Green Lantern Has Always Been DC’s Darkest Hero (And It’s Not Close)
DC’s Green Lanterns are its darkest heroes, with heroes like Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Kyle Rayner and Jessica Cruz encountering horrific trauma.
You Are Reading :Green Lantern Has Always Been DCs Darkest Hero (And Its Not Close)
Darkness and tragedy are a way of life in the DC Universe, but that’s especially true for any hero who protects Earth as a Green Lantern. They have witnessed (and in some cases perpetrated) genocide, lost friends and family in twisted, heinous ways, and caused irreparable damage under the influence of forces far beyond any mortal’s ability to control.
The Green Lantern Corps is an intergalactic law enforcement agency, under the direction of the Guardians of the Universe on the planet Oa. Each sector of space is assigned a Green Lantern, though because of Earth’s role as a galactic Crux World, it has spawned (and is guarded by) multiple Lanterns. Among the Green Lanterns chosen for their incredible will power are Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Kyle Rayner and Jessica Cruz, and each one of these Lanterns has had a career steeped in darkness.
Earth’s first member of the Green Lantern Corps, Hal Jordan, has had perhaps the most tragic time of them all. After witnessing his hometown of Coast City destroyed, Jordan came under the influence of Parallax, the universal embodiment of fear. Under its control, Jordan massacred his colleagues in the Corps, tainting his reputation as a hero to this day. Jordan’s wholesale slaughter of the Corps led directly to Kyle Rayner’s induction, and not long after he joined, he would deal with tragedy himself; his girlfriend Alex was killed by the villain Major Force and shoved into a refrigerator (a scene which inspired significant cultural criticism.) Kyle’s comrade John Stewart inadvertently doomed the world of Xanshi to destruction thanks to his arrogance, and recent recruit Jessica Cruz fell under the corrupting influence of an evil Green Lantern before she ever obtained a Power Ring of her own.
Death is built into the concept of the Green Lantern Corps; when a Lantern dies, their ring leaves them and immediately seeks out a new hero. Given the nature of the Green Lantern Corps’ work – patrolling the universe and keeping it safe – it stands to reason they see a lot of dark events and play with the highest stakes imaginable. The tragedies Jordan, Stewart, Rayner and Cruz faced continue to haunt them to this day, especially in Jordan’s case; there are still Lanterns angry with him over his actions under Parallax’s influence. John Stewart continues to grapple with Xanshi and Alex’s death looms large over Rayner’s heroic career. Future State: Green Lantern even suggested Cruz will eventually join the evil Sinestro Corps thanks to her ability to inspire fear in others.
In the current Green Lantern comics, the Central Power Battery of Oa has been destroyed, stranding the majority of the Corps in space or on distant planets, and killing countless members. It’s one of the biggest tragedies in the history of the Corps, and yet unlike other heroes whose darker stories are often retconned later, Earth’s collective Green Lanterns have been through, and even caused, worse. While heroes like Batman and Superman have suffered terrible tragedies in their time as heroes, Earth’s Green Lanterns have faced a constant stream of trauma with surprisingly long-lasting results. It’s a good job that Green Lanterns are chosen for their will power, because that’s the only way most of them could continue to fight evil after the horrors they’ve witnessed.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/green-lantern-dark-parallax-xanshi-stewart-cruz-rayner/