of the lamp, the consciousness in the lamp no longer remembered its own history, but unconsciously of the modified costume of its previous owner, so that she led Alan Scott to use a costume based on it (which explains that Alan Scott's costume doesn't look like any of the other Green Lanterns).

Later it turned out that the lantern (Starheart) had a consciousness of its own and that its powers were transferred to Alan Scott and his two children (Todd & Jenny Lynn Hayden, the latter is also known as Jade because of its green skin ) .

Hal Jordan

The second Green Lantern was Harold "Hal" Jordan . He made his first appearance in Showcase # 22 in 1959 .

Hal Jordan was a test pilot who was caught by green light during a simulated flight including a flight simulator and was brought to the crash site of the spaceship of the active dying Green Lantern Abin Sur . The alien Green Lantern ( Abin Sur ) presented him with his ring and named him the "Green Lantern of space sector 2814" (and thus also of Earth). Jordan's ring - like all rings from Green Lanterns - had a weakness against the color yellow and had to be charged every 24 hours.

The saga of the Green Lantern Corps was first introduced around Hal Jordan (to which Alan Scott did not yet belong).

Hal Jordan became the most radiant green lantern in the corps. All rings in the corps had a weakness against yellow due to a yellow impurity in their energy batteries (caused by the parallax trapped in the central battery on Oa). The former mentor of Jordan, Sinestro, turned against the Corps and received a yellow energy ring with which he often stubbornly opposed Jordan.

When Hal Jordan's hometown, Coast City, was destroyed by Mongul in the wake of the Doomsday saga of Superman's death, Jordan wanted more power from the Guardians to revive the city and its people. When the guards denied him this, Jordan killed all the Green Lanterns that stood in his way and almost all the guards, removed their rings and became possessed by the almost almighty parallax by bathing in the central battery. He then destroyed the central battery in Green Lantern (Vol. 3) # 48 (1994). His desire to reverse the action, led to the Zero Hour (German about: Zero Hour ), the end of the universe, with the combined help of all the heroes of the DC universe could be stopped. Parallax then disappeared without a trace.

Hal Jordan / Parallax was seen again when a sun eater threatened to destroy the earthly sun - during the Final Night storyline. The last Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner, persuaded Jordan to help. This sacrificed itself by on the one hand preventing the sun from going through the supernova and on the other hand destroying the sun eater. Hal Jordan died and came to a kingdom between heaven and hell, purgatory.

In search of repentance, Jordan was brought back to earth as a spirit to serve as host for God's personified vengeance, the Specter , in the storyline The Last Judgment .

When the Green Lantern Corps was re-created by Kyle Rayner, and with it the Guardians and the Green Lanterns, Hal Jordan got his ring back and now represents Space Sector 2814 in the Corps again.

Guy Gardner

Cosplay 2011: Green Lantern (Guy Gardner), Superman ( Kingdom Come ), Batman , two Jokers (from left to right), plus Harley Quinn (front)

Main article: Guy Gardner

Guy Gardner , a special education teacher, wore the ring on behalf of Hal Jordan (first introduced in Green Lantern (Vol. 2) # 59, 1968) during the Parallel Earths Crisis . Gardner was the Green Lantern 2b, so to speak.

Gardner had to give the ring back to Hal Jordan, but this was not the end of his heroic career. Gardner received the yellow energy ring Sinestros and was on the road as superhero Guy Gardner. But he soon took this off and became a warrior with armor.

After the zero hour, that armor disappeared and Gardner went through a fundamental change. He found that he had an alien DNA that allowed him to form weapons out of his body. From then on he called himself just Warrior , and besides his career as a bar owner, he was a brutal hero.

While Our worlds was at , Gardner was killed by an Imperiex probe. This carried his body through thousands of other fights, in the course of which the alien DNA tried incessantly to revive him. Gardner mutated extremely. Because of his way of life, Gardner finally went to hell, worked his way up the hierarchy and became the master of the “abyss”, a ditch in which hell could approach the earth. Gardner tried to let Superman take his place so that he could go back to earth himself. But in reality, Gardner was trying to put the monster called Cancer, which was created from Superman's cancer cells, in its place. It worked, and Gardner came back to earth as a warrior.

During Hal Jordan's rebirth as the Green Lantern, Gardner lost his shape-shifting skills. He then rejoined the Green Lantern Corps founded by Kyle Rayner. Guy became the Corps 'first "Honorary Lantern" and as such is no longer the lantern of a sector, but rather belongs to the Corps' mobile reaction force, which is always deployed where a Green Lantern is not sufficient.

Guy Gardner was named after the writer Gardner Fox (including Batman, The Flash and Hawkman) and the fan Guy H. Lillian III (a fanzine and amateur comic book writer).

John Stewart

Architect John Stewart first wore the ring in 1971 Green Lantern (Vol. 2) # 87. Stewart was one of the few black superheroes of the time, but both he and Gardner were only temporarily Green Lantern, representing Jordan. John was basically the Green Lantern 2c. After leaving the Green Lantern Corps, after a while he became a member of the Darkstars, a group that, similar to the Green Lanterns, had the task of maintaining order in the universe.

During a Darkstars mission, however, he became an invalid and had to give up this existence. During the Final Night event , Stewart was temporarily cured of his disability by Hal Jordan (as Parallax). But he soon had to get back into the wheelchair, as he fired the green energy Jordan used to heal him in emergency situations as a defense and thus used it up. During a conversation with the villain Fatality, however, Stewart learned that his disability was not physical, but psychological. With the help of a psychologist and Kyle Rayner, he was able to lift this blockage by admitting to himself that he was to blame for the death of his little sister and was able to walk again. When the Guardians re-established the Green Lantern Corps (after they were revived), Stewart was re-elected as the Green Lantern and referred to by the Guardians as Green Lantern 2814.2. He is now a member of the Justice League.

Kyle Rayner

Kyle Rayner was, unlike the interim heroes Guy Gardner and John Stewart , the real 3rd Green Lantern. He made his first appearance in 1994 in Green Lantern (Vol. 3) # 48.

By the time he was recruited as a Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner had made his way as a freelance draftsman with commissioned work. After the destruction of the Council of Guardians, the last guard, Ganthet, presented him with the very last ring made from a fragment of the destroyed central battery in a dark street in Los Angeles. Due to the unique circumstances of its creation, this ring did not have the yellow weakness (since the being Parallax no longer represented the yellow impurity) and also not the 24-hour limitation. The energy charge lasted until the ring simply became empty through Rayner's use. Right at the beginning of his time as Green Lantern, Rayner's girlfriend was put in pieces in a refrigerator, which should give him some profile. He moved to New York and became a member of the Justice League.

Rayner tried after a long period of acclimatization to re-establish the corps, but failed. However, he persuaded Parallax to sacrifice his life to rekindle the sun during the final night .

After that he not only got the power of his ring energy, but also got the power of an energy being created by his subconscious called the Oblivion and also the energy of the deceased Parallax. From then on he called himself Ion . As Ion he had almost godlike powers, so he could travel through time and space, be in several places at the same time and even change reality. He voluntarily gave up this power in order to revive the guardians from the lantern energy and created a new central battery. So he became the first of a new corps that those newly born Guardians were building. Like Guy Gardner, Kyle is now an Honor Lantern and not assigned to any sector. In the further course of the Green Lantern saga, Kyle receives the power of each of the seven corps and thus becomes the White Lantern, which uses the power of life.

Hal Jordan again

Jordan's time as a Specter ended when he realized that something in his soul was trying to control even the mighty Specter. In the storyline Rebirth , it emerged that Parallax was an ancient parasite that had been locked in the central battery by the guards a long time ago and had taken possession of Jordan during his bath in the central battery on Oa for decades to eat. When Jordan was able to free himself from Parallax with the help of the JLA , JSA and the Teen Titans , his soul should finally ascend to heaven, as the Specter could now turn to a new host. But Jordan was guided on the way back by a probe from the Guardian Ganthet , the last Guardian who had also appointed Kyle Rayner the last Green Lantern. Rayner had recovered Jordan's body from the sun, seriously injuring him.

The being Parallax had infected the Green Lanterns Gardner, Kilowog and Stewart through the rings, but Ganthet freed them. Now Parallax was trying to take over Ganthet.

In the JLA (Justice League) watchtower , Jordan's soul combined with his corpse and was resuscitated. Together with Kyle Rayner and Green Arrow , he defeated the angry Sinestro and defeated the being Parallax with the help of the other Green Lanterns.

Since Kyle Rayner hardly visited the earth anymore, Jordan was again (as Green Lantern 2814.1), the Green Lantern of the earth and also a member of the JLA (Justice League).

Kyle Rayner again

During the Infinite Crisis he got new powers through the death of the heroine Jade (who also had lantern energy through his actions as Ion ) and became a powerful being again. He took on the title Ion again and thus became the guardian of the universe in space . During the "Sinestro Corps War" Ion was separated from Kyle by Sinestro and then infected by Parallax. Like Hal Jordan before, he became the new host for the yellow impurity . This demonstrated that, like Parallax, Ion needed a host to function efficiently.

Other important people

Guardian of the Universe

The Guardians of the Universe first appeared in US Green Lantern (Vol. 2) # 1 (1960) and are the founders of the Green Lantern Corps. They descend from the race of Maltusians who colonized the planet Oa to found a galactic organization to maintain peace in the universe. Over time, the Maltusians split into three races: the Controllers, who disagreed with the other's plans, left the planet. They were then followed by the Zamaron, all female members who colonized the planet Zamaron. Only a few Maltusians remained, who henceforth called themselves the Guardians of the Universe. Never wanting to take the initiative themselves, the Guardians created the Manhunters first. The Manhunters were - like the Green Lanterns later - a corps, which however consisted of androids. After a short time, however, it turned out that the Manhunter had technical defects and they were abolished again by the guards. Only now did the guards found the Green Lantern Corps and set up the central battery on Oa, in which the green energy of willpower was concentrated and stored. The Guardians now took the place of guides and mentors for the Green Lanterns until they were eventually almost completely wiped out by Hal Jordan. Only the guard Ganthet survived and formed the last power ring that Kyle Rayner would later receive from a fragment of the central battery destroyed by Hal Jordan. Even Planet Oa was destroyed in a battle between Kyle Rayner and Parallax shortly after the Zero Hour events . It was now some time before the guards were about to return. First, the best friend of the now deceased Hal Jordan, Tom "Snub nose" Kalmaku, re-created the planet Oa through guidance from Jordan's residual energy. A little later, Kyle Rayner brought the Guardians back to life as Ion. The guards then re-established the Green Lantern Corps. In order to have more control over the Lanterns, the Guardians created the so-called Alpha Lanterns a little later. You should make sure the Green Lanterns don't defy orders from the guards. Another momentous move by the Guardians was that they allowed the Lanterns to kill their opponents if necessary in order to ward off great danger.

Tom Kalmaku

Eskimo Tom Kalmaku, also known as "snub nose", made his first appearance in US Green Lantern (Vol. 2) # 2 in 1960. He was employed as a mechanic at the Ferris aircraft works, for which Hal Jordan worked as a test pilot and became Hal Jordan's best friend and confidante. He was also the first person to learn that Hal Jordan is Green Lantern. From that moment on, Tom also took on the role of a Green Lantern's helper and was even an (auxiliary) Green Lantern himself for 24 hours in US issue # 5 of the second series. After Hal Jordan's death, Kalmaku fell into a deep depression, from which he only emerged again when he was instrumental in the re-creation of the planet Oa.

Carol Ferris

Carol Ferris is the girlfriend of Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) and one of the oldest and most important supporting characters in the Green Lantern comics. It is presented for the first time in the booklet Showcase # 20 (author: J. Broome; draftsman: G. Kane) from 1959.

In this issue, Carol appears as the daughter of Carl Ferris, director of Ferris Aircrafts, an aircraft factory in the desert outside of Coast City, California, for which Green Lantern works in his secret identity as the dashing test pilot Hal Jordan. As a deputy and later as the successor of her father, Carol is both Jordan's eternal friend and his strict boss. Since both Ferris and Jordan are usually characterized as extremely temperamental, they often get into arguments with each other, but always reconcile again just as quickly. The main point of contention is mostly Jordan's excessive daring as a test pilot, which the responsible Carol sees as immature and unnecessarily risky. For a long time, the self-confident Carol knows nothing about Jordan's double life as a superhero. Over time, this results in a number of tricky entanglements: The smart businesswoman is in love with Jordan and Green Lantern at the same time, without realizing that both are identical.

In the further course of this love affair, Carol's body is repeatedly taken over by a villain named Star Sapphire . This always results in the paradoxical situation that Green Lantern has to go into battle against his own lover.

In the series Green Lantern Rebirth , in which Hal Jordan rises from the dead and becomes Green Lantern again, Carol is again the boss of Ferris Aircrafts. In the stories of the series, she is initially married to a man named Gil, but later divorces him in order to win back the love of Jordan as the man she “really loves”. In her affection for Jordan, Carol has to vie with a daring young test pilot named Cowgirl on this show.

Ferris appears as a supporting character in the film Justice League: The New Frontier in which she is dubbed by actress Brooke Shields .

Kilowog

Kilowog, first seen in US Green Lantern Corps # 202 (1986), is an Earthling from the planet Bolovax Vik and also a member of the Green Lantern Corps. Kilowog lived on earth for a while, where he worked for the Soviet Union as a genetic engineer and mechanic and was briefly a member of the Justice League International. Kilowog has a special bond with Hal Jordan, as it was he who trained Hal Jordan to become a real Green Lantern. Even after this period of training, both were close friends. That changed, however, when Hal Jordan went nuts and killed almost all of the Green Lanterns in his anger at the Guardians. The last of these Green Lanterns was Kilowog.

Kilowog was magically resuscitated many years later by the ex-Green Lanterns who survived the Hal Jordan events. However, he was created with the hatred and anger of the dead Lanterns and was thus a kind of monster on a vengeance. He made it his business to track down the remaining energies of Hal Jordan and destroy them. However, he noticed that the residual energy of Jordan, personified as Jordan's son, was good-natured and wanted to recreate the planet Oa with the help of Tom Kalmaku. Oa was recreated, and Kilowog was transformed back into his old self at the same time. Thus Kilowog became the protector of the as yet uninhabited planet Oa.

After the re-creation of the Green Lantern Corps, he took over the training of the new Green Lantern recruits, and his friendship with Hal Jordan also regained its old strength.

rogue

Demolition team

The Demolition Team is a mercenary group that first appears in Green Lantern # 176 (author: L. Wein; illustrator: D. Gibbons) from May 1984.

In this issue, the team is presented as a band of former demolition specialists who have specialized in sabotaging their clients' rival companies as freelance mercenaries for a fee. When carrying out their work of destruction, the members of the team usually fall back on repurposed construction equipment. The Demolition Team is made up of Rosie , a tough bartender from New Orleans who leads the group and is armed with a pistol that shoots red-hot rivets. The group also includes Hardhat , a former heavyweight boxer from New York who wears a helmet and head harness that enable him to tear down walls and other structures as a human battering ram. Then Jackhammer , who used to work on an oil rig and is from Houston. It is equipped with an automatic sledge hammer. Steamroller , a retired motorcycle stunt rider from Chicago who uses a compact, high-speed steamroller. And finally, Scoopshovel , a Jai-Alai player from San Diego who uses an oversized hydraulic shovel arm as a digging tool and weapon. When the team tries in its debut edition to destroy the Ferris Flugzeugwerke, the workplace of Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), on behalf of the corrupt politician Jason Bloch, it is defeated by Predator, a demonic creature that Carol Ferris can conjure up. Later the demolition team tries to destroy a German nuclear power plant, but is prevented from doing so by the superhero team Blood Pack. In an even later story, most of the team members are killed by the OMAC combat robot.

Evil Star

Evil Star is an alien with whom Green Lantern is enemies. Evil Star is first featured in Green Lantern # 37, June 1965.

In this booklet you learn that Evil Star is actually a scientist from a planet called Auron who has dedicated his life to the pursuit of immortality. He finally masters this task by inventing a starband that enables him to draw life energy from the stars. In addition, he has enormous powers due to the star energy he has absorbed: He can breathe in space, fly, fire energy from his body and create human-like, child-sized, superhumanly strong miniature beings, which he calls starlings and who blindly obey him . A side effect of the invention, however, is that it confuses the mind of the scientist and makes him fall prey to evil. In addition, the star band causes the other living beings in the vicinity of the scientist, i.e. the other residents of Auron, to age drastically. Pompton does not fulfill the request to destroy the tape and with it the danger it poses; instead, he engages in a mighty battle with the rest of the inhabitants of Auron. At the end of the fight, Auron is just one huge lifeless desert. The scientist, who now calls himself Evil Star, moves from now on through the universe to conquer new planets. His campaigns of conquest keep him in conflict with the Green Lanterns, especially Hal Jordan. Later, the Guardians of the Universe, the Lords of the Green Lantern Corps, try to cure Evil Star by irradiating him with a brain wave nullifier designed to filter the star radiation that is the source of his madness from his brain. This recovery only lasted for a short time, so that there were further arguments with Green Lantern as well as with the Darkstars and with Superman.

Fatality

Fatality , aka Yrra Cynril, is an alien dedicated to murdering all of the Green Lanterns. It is first presented in Green Lantern (Vol. 3) # 83 (Author: R. Marz; Illustrator: D. Banks) from February 1997.

According to this story, Yrra Cynril is the Crown Princess of the planet Xanshi, the only one who survived the destruction of her home planet by a weapon of mass destruction. When the attempt of a Green Lantern to prevent the destruction of Xanshi fails, Cynril, who survived because she lived on the planet Okaara at the time of Xanshi's destruction, swears bloody revenge. In order to achieve this goal, she is trained to be a dangerous fighter by the warlords of Okaara and arm herself with an extensive arsenal of deadly weapons (rocket boots with which she can fly, a staff that can fire bursts of energy, etc.). Not knowing which Green Lantern was unable to prevent the cruel fate of her homeland, she begins to travel the universe and systematically hunt down all Green Lanterns. After Hal Jordan destroys the Green Lantern Corps, Fatality murders a number of ex-Green Lanterns, only to attempt to kill Kyle Rayner, the last active Green Lantern at the time. After locating Rayner in New York City, they both begin a brutal fight that takes them from New York City to an abandoned planetoid. Fatality is ultimately defeated and appears to perish in a self-inflicted explosion - however, only her arm separated from her torso can be found.

Later, Fatality returns (with a cybernetic prosthetic arm to replace the lost limb) and fights Rayner and former Green Lantern John Stewart again. Stewart is in her sights, since she has since learned that he was the one who is "responsible" for the destruction of Xanshi. In this fight, Fatality loses her second arm when the yellow energy ring from the planet Qward (a yellow counterpart to the Green Lantern rings) with which she is fighting explodes. After a lengthy incarceration on earth, Fatality manages to escape with the help of Major Force. As a result, she worked as a bounty hunter in the Vega star system ( Green Lantern Corps: Recharge , 2005), most recently to join the Secret Society of Super Villains. During this time, she also loses her right ear, which her accomplice Scandal chops off in an argument.

Gold face

Goldface , aka Keith Kenyon, is a criminal scientist with whom Green Lantern repeatedly comes into conflict. It is first featured in Green Lantern # 38 (author: J. Broome, illustrator: G. Kane) from the summer of 1965.

This booklet tells how Kenyon transforms himself into a superhumanly strong, almost invulnerable colossus with a gold-like skin by taking a self-developed elixir made from gold. In order to be able to make more servings of his serum, he has to steal large amounts of gold. His raids quickly bring him into conflict with Green Lantern, and he becomes one of the hero's regular opponents. For Green Lantern, Goldface is primarily a serious danger because Green Lantern's power ring is powerless against the color yellow - the color of Goldface's golden armor and his body (his flesh has gradually become organic gold through the ingestion of the elixir) is. In later stories Kenyon also puts on gold-plated armor and armed himself with a gold pistol that shoots liquid gold.

In even later stories, Goldface moves to Central City, where he systematically takes control of criminal gangs, and becomes an adversary of the superhero Flash (Barry Allen). After serving a lengthy sentence, he renounces the crime and moves to Keystone City, where, like his father, he becomes Commissioner of the Union. As a refined criminal, Goldface becomes a friend of Flash II (Wally West), whom he helps, among other things, to defeat the villain Blacksmith, with whom he was temporarily married. In the cartoon series Justice League Unlimited , Goldface appears as a member of the Secret Society of Supervillains and is originally dubbed by Lex Lang .

Hector Hammond

Hector Hammond is a criminal genius that Green Lantern has to deal with frequently. It appears for the first time in Green Lantern # 5 (author: J. Broome, illustrator: G. Kane) from March – April 1961.

There he is introduced as a fugitive criminal who hides from the police in a forest, where he happens to find the remains of a meteor. He soon discovers that everything that comes into contact with the extraterrestrial rock develops to a large extent within a short time due to its alien radiation. Hammond then kidnaps four scientists, exposes them to the radiation of the meteor and uses their superhuman intelligence (which is conveniently accompanied by extreme weakness of will) to make wondrous new inventions, which he sells for expensive money. Later, Green Lantern finds Hammond, who is famous for "his" inventions and his wealth, on the trail, defeats him and saves the scientists. Hammond becomes the sworn enemy of Green Lantern.

In Justice League of America # 14, September 1962, Hammond escapes from prison. This time he exposes himself to the radiation of the meteor and transforms himself into a superhumanly intelligent, telepathically and telekinetically gifted hybrid being: Since his brain has grown to gigantic size, his head - an oversized head of water - now makes up more than 50% of his body mass . Hammond is also now immortal, but suffers from an inability to move and speak with his body - instead he has to use his thoughts to communicate with friends and enemies via telepathy and use his telekinetic abilities to levitate himself to move from place to place to move. Henceforth, Hammond is one of the most recurring villains in the Green Lanter comics. One of his most successful actions is the founding of the Royal Flush Gang ( Justice League of America # 203), a gang of card game-based thieves (king, queen, ace, jack etc.). In Green Lantern (Vol. 4) # 32 from 2007, the origin of the mysterious meteorite that gave Hammond his powers is finally revealed: Here you learn that the meteorite was originally part of a larger chunk, that of an alien race called the Gremlins sent to earth to wreak havoc. While a fragment of the stone fell into Hammond's lap, the larger one hit the African jungle, where he created a people of highly intelligent gorillas who were on a par with humans, including the villainous gorilla Grodd.

Hector Hammond is played in the live-action film Green Lantern (film) by Peter Sarsgaard.

Javelin

Javelin is a mercenary and professional criminal first introduced in Green Lantern # 173 (author: L. Wein, illustrator: D. Gibbons), dated February 1984. In this booklet you also learn that Javelin is a former German Olympic athlete who turned to crime out of greed for profit. Javelin owes his name, which means something like throwing spear in German, to the fact that he prefers to use an arsenal of collapsible spears as a weapon, which he carries in holsters around his waist. These spears are partly custom-made, which explode, release yellow paint and the like. Javelin can also fly thanks to its jet-fitted boots.

During his first confrontation with Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Javelin succeeds in defeating the superhero in a duel and stealing a solar-powered jet from the Ferris aircraft factory on behalf of the corrupt politician Jason Bloch. In the next issue, Javelin tries to completely destroy the Ferris works and is captured by Green Lantern. Later he was part of the Suicide Squad , a special unit made up of criminals who, in return for remission, carry out risky command missions for the US government. In Suicide Squad # 58, Javelin is apparently killed by the magician Circe, who impales him with one of his own spears. He later returns as a henchman for the criminal Doctor Cyber ​​and is defeated by the heroine Skyrocket. In the comic book Checkmate # 6, Javelin, now a member of the Secret Society of Super Villains, is killed while trying to accuse Amanda Waller, his boss in the Suicide Squad era, of a crime.

The Shark

The Shark is a hybrid of a human and a tiger shark with whom the Green Lantern interacts several times. He first appears in Green Lantern # 24 (author: J. Broome, illustrator: G. Kane) from October 1963.

In this story we learn that the shark used to be a sea shark that came into contact with nuclear waste that humans dumped in the sea. In this way, the evolution of the sea creatures was accelerated rapidly in this story and he was transformed into a hybrid of man and shark. Since then Shark has had telepathic and telekinetic powers, he can also fire energy beams from his body, briefly assume the appearance of a human (who calls himself TS Shark or Karshon), walk upright and breathe on land. At the same time he has the increased sensory abilities of a shark and its instincts (like falling into an aggressive blood frenzy as soon as it smells blood). After his transformation, Shark chooses Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) as an enemy when he learns that the hero knows no fear. The motive is his peculiar desire to find prey to terrify. Although Green Lantern uses his ring several times to transform the Shark back into a simple shark - kept captive in the Coast City Aquarium - he always manages to transform himself back into his mutated self. As a result, he keeps playing against Green Lantern. Occasionally Shark also fights against the superheroes Superman, Black Condor and Aquaman. At times (as Karshon) he contests the rule of Atlantis from the latter. In more recent comics, the Shark is a member of the Secret Society of Super Villains, and aliens who call themselves Gremlins carry out experiments on him and give him a more monstrous appearance and increased powers.

Sinestro

Fans disguised as Sinestro (right) and Karu-Sil (left), both in the yellow and black uniform of the Sinestro Corps ( New York City 2010)

Sinestro is a renegade Green Lantern that comes from the planet Korugar and wears a yellow ring that has the ability to create structures and rays of light through the fear of living beings, similar to the Green Lanterns. He is one of the most feared opponents of the Green Lantern Corps. Fellow members of the Sinestro / Yellow Lantern Corps are also Tekik, Kiriazis and Arkillo. Tekik has the ability to give robots / machines what is known as the "fear code".

Star Sapphire

Star Sapphire is the name of several villains that Green Lantern has to contend with. The first version of the character was featured in All-Flash Comics # 32 (Dec 1947 / Jan 1948). In the course of the following decades, these Star Sapphires and later bearers of the name were gradually brought into connection with one another in a complex background story by piecing together individual pieces of information like a mosaic to create a complete story of the characters.

The history of Star Sapphire is therefore described as follows: The Zamaron women (Zamarons) are an immortal people of warrior women who are led by a queen named Star Sapphire. For several million years, the Zamaron women have been looking for new, physically identical women in the universe, in whose bodies the consciousness of their queen can nestle. The takeover of the landlady by Star Sapphire is similar to the Christian idea of ​​a person being possessed by the devil or by demons: Star Sapphire takes control of a woman's body and from then on superimposes her own consciousness on her. The landlady's consciousness is now “numb” and only wakes up again after Sapphire's mind has left her body. As a sign of her rulership, the landlady of Star Sapphire is then given a crystal that looks like a star-shaped sapphire and gives the wearer tremendous power: So she can fly, breathe in the universe and fly through it, as well as generate pink energy structures and fire bursts of energy. Sapphire mostly uses her powers to conquer other planets as a conqueror. In addition, the Sapphire crusade - like all Zamaron women a misandry - against all male living beings is a frequent motif.

In Green Lantern # 16 from 1962, Carol Ferris, the girlfriend of Hal Jordan, transforms herself into the feminist villain Star Sapphire for the first time . Jordan does manage to restore Carol's old self. Since Star Sapphire later took control of her body again and again, Carol Ferris was one of Jordan's main adversaries for the next thirty years. After a woman named Della Pharon from the planet Xanadu has temporarily assumed the identity of Star Sapphire, Carol - who believes she is Pharon as a result of mind manipulation - is brought to Xanadu, where she lives on for a while until she is rescued by Green Lantern and taken to the Earth is brought back ( Green Lantern # 41). In Green Lantern # 195, Carol develops a third personality during a temporary healing from her second personality as Star Sapphire: from her mind she can subconsciously create a male being named Predator who acts as her protector. Predator protects the Ferris works from such threats as the corrupt Senator Bloch, the Demolition Team and the demon Eclipso. Carol, who doesn't know that Predator is a part of herself, falls in love with the fighter who embodies everything she likes about men: strength, masculinity and care. When Jordan and Predator begin to fight each other for Carol's love, Predator merges with Carol into a new version of Star Sapphire, which is far more cruel and vicious than the original. During this phase of obsession, she murders Arisia, a colleague of Jordan's Green Lantern Corps from another planet. Even later, Predator and Sapphire are (largely) separated from Carol and father a child together. The demon Neron eventually kills them both and takes their child ( Extreme Justice # 10-11).

In Green Lantern (Vol. 3) # 119 from 2000, Jordan - who has since died and has been transformed into an almighty being called Specter - erases the last remnants of consciousness of the dead Star Sapphire from Carol's body and mind, so that she never turns back into the villain can transform.

On television, Star Sapphire was used as the villain in several episodes of the Justice League Unlimited (JLU) animated series . In the series, Sapphire works successively as a henchman for Lex Luthor, the renegade Amazon Arisia and later for the Secret Society of Super-Villains run by Gorilla and Lex Luthor. Throughout the series, it remains unclear who is behind the Star Sapphire in JLU : Visually, she is reminiscent of Carol Ferris, but unlike her, the Star Sapphire in JLU speaks with a British accent. Actress Olivia d'Abo acted as voice actress for the character in the American original .

Traitor

Traitor , aka Devlos Ungol, is an alien conqueror who first appears in Legends of the DC Universe # 20 (author: M. Zeck, illustrator: K. Janson) from September 1999.

In his debut story, Traitor is identified as a member of a wild race of alien warriors who were originally named Devos Ungol. According to this story, Ungol was chosen by the scientists on his home planet for an experiment aimed at creating the perfect warrior. At that time, Ungol's body was fused with armor in a cybernetic manner, which was fed with energy from the life force of dying stars. In this way, Ungol became an almost invincible fighter who can breathe in space and fire powerful beams of energy. He is also practically invulnerable and has almost unlimited strength. The transformation of Ungol's body was also accompanied by a spiritual development: the pain he suffered when the armor was fused with his body gave rise to a kind of morbid religious idea that assumes that the universe has no meaning than pain and suffering and that it is therefore better to extinguish all life and thus the entire universe. In this sense, Ungol first destroys his home planet - with his people declaring him a traitor as he dies - and then moves through the universe with an army of like-minded people to wipe out one planet after the other. In this endeavor, Green Lanterns repeatedly stand in his way: For example, the protector of the space sector in 2018, Starkaor, who destroyed Traitor's fleet and left him stranded on the earth at the end of the 19th century. Then the successor of Starkaor - who was fatally wounded in his victory over Traitor - Abin Sur, the Traitor and a gang of desperados around the crook Bloody Joe Tuscano with whom he surrounds himself after a hard fight with the help of a sheriff named Jordan - an ancestor by Hal Jordan - can defeat. Abin Sur shrinks Traitor to microscopic size, banishing him from living in a microcosm at an atomic level within Green Lantern's ring for nearly a hundred years. Later, Traitor can regain his old greatness and return to the real world, where he resumes his campaign of destruction. He eventually succumbs to Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner in the fight against the Green Lanterns. The latter defeats him by shorting out Traitor's armor, letting him use up all of his star energy. Then he buries the immortal villain in the core of the planet Ramnos. The calculation behind this measure is the hope that Traitor will be shielded from the radiation of the stars there for all eternity, so that he cannot recharge his armor and must remain in his prison in the planet core without the power of his armor.

Film adaptations

Green Lantern logo : The Animated Series

Cartoons

  • Green Lantern: First Flight (2009), 74 min.
  • Green Lantern: Emerald Knights (2011), 84 min.

Animated series

The first season of an animated series ran from 2011 to 2013.

Real film

On July 28, 2011, the real-life version started in German cinemas. Director Martin Campbell ( Casino Royale ) brought the story to the screen with Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan / Green Lantern. Mark Strong (Sinestro), Blake Lively (Carol Ferris), Peter Sarsgaard (Hector Hammond) and Tim Robbins (Senator Hammond) were also on the cast list.

Web links

Commons : Green Lantern and his cast  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Mention of Starheart
  2. In the miniseries Cosmic Odyssey (German Infinite Odyssey ) from 1986.
  3. Predator is later identified as a parasite from the planet Maltus, which, like Sapphire, can nestle in the bodies of other living beings.
  4. He banishes Sapphire's consciousness into the Star Sapphire sapphire, which he conceals from Carol's body, and gives the jewel to Carol, who destroys it and thus destroys Sapphire for good.
  5. TrailerLounge ( Memento of the original from June 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.trailerlounge.de
  6. imdb