It’s impossible to overstate how important good villains are to a hero’s story. When handled correctly, a villain can embody exactly the kinds of ideals that would challenge the hero’s world view, turning their struggle against each other into an experience that helps us better understand both characters as they become much more fleshed out and well defined in the process. It can be easy to forget just how many villains there’ve been across the different eras of Green Lantern, ranging from household names to obscure bad guys you may never have even heard of. And it got me thinking…out of all the Human Green Lanterns, which one has the best overall group of recurring villains? Who’s rogues gallery does the best job of exploring, challenging, and advancing the development of the hero?
First thing’s first, we are immediately eliminating John Stewart, Guy Gardner, and Simon Baz. These three are almost entirely defined by their struggles against their own personal demons, which is great, except that those internal struggles rarely get embodied by a rogues gallery of bad guys who keep coming back. All three of these Lanterns really just fight whoever the Green Lantern Corps or the Justice League happen to be fighting at the time. Sojourner Mullein also fits in with them, but in her case it makes sense, since at this point she’s still too new to have built up any recurring villains of her own.
Jessica Cruz is only a little better than them, since she has two enemies that specifically capitalize on her internal struggle…the first being the evil, sentient Power Ring from Earth 3 that attached itself to her hand and then proceeded to torment her, aggravating her anxiety so that it could feed on her fear, forcing Jessica to exert her will and do something brave in order to break free of the ring. Then there’s Singularity Jane, a sentient black hole in the shape of a person, who sustains herself by consuming the pain and misery of other people. Jane is the physical embodiment of a person’s inability to deal with their own anxiety and fears, and once she gets hold of you, she pulls you down into a black hole who’s strength comes from the intensity of your own personal suffering…you are the thing that you have to struggle against to free yourself. This is what makes her perfectly tailored to be a villain for Jessica Cruz, as not only is she designed to play on Jessica’s core internal conflict, but repeated encounters with Jane actually helped to provoke a positive change in Jessica, forcing her to confront her fears directly, and Jessica’s willpower vs the overwhelming pull of Jane’s gravity make for a great visual example of what Jessica goes through every day of her life. And while both of these are great villains that do exactly what they need to be an appropriate challenge for the hero, there’s only two of them, which isn’t nearly enough, so unfortunately Jessica is out as well.
Alan Scott didn’t really have many villains back in the 1940s, but the few he did have wound up being some pretty notable DC characters. Both Vandal Savage and Solomon Grundy started out as villains for Alan, and were so successful that they eventually transcended Green Lantern and began appearing all over the DC Universe, in countless titles, fighting every hero you can think of. And in this case, I think that actually works against them, because they never really came into their own until long after they had left Green Lantern behind. They don’t really feel like Green Lantern villains, rather they’re DC Universe villains and Green Lantern just happens to be where they started. And once you take them out of the equation, Alan Scott doesn’t really have anyone else from the Golden Age that’s very successful or memorable. The closest would be Sportsmaster, but similar to Savage and Grundy, the character didn’t have a real impact until he was adapted for the Young Justice cartoon. And this isn’t even addressing the problem that all of Alan’s Golden Age bad guys were just a grab bag of random gimmicks that didn’t have much to with Alan as a character…the closest we get is the fact that Grundy was immune to the ring’s power, and Harlequin was actually just pretending to be a villain to get Alan’s attention because she was in love with him. There is one villain who came much later that does work on all levels, and it’s the Starheart, the living embodiment of Alan’s own power, who manipulates Alan Scott’s life and loved ones to satisfy its own need for liberation and evolution…which is great, but for our purposes today, it’s not enough.
…then we come to Hal Jordan, who has a rogues gallery overflowing with memorable villains. The Tattooed Man, Major Disaster, Evil Star, The Shark, Doctor Polaris, Sonar, Black Hand…I’d be here all day just listing them, so instead let’s look at the ones that best fit our criteria.
Hector Hammond, the bitter telepath who wishes he could trade places with Hal, and who gives Hal a clearer perspective on what’s good about his own life. Star Sapphire, the alien consciousness taking over the body of Carol Ferris, using Hal’s feelings for Carol to either manipulate him to her own ends, or just outright kill him. And the best one of them all, Sinestro…Hal’s friend and mentor, a symbol of everything Hal could one day be, until he betrayed the Corps, the best among them going rogue and attacking the Lanterns with their greatest weakness. It’s almost unfair to compare any other Green Lantern villain to Sinestro, and if this was about determining the single best Green Lantern villain, we’d be done, because I don’t think any of them come close to Sinestro’s level…but nobody’s going to win this based on one villain alone.
Once you get over the sheer number of villains Hal has, you quickly realize that some of them are much more thematically appropriate than others. For every Sinestro, Star Sapphire, and Hector Hammond you’ve also got a Tattooed Man, Major Disaster, and Doctor Polaris, villains who have so little to do with Hal Jordan specifically, or Green Lantern in general, that they could just as easily be Flash villains. The biggest reason they aren’t is that Hal Jordan just happens to be the superhero who runs into them all the time. They’re villains of convenience, not because of any deeper connection to Hal as a character. And none of that means they’re bad or inferior, by the way…I still like them, and they’re still good quality villains, they just don’t fulfill the criteria we’re talking about today. But even if we cut out every villain who doesn’t thematically explore or advance the hero, Hal still has more of them than everyone else we’ve talked about so far. And if I’m being honest, I went into this expecting Hal’s villains to win. I mean, yeah, we haven’t talked about Kyle yet, but Kyle’s rogues gallery is tiny compared to Hal’s, and he’s only ever had four or five original villains, with all the rest just being some of Hal’s villains that Kyle inherited. And thinking about that made me realize something…Kyle Rayner is unique among the Human Green Lanterns in that just about every single villain he’s ever faced has adhered to a specific theme that’s core to Kyle’s character: the theme of legacy.
The 1990’s were all about Kyle dealing with the legacy of the Green Lantern Corps, and what it means to be a random nobody who’s suddenly made responsible for bearing that weight. For a long time, Kyle didn’t even believe he was capable of doing it, but he kept trying anyway because nobody else could, and he became determined to make sure that the light of the Green Lantern Corps didn’t burn out because of something he did, or something he failed to do…because, worthy or not, he was a Green Lantern, and it was his responsibility now. And that philosophy is reflected in almost everyone Kyle fights.
You’ve got Fatality, a woman who’s entire world was destroyed due to a mistake made by a Green Lantern. Now her life is dedicated to getting revenge by hunting and killing every Green Lantern she can find, until anyone who’s ever worn a ring is dead. This is a villain who’s entire existence revolves around the desire to end the legacy of the Green Lantern Corps at all costs, which makes her the perfect opponent for Kyle Rayner, who was intent on doing whatever he could to make sure the legacy of the Green Lantern Corps survived.
Then you’ve got Effigy, a villain who was designed as a dark mirror of Kyle Rayner. Just like Kyle, this guy was in the right place at the right time, chosen by aliens to receive incredible power…only those aliens were the Controllers, and that power came from horrific experiments they performed on him, turning him into a tool for vengeance and murder, and eventually overwriting Effigy’s mind, depriving him of the kind of personality and creativity that are so vital to Kyle’s character. Every time Effigy shows up, Kyle gets to see what his own life could have become if things had been different, if Ganthet hadn’t been a benevolent person.
A villain that was introduced right near the end of Kyle’s solo series was Amon Sur, the son of Abin Sur, the Green Lantern who died and passed his ring to Hal Jordan. Amon Sur has always hated that his father’s legacy went to some random Earthman, and became obsessed with taking back what he believed to be his birthright, by stealing Kyle’s ring. You’ve got a hero with no connection to any lineage, who was chosen completely at random, who just wants to live up to the legacy and everything it means. Then you’ve got a villain who couldn’t care less what the Corps stood for, and only wants it because he believes his blood entitles him to it. This is more than a good guy and a bad guy fighting over a powerful weapon, this is a struggle that determines the future of what Green Lanterns even are, what they mean, and how they’ll be remembered. It’s honestly a shame that Amon Sur was introduced so late into Kyle’s run, he would’ve made a perfect recurring threat that cuts right to the core of what motivates Kyle to keep going.
Then there’s Grayven, a son of Darkseid who was discarded and ignored, and out of bitterness and anger cuts a path of destruction across the universe, in an attempt to gain enough power to take his perceived birthright by force. Unlike Kyle, who was burdened with a legacy he never asked for and has to grow to meet the challenge, Grayven wants the legacy that’s been denied to him so badly that he intends to take it by force, and is willing to kill his father to get it. Grayven exemplifies the destructive power of legacy, while Kyle is all about using legacy to build something new.
And then there’s all the Silver Age villains who carried forward…Sonar, Doctor Polaris, Doctor Light…the fact that they were Hal’s villains makes them fit Kyle’s theme, they’re part of the responsibility he inherited from Hal, just like how he inherited Hal’s ring. The fact that they were Hal Jordan villains makes them better villains for Kyle than they ever were for Hal.
…and then there’s the big one. Hal Jordan himself, Kyle’s predecessor as Green Lantern, now the villain named Parallax. In a run that’s all about Kyle’s struggle to live up to the legacy of Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps, what better opponent than Hal Jordan himself? Every time Hal showed up in an antagonistic role, he embodied all of Kyle’s self-doubt and fear. Here was the great Hal Jordan, the hero of legend who’s shadow Kyle stood in, the one person Kyle never believed he could live up to, let alone defeat. Over and over again, they would clash and Kyle would have to muster the will to not give up, to push past the pedestal he’d put Hal on, to be better than he ever thought he could be. I know a lot of people don’t like Hal becoming Parallax because it turns their favorite hero into a villain, but in terms of being thematically appropriate for Kyle’s growth as a character, it’s perfect.
It’s funny, no matter how long I do this, I still find things about Green Lantern that surprise me. When I started working on this video, I was sure that Hal Jordan’s villains were going to win, and that it would be a pretty easy victory for them. But the more I really thought about it, about who these villains are and what motivates them, the more I realized that not only would they not win, but it wouldn’t even be close. I’ve never thought much of Kyle’s villains as a group…it always seemed like he was fighting everyone else’s leftovers, with a few new ones mixed in. But making this video gave me new perspective, and honestly, I’ve never felt this good about Kyle’s rogues gallery before. All these years, I’ve never understood their real importance, and what they mean for Kyle and his journey. If nothing else, this was all worth it, just for that clarity.
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