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Rewriting The Golden Age Green Lantern Origin One More Time (Spoilers)

Rewriting The Golden Age Green Lantern origin one more time (Spoilers) in Alan Scott: Green Lantern #5, published today by DC Comics.

Originally, the first Green Lantern, Alan Scott, was the inheritor of a mystical "green flame" that fell to Earth in ancient China as a meteor, thousands of years ago.  Created by Martin Nodell, and first written with Bill Finger in 1940, for All-American Comics #16, Green Lantern was originally Alan Scott, a mystically-based superhero, whose powers were derived from the flame of a magic lamp and he became an original member of the Justice Society Of America.

A voice in the flame states that it will act three times, once to bring death, once to bring life, and once to bring power. For the first, a lamp-maker turns the meteor metal into a lamp, the second saw a patient of a mental institution in the modern day make it into a modern train lantern, restoring his sanity.

For the third, the lantern came into the hands of Alan Scott, before a railroad bridge collapse. The flame tells Alan Scott in how to make a ring from its metal, turning him into a Green Lantern.

In the nineties this was rewriten, to integrate Alan Scott with the rest of Green Lamntern continuity. So that Alan Scott's ring originally belonged to a Green Lantern named Yalan Gur, who was so favoured by the Guardians of the Universe that they removed the yellow impurity from his ring.

However, after abusing his power amongst the inhabitants of ancient China, the Guardians then substituted a weakness for wood that allowed the locals to defeat him. His body became the green metallic meteorite that became Alan Scott's lantern but Yalan's spirit possessed the metal and directed Alan to create the power ring and persona of Green Lantern.

And in 2024, with Alan Scott: Green Lantern #5, published by DC Comics today, Tim Sheridan and Cian Tormey have a new history to tell.

Yalan Gur is out of the picture. Instead the Guardians created something else, the Starheart, created from all the spare magic out and about.

And its escape to Earth, where it now becomes the metal forged into the Green Lantern, also brought what would become the Golden Age Red Lantern with it. And went to Alan Scott because why? All down to will power again. But also drawing it closer to the Enchanted Emerald in 1902.

Which also means that this Alan Scott Green Lantern comic, originally meangt to be part of the Golden Age line showrun by Geoff Johns, also rewrites a bit of Geoff Johns' Doomsday Clock in the process.

If it was all down to six inches… then that wouldn't have anything to do with the calling of will, would it?

ALAN SCOTT THE GREEN LANTERN #5 (OF 6) CVR A DAVID TALASKI
(W) Tim Sheridan (A) Cian Tormey (CA) David Talaski
Alan Scott and the Red Lantern come to blows! But what's going to happen when these two ancient forces battle it out, and what will it mean for the Green Lantern?! Retail: $3.99 In-Store Date: 3/26/2024

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