If I were to ask you how many Lanterns are from Earth, what would you say? There’s a surprising amount of variety to the way people will answer that question. Some people will tell you six (Hal, John, Guy, Kyle, Simon, Jessica), and maybe half of those will up it to seven when they realize they forgot about Alan. Every now and then you’ll find someone who remembers to count Teen Lantern in Young Justice, and Jo in Far Sector, bringing the total to nine. And then there’s those who’ll tell you that, for them, there’s really only four, because who needs all the rest when you’ve got the four corpsmen right here? I’ve seen it argued a lot that five, six, nine Lanterns from Earth is too many, and it’s all gotten way out of hand, and DC doesn’t know what it’s doing…and that’s kind of funny, because there’s way more than nine of them.
So first off, a few guidelines. I’m not counting alternate versions of anybody. I’m only interested in seeing how many unique individuals have been Lanterns from Earth, so I’m not going to be distinguishing between different iterations of the same character, no matter what reality they come from.
Second, I’m not counting any existing, non-Lantern characters that happen to get a ring for a while. Yes, I know, people keep giving power rings to Batman, but he doesn’t count. This list is about running down all the characters who’s lives were defined by the fact that they became Lanterns. So while, yes, the Flash did in fact become a Blue Lantern once, that was only for a few hours, and it was just a footnote in his life as the Flash.
And third, I do not care if the characters on this list currently exist in DC continuity or not. The continuity of the DC Universe is a very fluid, and often poorly defined thing, so I’m just not going to worry about it.
What I am going to do, to make this easier, is I’m going to go through these characters in the order they’d appear on an in-universe timeline, if they all existed in continuity with each other. That means even though Alan Scott is the first one to be created in the real world, he’s actually fourth on the timeline.
Now that we’re all on the same page, let’s get into it, because there are A LOT of Lanterns to cover, starting way back in 660 AD.
Jong Li
Jong Li was a peaceful monk living in ancient China. One day, a woman named Jade Moon and her infant son came to his temple looking for a place they’d be safe. It turns out she was an imperial concubine seeking freedom, and the men chasing her were the emperor’s troops, who promptly destroyed the temple and killed most of the monks. Alone and dazed, Jong Li is found by an alien looking for someone fit to become the first Human member of the Green Lantern Corps. Jong Li accepts, uses his new power to rescue Jade Moon, and then embarks on a journey to commune with the Gods of his temple, and become a man capable of overthrowing the Emperor.
Waverly Sayre
Waverly Sayre wanted to live a simple farmer’s life in early 1800’s America, but tragically his wife and child both died during birth. He was tormented by nightmares and depression for months, before finally being confronted by a green image of his dead family, begging him to come to their aid. When he reached out to them, a Green Lantern ring appeared on his finger, and he was transported to an alien planet under siege. At first he thought he’d been transported to Hell, and the aliens were demons that took the souls of his wife and child…but eventually he’d come to learn that the voice who spoke to him back on Earth belonged to the widow of the ring’s previous owner, the Green Lantern who died trying to defend his homeward from these invaders. Waverly Sayre fought off the invasion, saving his predecessor’s family like he wished he could’ve saved his own. From that day on, Waverly Sayre was rarely ever seen by his neighbors, who believed him to be a strange recluse who never left his home and he let his fields go unattended. In reality, he left his home every night, fully embracing his responsibilities as a Green Lantern, and dedicating himself to being there for his new friends on that distant world.
Daniel Young
Daniel Young was a Sheriff in 1873 Montana, and was in the middle of chasing down a gang of outlaws when a space ship flew overhead and abducted him with a beam of green light. The ship was piloted by Abin Sur, the Green Lantern who would eventually pass his ring on to Hal Jordan before dying. This time, though, Abin isn’t fatally injured, but he does need someone to fill in for him as Green Lantern while his ship heals his wounds. Daniel has no idea what’s going on, but he ends up with Abin Sur’s power ring, and rides back to town on a big green horse. From here, the rest of Daniel’s story is a classic, or cliche, western trope with a superhero twist. Daniel had captured one member of the outlaw gang earlier, and now the rest of them showed up to get him back, using a local boy as a hostage, and it was time to settle things with an old fashioned shootout…only Daniel had a super ring from outer space, so it was over pretty quick. After that, the ring left Daniel and returned to Abin Sur, who was all healed up and ready to move on. I am a little disappointed that Daniel Young’s story is literally just “what if Hal Jordan’s origin happened a little bit differently in the old west”…but at the same time, it’s really kind of funny how Abin Sur keeps getting injured on the job, and driving his space ship over to Earth to find somebody to fill in for him.
Alan Scott
Alan Scott is the original Green Lantern created in 1940. When we talk about this being the 80th Anniversary of Green Lantern, what we really mean is that this is the 80th Anniversary of Alan Scott. That said, the fact is that Alan hasn’t been a part of the DC Universe since before the New 52, and he’s only just now starting to come back after nearly a decade of not being used, so It would be completely reasonable for an entire generation of Green Lantern fans to have started with the New 52 and have no idea who the original version of Alan Scott is…something that’ll hopefully change soon.
Alan Scott is one of the only Lanterns to have nothing to do with science fiction. His powers are purely magical, and come from a mysterious glowing lantern he just happened to find while on a train. Grabbing it was the only thing that kept Alan from dying in a horrific train crash, and he decided to use the lantern’s power to save others the way it saved him. The whole concept of a Green Lantern ring came from the fact that Alan didn’t want to carry a big clunky lantern around with him all the time, so he cut a chunk of the lantern off and carved it into a ring that could temporarily hold some of the lantern’s power, but would need to be recharged every day.
He was the protector of Gotham City back when Bruce Wayne’s dad was still a young child, and was the first hero to ever battle classic DC villains like Solomon Grundy and Vandal Savage. His biggest claim to fame, though, is being a founding member of the Justice Society of America, the very first super team of its kind. The Justice League, the Avengers, the Teen Titans…they’re all based on the JSA. The team would eventually fade into history, until having a resurgence in 1999, lasting right up until 2011 when the New 52 changed the history of the DC Universe. But for almost its entire run, Alan Scott was front and center in the Justice Society, fighting Nazis and teaching a new generation of young heroes what it means to stand up for what you believe in.
Donna Parker
Donna Parker was a school teacher in 1950’s Nebraska. Her husband died in the Korean War, leaving her a single mother of three kids. Because of her intelligence and strength of character, the Guardians chose her for a specific mission: prevent the Human race from annihilating itself with nuclear weapons. The Guardians believed that Humanity as a whole wasn’t responsible enough to handle the power of nuclear weaponry, and wanted someone they considered trustworthy to ensure that never happened. But first, the Guardians arranged a test to see if Donna was up to the job, creating a situation where one of her kids almost drowned in a frozen lake. The quick thinking it took to save her daughter was more than enough for Donna to pass, but all that achieved was to make Donna realize her children are more important to her than anything else in the world…on top of the fact that now she’d never be able to trust the Guardians after the stunt they pulled. Donna rejects their offer, takes her kids, and goes back to her normal life.
Hal Jordan
Hal Jordan is pretty much the baseline standard for modern Green Lanterns. Basically everyone created after Hal uses him as a template, and then adds additional quirks and characterization to make them stand apart. The downside to this is that Hal Jordan ends up being kind of uninteresting by comparison, but he isn’t without his unique strengths. Hal is one of the most headstrong characters in all of fiction, and he manages to funnel that extreme determination and self-confidence through his ring and turn it into a level of raw power very few Lanterns have ever been able to replicate. He plows through every problem like a wrecking ball, never making a plan, never even considering his options, because why bother thinking about any of that stuff when he’d never allow himself to fail? He isn’t particularly creative, so you’ll almost never see him taking full advantage of what his ring can do…except in the rare moment he finds himself backed into a corner, when everything’s on the line. That’s when Hal summons his Hail Mary play, the most deeply personal construct he could possibly make. When Hal was about ten, he saw his test pilot father die in a plane crash. This was the most terrifying moment of Hal’s entire life, and to overcome it, he went on to become a test pilot himself…both to deal with his trauma, and to feel closer to his father. So what does Hal do when his back’s against the wall, and he’s out of options? He makes a life sized construct airplane, and crashes it into the enemy at top speed, turning the greatest tragedy of his life into a weapon he can use to save people.
Carol Ferris (Star Sapphire)
I bet you thought this was just going to be Green Lanterns, right? Well, while there aren’t very many, there are still a hand full of Earthlings who joined other Lantern Corps, starting with Carol Ferris.
Carol’s father was the president of Ferris Aircraft, a company that’s specialized in everything from commercial flights to development of experimental jets for the military. It was always Carol’s dream to become a pilot, but everything changed when Hal Jordan’s father died testing an experimental Ferris jet. In the years that followed, the guilt and depression her father felt over the accident lead to serious health issues, and it was up to Carol to give up her dreams and run the company, which was now teetering on the brink of collapse.
In the middle of all of this, Carol was abducted by aliens and given super powers. The Zamarons were an offshoot of the Guardians, and they selected Carol to become their first Star Sapphire, a warrior of love. At first, her powers came from a gemstone implanted in her forehead that took control of her mind and personality, but eventually the Zamarons realized it’d be better to mimic what the Guardians had done and turn the gem into a ring, allowing Carol better control over her power while also retaining her free will. As the Star Sapphire Corps grew, so did Carol’s role in it, until she ultimately became their leader. She tamed the living embodiment of the Emotional Spectrum, she battled Sinestro to a stand-still, she fought on the front lines during the Blackest Night, and she somehow managed to balance all of that with keeping her family’s business from falling apart, if only barely.
Charlie Vicker
Charlie Vicker was an actor who played Green Lantern on TV. One night he partied too hard, and was too hung over to go to work the next day, so his brother went in his place. Unfortunately, some criminals with a grudge against Hal Jordan mistook Charlie’s brother for the real Green Lantern and killed him during a live broadcast. Hal and Charlie arrived at the scene at the same time, and Charlie demanded to come along, so he could avenge his brother. Hal deputizes Charlie, temporarily giving him his own ring, and he does well enough that the Guardians decide to make him a permanent member of the Green Lantern Corps. He’s assigned to his own sector out in space, and for a while he pretty much hates it, before eventually learning to see the aliens in his care as people just like him.
John Stewart
John Stewart is a former Marine sniper turned architect, a job he took because after years of violence and destruction, he wanted to be able to build something instead. And that dichotomy is what informs who he is when he suits up as a Green Lantern. When John uses his ring to make a construct, he’s giving it every single moving piece that the real thing would have…which I have to stress, is NOT the way Green Lanterns usually do things. Normally if they want to make a gun, the construct is just a lump of energy with an exterior molded into the shape of a gun, exactly the same way you’d sculpt a model out of clay. But John would never take that short cut. He would never settle for something that only looks good on the outside. And if it wasn’t for his ability to help countless people by building things with his ring, John might not be able to stand the violent acts that come with the job.
Guy Gardner
Guy Gardner is an asshole with a heart of gold. Not a lot of people like him as a person, which is no surprise considering the smug, condescending way he carries himself. Guy is his own biggest fan, and to hear him tell it, there’s nothing he can’t do. But the tough guy act is all a front, to make up for the fact that he’s spent his entire life struggling to get ahead, but constantly being pushed back down. He’s tried to be a lawyer, a gym teacher, a bartender, a cop…but it never works out, nothing he ever does ends up being good enough. That ring that went to Hal Jordan? It also found Guy, and would’ve gone to him instead of Hal, except that Hal was geographically closer to it than Guy was. Then when they needed someone to fill in as Green Lantern when Hal wasn’t around, Guy was passed over again, to bring in John Stewart. By the time Guy actually got a ring of his own, he was fed up and determined to prove his greatness to the world, and no longer cared what anyone thought about him…because even if they hated him, they’d have to acknowledge his greatness one day.
Kyle Rayner
Kyle Rayner was a complete nobody who perfectly embodied the idea that, unlike most hero origins that require some special birthright or advantages, literally anyone can be a Green Lantern. Kyle wasn’t chosen, he was just in the right place at the right time. He was getting drunk in the middle of the day, and happen to stumble into the back alley behind the bar when a Guardian randomly appeared in that exact spot, desperate to recruit the first person in sight to be the new Green Lantern. Kyle’s story is one of an average person being handed unfathomable cosmic power, with absolutely no explanation or training, and then being left to learn from his own mistakes. And they were big mistakes, innocent people died because of Kyle’s actions, and that knowledge would continue to haunt him for his entire life, while simultaneously motivating him to try even harder to save as many people as possible.
Jenny Lynn Hayden (Jade)
Jade is the daughter of Alan Scott, and was born with her own natural, internalized version of the Green Lantern’s powers that came out of her hand without the need for a ring…because magic, basically. Her powers would come and go over the years, due entirely to plot convenience, and eventually she’d receive the ring and uniform of the Green Lantern Corps when Kyle Rayner needed someone to watch over Earth during his prolonged mission in space. She’s always carried the burden of legacy…following in the footsteps of Alan Scott, helping Kyle continue on after the Green Lantern Corps fell, and propping up the DC Universe by making friends and forming teams.
Like her father, Jade was also the founding member of the premier super team of her generation: Infinity Inc. They were to the Justice Society what the Teen Titans are to the Justice League, and several members of Infinity Inc would eventually grow up to be full fledged members of the JSA in a later incarnation of the team. Jade wasn’t one of them, but she would go on to become leader of The Outsiders, another Titans-esque team, and then later would serve as one of the heavy hitters of the Justice League.
Anya Savenlovich
Anya Savenlovich was a Russian Cosmonaut who was believed to have died in 1964 when her rocket exploded in Earth’s orbit. In reality, both she and her capsule survived, and she was drifting through space, frozen in suspended animation for 35 years. She was found and revived by Kyle Rayner, who was in space looking for new recruits to help restart the Green Lantern Corps. He gave rings to Anya and four others, only to discover too late that one of them had ambitions of becoming a warlord, using his new power to amass a fleet and build weapons of mass destruction. Anya helped Kyle and the other recruits put a stop to all of that, but by the end Kyle decided he’d been to hasty in trying to rebuild the Green Lantern Corps, and that he wasn’t yet qualified to pick out new recruits who can be trusted with this kind of power. Kyle took back the rings he’d given to Anya and the others, ending their time as Green Lanterns. Kyle offered Anya a ride back to Earth, but after hearing how different the world and her homeland had become, she decided to stay in space with her new former-Lantern friends…because at that point, Earth would’ve been just as alien to her
Dex-Starr
Ok, I kind of hate that this counts. Not because I don’t like the character, I love the Rage Kitty, but the first time we saw him was in space, and I thought he was some bright blue alien cat. It turns out that Dex-Starr started out as a normal house cat named Dexter, who was adopted from an animal shelter in Brooklyn by a kind old lady who lived alone. Everything was happy for a while, until a burger broke in and killed her. Dexter was homeless on the streets of New York, and one day someone thought it would be fun to put him in a bag and throw him off the Brooklyn Bridge. Dexter’s rage hit a breaking point, and attracted a Red Lantern ring, letting him both save himself and kill the guy who did this to him.
Dex-Starr went on to become the loyal right hand of Atrocitus, leader of the Red Lanterns, and generally follows Atrocitus wherever he goes. Dex-Starr always makes a point to try using the ring to communicate his thoughts, like he wishes he could have when he lived with the kind old woman, and his underlying mission will always be to hunt down and punish her killer.
John Moore (Rankorr)
John Moore always lived a life full of repression. No matter what anyone ever said or did, he would always push his emotions down, and never allow himself to get too worked up. Eventually, though, it would all boil over after witnessing the deaths of both his brother and grandfather, attracting the attention of a Red Lantern ring, becoming Rankorr. However, since John spent his entire life strictly controlling his emotions, he was able to retain a degree of control once the ring took him. This is a pretty huge deal, because when a Red Lantern ring possesses you, it totally overwhelms your mind with pure rage, and you become a ravenous monster incapable of thought or reason. Atrocitus had to develop a ritual to restore coherent thought to Red Lanterns after their induction, but John was able to help himself, hanging on to the person he is though sheer willpower. He’s also the first Red Lantern to ever show the ability to make constructs. It was always assumed this was impossible, since Red Lanterns were mindless monsters who could only lash out with raw, visceral violence…but John proved that once they have their minds back, the Red Lantern Corps is capable of far more than anyone ever believed.
And if you’re wondering why his name is also Rankorr, there’s literally no reason. He just randomly calls himself that one day and it sticks. I mean, the dictionary definition of the word “rancor” fits his character and everything, but it just came completely out of nowhere and was never justified by the story. So there’s that.
Simon Baz
Simon Baz is a Lebanese American Muslim who’s time with the ring is spent grappling with doubts about his own self-worth, while the culture of fear in a post 9/11 world makes it next to impossible for him and his family to live normal lives. Simon’s ring ran out of power almost as soon as he first got it, so for a while there he saw the ring as something unreliable that was only good for letting him run away from his problems. But eventually he comes to realize the opportunity this presents, to become someone that both he and his family can finally be proud of. I’m not going to go too far into it, because my very first video on this channel is all about Simon, his origin, his overarching storyline with the ring, and how much the character has changed since inception, so I highly recommend you go watch that after this.
Jessica Cruz
Jessica Cruz witnessed the murder of her friends, and developed extreme anxiety and agoraphobia, going three full years without setting foot outside of her apartment. This made her the perfect target for a green Power Ring from another universe that feeds on fear, which basically abducted her to use as a host. The ring would physically and emotionally torture Jessica, feeding her fear and anxiety, until Batman and Cyborg were able to help her get to a place where she could finally separate herself from the ring, saving the life of the Flash in the process. The whole ordeal proved she was worthy of a real Green Lantern ring, and then got a 57 issue series where, with the help of her partner Simon, Jessica used her time as a Green Lantern to slowly work on herself and learn to deal with the things that’ve been holding her back.
Frank Laminski (Phantom Ring)
Frank Laminski is an underachiever who always dreamed of making it big. To him, the worst thing a person could ever be is average. So he joined the Air Force, thinking it would make him into someone important…only to botch his first real assignment, crash an experimental jet, and require rescuing by rookie Green Lantern Hal Jordan. Frank washed out of the Air Force after that, but he didn’t care, because now he had a new goal: to become Green Lantern. After seeing what Hal could do, Frank became absolutely obsessed with the idea of a Green Lantern ring being the answer to all of his problems, thinking that if only he had that ring, he’d finally be elevated to the level of respect he’d always chased after. He followed every news story about Green Lanterns, learned everything he could about them, removed everyone and everything from his life that wasn’t in direct service to the goal of turning himself into the perfect candidate for a Green Lantern ring. He’d watch as more and more Green Lanterns got rings, but was confidant his would come one day.
Eventually all his hard work paid off, and a ring did choose him…but to Frank’s horror, the moment before it landed on his finger, the ring recognized it had made an error, and flew away. This is the same ring that would find Simon Baz. Now at his absolute lowest moment, when he was forced to see the futility of everything he’d done with his life, Frank was approached by a hooded figure offering him a unique ring, the Phantom Ring, one that could make him more powerful than any Green Lantern. Frank accepted the Phantom Ring, and gained the ability to use every light in the Emotional Spectrum. What Frank didn’t know is that the Phantom Ring has no safeties, nothing built in to keep the power in check. It’s a direct line into the entire Emotional Spectrum, and that kind of power will annihilate your mind and body. Frank kept spiraling further and further out of control, desperately trying to hang on the power he’d wanted for so long, the Emotional Spectrum overwhelming him with increasingly violent waves of power. It takes some doing, but eventually Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz manage to wrestle the Phantom Ring away from Frank, locking it and him away where they can’t hurt anyone anymore.
Keli Quintela, the Teen Lantern
Keli Quintela, the Teen Lantern, is a member of Young Justice and sees being a Lantern as her road to a better life. She’s the daughter of a poor family in Bolivia, who just happens to witness the murder of an alien wearing a Green Lantern uniform and a strange backpack. When the alien dies, Keli takes the backpack and realizes she can use it to be a superhero, which would be her ticket out of town. Despite calling herself Teen Lantern, she’s still only eleven, and the extent of her plan is “go to Metropolis and get an internship with the Justice League”, but her chance run-in with the other members of Young Justice has already given Keli a lifetime of adventures and experiences, taking a whirlwind trip through the multiverse, battled everything from mad scientists to her own evil alternate universe counterpart. Keli’s backpack, and the death of its previous owner, are all shrouded in mystery, and she’s doing her best to learn how to be a Lantern while constantly getting in over her head with the rest of Young Justice, in a way that reminds me of when Kyle Rayner was learning the ropes…only unlike Kyle, Keli has a set of Super Friends to help her out from day one.
Sojourner Mullein
Sojourner “Jo” Mullein desperately wants to make the world into something better, but has never really known how. In the wake of 9/11, she joined the army, but never saw any proof that what she was doing actually made a difference. She became a police officer, thinking it would give her the power to effect change on a local level and inject some fairness into the world. But what she found was a system enabling bad behavior by police, and a department more interested in protecting their own than doing what’s right. Her burning desire to make the world better, despite feeling powerless to do it, earned her a ring and an assignment. Go into space, spend a year in an alien city of 20 billion people, exercise the power and authority that go along with the ring and badge of the Green Lantern Corps, and find out first hand what kind of change one person can make when empowered to act without fear holding them back…as well as what the limits of one powerful person truly are, when what they face is a system, an entire way of life, that must be made to change.
Green Lantern Circa 2029
I bet you thought we were done with animals. Well Dex-Starr’s got some company.
This character unfortunately doesn’t have a name, and is just commonly referred to as Green Lantern Circa 2029, since his only appearance was the mini series “The Last Days of Animal Man”. The story takes place in the not too distant future, following Buddy Baker on his final outing as Animal Man while his powers begin to fade away.
Green Lantern Circa 2029 doesn’t do anything remarkable or worth mentioning, and the most notable thing about him is the fact that he’s a talking blue whale, who communicates through the ring the same way Dex-Starr does. There’s been debate over weather or not he’s even actually from Earth, since they don’t explicitly call him the Green Lantern of Earth’s sector, and there is precedent for alien Lanterns looking like Earth animals, but when talking to Animal Man he does mention “our companions in the League” implying that he’s a member of the Justice League, which would pretty much require him to be Earth’s Green Lantern, and thus an Earth whale the same way that Dex-Starr is an Earth cat.
Kai-Ro (Batman Beyond, 2039)
Kai-Ro is most well known as the Green Lantern from Batman Beyond, and member of that era’s Justice League. We don’t know much about him, since he was created to be part of an ensemble group of characters who would only appear rarely, but since Batman Beyond made the jump to comics, Kai-Ro has been fleshed out a little bit.
He was raised in a secret Buddhist monastery hidden somewhere in the Himalaya mountains, and may have connections to the ancient magical city of Nanda Parbat. He also may or may not be the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. There unfortunately isn’t much more to know about the character at this point. Fans speculate that he inherited his ring from either John Stewart or Kyle Rayner, since they were the only Green Lanterns from Earth in the cartoon and Kai-Ro is of the generation to come up after them, but for now that’s about it.
Golden Gardian (Sinestro Corps, 25th Century)
So, most of the Flash’s villains make up a team called the Rogues. Mirror Master, Heatwave, Weather Wizard, Captain Cold, Golden Glider…and in the 25th Century, where the legacy of the Flash is revered by everyone, an organization of Time Cops decided to make a special unit comprised of agents who take on identities based around the weaponry and costumes of the Rogues, calling this new team the Renegades.
But the current version of the Golden Glider doesn’t have any tools, her abilities are a super power that lets her move around like the wind and phase through matter…so instead they built the Golden Guardian identity around this woman having already been chosen as the Sinestro Corps member of Earth’s sector. Not only does it make for a good twist you don’t expect for a Flash character, it’s also significant because it means that the Sinestro Corps is still active in the 25th Century. And it’s very specifically the Sinestro Corps, not an offshoot, and not a Yellow Lantern Corps built separately from Sinestro’s ideals…Golden Guardian uses the exact oath created by Sinestro for his army, this is still his vision for his Corps…and that interests me a lot, because we’ve already had the opportunity to see Sinestro’s dream come true once. For a short time, the Sinestro Corps became the default law enforcement body in the universe, before the Green Lanterns returned and it all fell apart. But the point is there’s precedent for Sinestro winning in the end, and it being genuinely good for everyone in the universe. Golden Guardian suggests that it could very well happen again, and it makes me really, really want to see more of her and the future she calls home.
Earth Lantern Corps of the 26th Century
Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz get thrown through time and land in 26th Century Washington DC, where they’re met by Green Lanterns calling themselves officers of the Earth Corps, all wearing Green Lantern emblems with the planet Earth at the center.
Earth had to be quarantined due to something called the Power Plagues, totally eliminating all space travel to keep it from spreading to other worlds. One Green Lantern chose to stay on Earth to try and help, but Earth was so totally cut off from the rest of the universe that the Central Battery on Oa couldn’t reach them. It took a lifetime of work, but eventually the Lantern helped Humanity figured out how to build a Central Battery of its own, empowering mankind to try and fix the Earth so the quarantine can finally be lifted.
We don’t get to see any more than that, as they all get swept up in a massive battle against the plot that brought Simon and Jessica to the future in the first place, but I thought this was worth mentioning just for what a cool addition this is to Green Lantern mythology. If any writer ever wants to pick up this thread and run with it, there’s so much potential for what could happen next, especially since it’s still five whole centuries away from the time of the Legion of Superheroes, a space that doesn’t usually get explored.
Rond Vidar
Rond Vidar is the first of three Green Lanterns of Earth to operate in the 31st Century and work with the Legion of Superheroes…although all three of them are in different versions of the 31st Century, time travel is weird, just go with it.
So Rond Vidar is made an honorary member of the Legion for just how incredibly smart he is, and he helps make tremendous progress in the development of a safe form of time travel. Unfortunately he’s also the son of Universo, one of the Legion’s villains, and one of the only people alive with a natural immunity to his father’s power. Universo decided that Rond is too dangerous to have around, so he killed him…only Rond survived, but decided to let the world think he’s dead, so he can work behind the scenes. Because not only did Rond Vidar fake his own death to undermine his super villain father, he was also an undercover Green Lantern. At this point in this version of the Legion’s future, Green Lanterns still existed but were banned on Earth. So the Guardians selected Rond Vidar to be a Green Lantern living and operating in secret, letting the Guardians keep an eye on the Earth without anyone knowing. Eventually all the lies came crashing down, and Rond had to expose the fact that he’s a Green Lantern…and alive…in order to save the Legion. After that, he was forced to leave Earth, seemingly forever, since the ban on Green Lanterns still stood.
There’s more to the story, but I’ll leave it there for now.
Cary Wren
Cary Wren is Kyle Rayner’s descendant in the 31st Century. Kyle gets captured while on a time travel adventure with the Legion, so the Guardian Ganthet gives Kyle’s ring to Cary, so she can save them. At the time, Kyle’s ring had a genetic lock, meaning that the ring was keyed to Kyle’s DNA and wouldn’t work for anyone else who put it on. Since Cary is a direct biological descendant, her DNA is a close enough match to turn the ring on.
Kyle and the Legion were captured by a group of criminals posing as the Green Lantern Corps. In this version of the future, there are no Green Lanterns, and there haven’t been any for generations. And since historical records are spotty, this group was able to put together costumes and weaponry that could loosely approximate what people thought Green Lanterns were, and use the reputation of the Green Lantern Corps to scare away anyone who might try to pursue them. Almost all of their crimes were museum robberies, always focusing on valuable historical pieces, which makes these bad guys kind of interesting because they’re totally obsessed with the past. They’re disguising themselves as ancient heroes to go steal the treasures of bygone eras.
So after a quick pep talk from Ganthet, Cary frees the Legion and disables the power source for the fake Lanterns, thanks to some coaching from Kyle. She does end up giving the ring back to Kyle when it’s all over, and as far as I’ve been able to tell, this is the last anyone’s ever seen of Cary Wren…which is a shame, because she represented an opportunity to explore the legacy of Green Lantern in the far future, something that’s almost always missing from the world of the Legion. I’m just happy that, during her short time with the ring, she managed to have a classic Green Lantern/Flash team up with XS, the Legion’s speedster and granddaughter of Barry Allen.
Kirt Niedrige (Earth Man)
So this is a character that I had to be talked into including, because he’s existed since the 1970s but only became a Lantern in 2007…but in the case of Kirt Niedrigh, the short time he spent as a Green Lantern was one of the most character-defining moments of his entire life, and completely changed who he was as a person.
Kirt is from the 31st Century…not the same version of it Cary Wren is from, there’s been a lot of Legion reboots…and as a teenager he wanted nothing more than to join the Legion of Superheroes. They rejected him, since their telepath Saturn Girl could tell he had deep-rooted prejudices that wouldn’t work out with what the Legion stands for. Extremely angry and bitter, Kirt grew up and took on the super hero identity Earth-Man, and worked to fuel racial tensions by spreading anti-alien propaganda that helped make the Earth an unsafe place for anyone who wasn’t born here. The Legion, an organization built around diversity and cooperation, eventually brought him to justice, but the damage was done. Earth-Man had a massive following of anti-alien supporters who wanted the Legion kicked off the Earth, and the only way the government could appease everyone was to allow the Legion to stay…with Earth-Man as a member, ironically giving Kirt what he wanted all those years ago.
Around here is when Kirt receives a Green Lantern ring, which he accepts because he planned to use this powerful alien weapon against other aliens, and even kept its existence a secret from the Legion for as long as he could. Unfortunately for Kirt, the ring started to take charge, dragging him around the universe to places in need of his help. The ring would put him into situations where he was forced to help aliens in need, while totally preventing him from ever attacking them. He’d eventually discard the ring, saying he hated being told what to do…but it was too late. Between the ring forcing him to help aliens across the universe, and his time working with the Legion, Earth-Man’s attitude began to change. He wasn’t suddenly everybody’s best friend or anything, but he did refuse an offer to join in an attack on an alien refugee camp, and even tells the Legion about it so they can all go stop it. His redemption arc is anything but clean, and I personally don’t think the good he did was enough to make up for the harm he’d already done, but I can at least appreciate what they were trying to do.
Now speaking of Lanterns in the Legion, I’m not going to put the Gold Lantern on this list. As of the time when I’m recording this, we don’t know if he’s actually from Earth, or if he’s just assigned to it. He looks Human, but so does half the Legion, and they’re from all across the galaxy. It’s the super future, anything could be true, so for now he’s off the list.
Now before we wrap up, there are three more Lanterns I want to shout as honorable mentions, all coming from the pages of “Green Lantern: Legacy”, an original graphic novel targeted at younger readers. The story stars Tai Pham, a young boy who inherits his Grandmother’s Green Lantern ring, and has to figure out what kind of future he wants for himself and his community, while learning how to handle the kinds of fear that make people lash out with violent prejudice. And while Tai is at the center of the story, we can’t forget his Grandmother, who’s lifetime of experience both as a Green Lantern and an immigrant hold a great deal of weight and wisdom when it comes to guiding Tai on his path to deciding who he’ll ultimately be. And while the villain of the story is a little one dimensional, at least we got another Human member of the Sinestro Corps. That doesn’t happen very often.
But overall, the Lanterns of “Green Lantern: Legacy” deserve to be mentioned here because a lot of people have latched onto Tai, which isn’t surprising considering the story he was specifically created to tell. This graphic novel isn’t in continuity with the DC Universe, but it managed to mean something to a lot of people, so its characters get an honorable mention.
…and that’s it, we made it to the end! So next time someone complains that six or nine Lanterns from Earth is too many, feel free to let them know that, actually, there have been twenty six. 21 Green Lanterns, 2 Red Lanterns, 1 Star Sapphire, 1 Sinestro Corps Member, 1 Phantom Lantern…and actually it’s way more than that because the Earth Lantern Corps of the 26th Century is an entire Corps, we don’t know how many members they have, but it’s a lot. And that’s not even counting the characters from “Green Lantern: Legacy”.
But if there’s one thing that I hope everyone takes away from this, it’s the fact that Green Lantern has a much longer, more detailed history than you may have thought. Eighty years is a long time, and it’s filled with so many characters and stories that you may never even have heard of, even if you’ve already spent a lifetime reading Green Lantern. I mean, that’s me, I’ve been reading this stuff my entire life, and I’ve still been finding things I never knew about, just from doing research for this channel. Sometimes it’s little details, sometimes it’s the existence of entire characters, and it gives me this great feeling that I didn’t know I could still get from old Green Lantern material. This is my favorite thing, Green Lantern is my favorite thing, and nothing makes me happier than finding out that there’s still more out there I can learn.
To that end, I want to thank my friend and former LanternCast co-host Jim, who was a big help in fact checking me on this TWELVE PAGE SCRIPT that I can’t believe I wrote.
I hope you all enjoyed this absurdly long list of Lanterns from Earth, and I hope you’re as excited as I am to know that, eventually, the list will get even longer.
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