Alan Scott: The Green Lantern by Tim Sheridan and Cian Tormey (New Golden Age)

[andersonh1]

Well, you may be right in saying they hadn't been used in years, but then again, Golden Age Alan had effectively been removed from existence for years.
But those of us who were reading comic books back in the 1980s and 1990s do miss Alan and Molly being together.

That's where I am. I enjoyed the depictions of their relationship and the way Alan and Molly would double date sometimes with Jay and Joan. There aren't a lot of old superheroes in happy marriages who have been lifelong friends. I don't appreciate that being taken away.

I don't like the idea of a Golden Age Red Lantern either. During his heyday, Alan was unique, he was THE Green Lantern. Even after the Corps came along, Alan was distinct from them in terms of his power source and costume. Now there is a derivative opposite number retconned into that history, and it ends that uniqueness. Feels like something has been lost here.

[MajorHoy]

Ha, yeah I know which came first. But since Crisis we've had clutter earth where Alan and the Corps share a reality, and unfortunately we're unlikely to separate the two earths anytime soon. And on clutter earth it's weird as f*ck that Alan got the exact same name and powers as a billion-year old interstellar peacekeeping force, despite having nothing to do with them (awkward Starheart stuff notwithstanding).

I seem to recall a story where Alan met Abin Sur (in an issue of Green Lantern Corps Quarterly possibly?) where it was hinted the Corps had been avoiding direct contact with Earth back in those days?

As for the "Golden Age Red Lantern", blame all that on Geoff Johns.

[kcekada]

Can't say I like the Golden Age Red Lantern idea though. Just....no. Alan not being connected to the Corp is already a weird kink in the GL mythos, doubling down on that with another Red Lantern who isn't connected to Atrocitus or Sector 666 seems like a continuity-mangling retrofit nobody needed or wanted. But the first issue was a lot of fun regardless!

Agreed. It's just too weird, but seems right up GJ's alley.

[Ascended]

I seem to recall a story where Alan met Abin Sur (in an issue of Green Lantern Corps Quarterly possibly?) where it was hinted the Corps had been avoiding direct contact with Earth back in those days?

As for the "Golden Age Red Lantern", blame all that on Geoff Johns.

Now you mention it.....yeah I do vaguely recall seeing Alan and Abin Sur together once. Maybe an Annual instead of Quarterly? Or...no, I think you're right, I think it was a Quarterly.

And I know who's to blame for the Golden Age Red Lantern, as well as the other weird Golden Age retrofits. I dunno what happened to Johns, dude used to work magic with continuity and could tie the most unrelated tangents of a mythos together in a way that made for good stories, even if it didn't always make total sense. But what he's doing now....I dunno. He went from fixing broken canon to....whatever the hell this mess is.

[CaptCleghorn]

Honestly, I could see a GA Red Lantern. He'd be as Soviet as Alan is American, hence the Red. A convenient ally during WW2 and quickly becoming a foe when the war neared its end and the cold war began. I'd prefer to see a retro-fitted character who is as different from the current crayola corps as the GA and SA Atoms are, though. But the current trend of just taking current setups and characters and throwing a "Golden Age" qualifier in front of it is not only lazy, but harms the JSA franchise by dissolving what makes them different from the Justice League.

[andersonh1]

What makes the Golden Age characters special and unique to me is that they're all from an older DC universe. The characters we got during the Silver Age are generally still the "default" versions in use today, but the JSA are the genuine originals. The "first draft" in a sense. I'm with Roy Thomas in that you just can't add to that or take it away, not really. Adding legacy characters or children and grandchildren is fine since they came along later, but trying to retcon new or derivative characters back into the era of the 1940s just doesn't work for me any more than retcons that change decades of printed history for characters work for me. Telling stories set in the 1940s is one thing, but retroactively making additions that were never really there has never been something I'm in favor of.

The Red Lantern is not only just recycling what Johns already did in the leadup to Blackest Night, the crimson flame is just riffing off the green flame, so two ideas that have already been done are being presented as something new here, and it just doesn't work.

[andersonh1]

Now you mention it.....yeah I do vaguely recall seeing Alan and Abin Sur together once. Maybe an Annual instead of Quarterly? Or...no, I think you're right, I think it was a Quarterly.

It's GLC Quarterly #8. An alien being chased by Abin Sur crashes on Earth, and when the alien encounters Jay and Alan defeats them. I forget exactly why, but Abin ends up borrowing the unconscious Alan's ring and defeats the alien since the ring has no yellow weakness. He returns it and leaves with his prisoner, with Alan waking to wonder why his ring is on the wrong hand (modern stories always have him wearing it on his left hand).

[j9ac9k]

The Red Lantern hasn't even appeared yet and people are complaining. Gotta love fandom.

Also, this is serialized storytelling that's been going on for many decades. Nothing is what it was, nothing has been preserved in amber, nor should it be.

[Refrax5]

Well, if both Alan and Hal are on the same Earth (forgetting that I would rather they weren't), then should both be connected to the Corp, IMO. I can't buy for a single second that they got the same powers from totally different sources.

Wasn't the Starheart essentially created (albeit accidentally) by the Guardians? So wouldn't it stand to reason that it might function and manifest itself similarly to the GL powers?

[Psy-lock]

While I don't mind adding the Crimson Flame to the GL Lore, they better acknowledge that it was Zara's thing originally

[CaptCleghorn]

While I don't mind adding the Crimson Flame to the GL Lore, they better acknowledge that it was Zara's thing originally

Now tying him in with Zara would be something I would like. It's the same name but not the same thing.

[The Darknight Detective]

Wasn't the Starheart essentially created (albeit accidentally) by the Guardians? So wouldn't it stand to reason that it might function and manifest itself similarly to the GL powers?

I have no problem with that provided the Guardians still have something to do with Alan's powers. Still have a problem with both of them having the same name, though.

[D.Z]

I'm proud of being right again.

Refrax in the mudddd. Bye.

[The Lucky One]

Wasn't the Starheart essentially created (albeit accidentally) by the Guardians? So wouldn't it stand to reason that it might function and manifest itself similarly to the GL powers?

Yeah. We don’t really know much yet about the status of the Post-Flashpoint version of Alan’s origin.

Pre-Crisis, Green Lantern (v2) #111-12 tied Alan’s origin to that of the Earth-1 Green Lanterns by explaining that the Guardians, loving order and hating chaos, gathered all the loose magic they could find, bundled it all together, and tossed it out into the universe. (Very responsible, guys.) Over time, it gained a version of sentience, crossed over into Earth-2, and became known as the Starheart. It eventually crashed to Earth as a meteorite and was found by a Chinese craftsman, who fashioned it into a lantern, which prophesied it would flare thrice: once to bring death, once to bring life, and once to bring power. Superstitious villagers attacked the craftsman and killed him; the lantern flamed once, killing the villagers to avenge his death. It then passed through many hands, eventually ending up in an insane asylum, where an inmate re-fashioned it into a modern train lantern. It flared again, restoring the man’s sanity (bringing life). Finally it ended up on a locomotive, which crashed after an act of sabotage; a desperate Alan Scott reached for it, and it finished its prophecy by granting him power.

Post-Crisis, Roy Thomas basically used that story in Secret Origins #18. He made the Guardians slightly more responsible — instead of casting the magic out into the universe, they sealed it in the center of a star — but it eventually broke free, became a meteor, and crashed to Earth. The rest of the origin mostly follows that of the Pre-Crisis version, other than specifying that the insane asylum was Arkham.

Then you get Green Lantern (v3) #19, which complicates things immeasurably. It also ties Alan’s origin to the GL Corps, but in a totally different way. We learn that centuries ago, Yalan Gur was the Green Lantern of Sector 2814. He was the greatest Lantern of all, but after he almost died fighting a yellow monster, the Guardians removed the yellow impurity from his ring to keep him safe. Unfortunately that made him power-mad, and he went Sinestro on an ancient Chinese village. To punish him, the Guardians secretly made his ring vulnerable to wood, and the villagers beat him with sticks and clubs. Dying, he flew into the sky, where his lantern, ring, and body burned and merged, crashing to earth as a meteor. From there, the origin unfolds as before (found by a Chinese craftsman, carved into a lantern, etc). No mention of the Starheart or anything else from the Pre-Crisis or Secret Origins versions.

Finally, Green Lantern Corps Quarterly #7 attempted to reconcile those two origins by establishing that the Starheart, upon gaining sentience, was driven to create a champion and assuage pain, and thus was drawn to Yalan Gur on Earth as he flew into the sky, mortally wounded by the villagers’ attack. The Starheart merged with Yalan Gur’s dying essence, crashing to earth as the meteor that would then be carved into a lantern, et cetera.

But again, that’s all Pre-Flashpoint. (And relies on the idea that the yellow impurity was something the Guardians could just remove, which Geoff Johns retconned away years ago.) Post-Rebirth Alan is a slightly different character and thus could have a different origin… we just don’t know.

[CaptCleghorn]

Yeah. We don’t really know much yet about the status of the Post-Flashpoint version of Alan’s origin.

Pre-Crisis, Green Lantern (v2) #111-12 tied Alan’s origin to that of the Earth-1 Green Lanterns by explaining that the Guardians, loving order and hating chaos, gathered all the loose magic they could find, bundled it all together, and tossed it out into the universe. (Very responsible, guys.) Over time, it gained a version of sentience, crossed over into Earth-2, and became known as the Starheart. It eventually crashed to Earth as a meteorite and was found by a Chinese craftsman, who fashioned it into a lantern, which prophesied it would flare thrice: once to bring death, once to bring life, and once to bring power. Superstitious villagers attacked the craftsman and killed him; the lantern flamed once, killing the villagers to avenge his death. It then passed through many hands, eventually ending up in an insane asylum, where an inmate re-fashioned it into a modern train lantern. It flared again, restoring the man’s sanity (bringing life). Finally it ended up on a locomotive, which crashed after an act of sabotage; a desperate Alan Scott reached for it, and it finished its prophecy by granting him power.

Post-Crisis, Roy Thomas basically used that story in Secret Origins #18. He made the Guardians slightly more responsible — instead of casting the magic out into the universe, they sealed it in the center of a star — but it eventually broke free, became a meteor, and crashed to Earth. The rest of the origin mostly follows that of the Pre-Crisis version, other than specifying that the insane asylum was Arkham.

Then you get Green Lantern (v3) #19, which complicates things immeasurably. It also ties Alan’s origin to the GL Corps, but in a totally different way. We learn that centuries ago, Yalan Gur was the Green Lantern of Sector 2814. He was the greatest Lantern of all, but after he almost died fighting a yellow monster, the Guardians removed the yellow impurity from his ring to keep him safe. Unfortunately that made him power-mad, and he went Sinestro on an ancient Chinese village. To punish him, the Guardians secretly made his ring vulnerable to wood, and the villagers beat him with sticks and clubs. Dying, he flew into the sky, where his lantern, ring, and body burned and merged, crashing to earth as a meteor. From there, the origin unfolds as before (found by a Chinese craftsman, carved into a lantern, etc). No mention of the Starheart or anything else from the Pre-Crisis or Secret Origins versions.

Finally, Green Lantern Corps Quarterly #7 attempted to reconcile those two origins by establishing that the Starheart, upon gaining sentience, was driven to create a champion and assuage pain, and thus was drawn to Yalan Gur on Earth as he flew into the sky, mortally wounded by the villagers’ attack. The Starheart merged with Yalan Gur’s dying essence, crashing to earth as the meteor that would then be carved into a lantern, et cetera.

But again, that’s all Pre-Flashpoint. (And relies on the idea that the yellow impurity was something the Guardians could just remove, which Geoff Johns retconned away years ago.) Post-Rebirth Alan is a slightly different character and thus could have a different origin… we just don’t know.

This is a bunch of unnecessary crap.



Magic Ring and Lantern created by Earth bound magical energies. I'd go for stuff like cave paintings of an ancient guardians based GL inspiring the look and symbol, but keeping the characters different and individual makes Alan Scott his own man.