Superhero Secrets: Green Lantern

Shed Light Over These Green Lantern Secrets

The Green Lanterns are space police led by the manipulative and unknowable Guardians of the Universe. It shouldn’t be a surprise that they keep countless secrets scattered across the cosmos.

We’ve searched in brightest day through blackest night so no secret will escape our sight. From great triumphs to deepest blight, Green Lantern Secrets will be brought to light. What are the five best? Let’s find out.

#5 The Green Loontern

Green Lanterns are one of DC’s most popular crossover options. Fans love debating which of their favorite characters would be associated with what color of the Emotional Spectrum. But years before those debates started, Daffy Duck’s parody of Buck Rogers taught the Lanterns how to get Looney.

Duck Dodgers was fuming after a mix-up at the laundromat left him with a Green Lantern uniform instead of his clothes. Unfortunately for everyone, the Power Ring was still inside the suit’s pocket and gave him superpowers that immediately went to his head. He wreaked havoc playing hero and bullying his friends.

Dodgers was summoned to Oa, where the Green Lanterns were being captured by Sinestro. A handful of survivors realized he was their best shot at saving the Corps and snuck him into Sinestro’s lair. Duck Dodgers was captured and met the big man himself. He shocked Sinestro by agreeing to join his side, but annoyed the alien conqueror with an endless list of demands.

Sinestro revealed that he was planning to destroy the universe and recreate it in his image. Duck Dodgers betrayed him to save the Green Lanterns. He was seemingly crushed to death before the Lanterns realized that he had slid out of the costume. Hal Jordan arrived in Dodgers’ outfit and took his ring back. The Corps returned home, accidentally leaving Dodgers stuck on a barren planet and waiting for his friends to pick him up. They’ll go get him… eventually.

#4 Green Lantern Secret: The Starheart

This Green Lantern Secret is almost a century old. Fans know about the human Lanterns, the Corps, the Emotional Spectrum, and plenty of other minutiae, but many forget the Green Lantern who started it all. 

Alan Scott was an engineer who survived a sabotaged train crash. He found a sapient green lantern near the tracks that told him to carve a ring from its metal. While he worked, it told him about the Starheart meteor it had been forged from. The ring empowered him with flight, energy constructs, intangibility, and much more. Alan captured the saboteur and became The Green Lantern.

Green Lantern was Gotham City’s first superhero and built a media empire in his civilian life. He was one of the founding members of the Justice Society of America and fought alongside them in World War II. The JSA disbanded when they wouldn’t unmask for the House Unamerican Activities Committee, but eventually reunited to mentor a new generation of heroes.

The Guardians of the Universe revealed that they accidentally created Alan’s lantern by trying to remove chaos magic from the universe, causing it to coalesce into the Starheart. That magic randomly switches between good and evil, but empowered Alan with its chaos to fight organized crime. 

#3 Hello, Lantern Resources?!

Hal Jordan is the face of the Green Lantern Corps and human Green Lanterns in general. It’s a shame that he’s done a lot of villainous crap over the years: giving his Inuit sidekick a racist nickname, murdering almost every other Green Lantern, and trying to remake reality in his image, among them. This Green Lantern Secret is the one crime he’ll never live down.

In the wake of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, several Lanterns were assigned to Earth full time. One of them was Arisia Rrab, a 13-year-old Lantern who became Hal’s sidekick. She developed a crush on him and flirted whenever she got the chance. Hal shot her down because she was half of his age until the day she used her ring to age herself into an adult woman.

Despite knowing that Arisia was mentally a child, Hal started dating her. Flirting became kissing which became the two of them getting drunk and sleeping together. Other Lanterns and heroes were split on if it was okay, but no one intervened. Arisia eventually lost her powers and became a model so that artists could put her in skimpy outfits and poses. Classy.

Fans were outraged and DC Comics decided one of their biggest heroes probably shouldn’t be a pedophile. They retconned Arisia to be 240 years old by Earth years, with 13 as her world’s equivalent. So, you know, still underage. DC keeps Arisia as a background cameo in modern times and ignores what happened.

#2 Green Lantern Secret: The Doom of Krypton!

The Green Lanterns aren’t invincible. There are many villains they can’t stop and disasters they can’t prevent. That wears on some of them who think they can do more. This Green Lantern Secret is the failure and atonement of one of their best.

Tomar-Re was the Green Lantern assigned to space sector 2813. He learned that Krypton’s core was unstable and at risk of exploding. Tomar-Re spent days gathering a rare element that could stabilize the core and save Krypton.

Exhaustion kept Tomar-Re from noticing that a star was going supernova, temporarily blinding him. He relied on his Power Ring to slowly guide him back to Krypton. His sight returned just in time to watch the planet explode.

Tomar-Re lived with the shame of failing Krypton for decades. During his retirement ceremony, the Guardians of the Universe absolved him for failing Krypton because their planned replacement had grown up to be Superman. Clark later forgave him as well, acknowledging that Tomar-Re had done all he could.

#1 Mogo Doesn’t Socialize

The Green Lantern Corps has many odd members. Some are robotic, others are viruses, one is a living math equation, but their strongest member is a secret. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of them. Any Lantern worth their ring will tell you that Mogo doesn’t socialize.

Alien bounty hunter Bolphunga wanted to become the universe’s strongest warrior. He learned that the title was held by a Green Lantern named Mogo and spent years fruitlessly searching Mogo’s homeworld. Bolphunga mapped the terrain and discovered that the topiary formed the Corps’ symbol. Mogo wasn’t on the planet, they are the planet!

You read that right, Mogo is a sapient planet whose Power Ring is their equator. Channeling an entire world’s willpower through the ring makes Mogo resemble a heroic Death Star. Mogo can control their ecology and weather as well as communicate telepathically. They stay away from Oa because their gravitational pull would destroy the Corps’ homeworld. Mogo serves as the Corps’ fallback base, therapist, and recruiter.

Didya Get All That?

No Green Lantern secrets escape our sight.

Photograph: Courtesy of HBO Max

Jared Bounacos

Jared Bounacos has written for Movie Rewind since 2016.