Welcome to I Am Your Target Demographic. We’re diving into DC Comics
today and looking at the various Green Lantern Corps and what each color represents. This is a
superficial overview for newcomers, so experts on the DC universe may find this repetitive.
If you’re fairly new to this, let’s start at the beginning. There’s something called Emotional
Electromagnetic Spectrum, which is an energy fueled by the emotions of every living
thing. This is an energy that people can actually use and wield.
It began with the White light, as white represents life itself and it was the first thing to appear
in the massive darkness of existence. The darkness hated this though and fought back,
splitting the white light into seven different colors. If someone were able to wield all seven,
they’d be able to control the white light and become a White Lantern, able to create constructs
like most of the other colors but also able to resurrect the dead, control over life itself.
Very rarely do characters become White Lanterns, such as an instance in the arc Blackest Night,
where a group of heroes was given white light powers to defeat their opposing Black Lanterns.
Black Lanterns is the absence of color itself, so these characters are dead characters brought
to life from this energy. They can sustain massive damage, unable to be killed again,
and they have whatever powers they might’ve had in life. They also kill other Lanterns
and siphon their energy to sustain their own powers. Lastly, they can infect the
living with a disease that will kill them, then turning them into a Black Lantern themselves.
Now we dove right into the deep end here, so let's back up
and really talk about these other colors.
There are seven actual colors on the spectrum, aside from Black and White, so let’s start with
Green, the one you might be most familiar with. Green Lanterns are characters given a green ring
and they’re able to focus and use sheer willpower to create what are called “hard light constructs.”
This is energy that is manifested physically, based on whatever they
can imagine. They can create weapons, shields, vehicles, even entire cities.
The Green Lantern corp also seems to be the most militaristic, equipping soldiers to monitor all
sections of space and to keep the peace. Like with all lanterns, when someone is killed,
their ring travels through the universe to seek a new host with qualities it looks for.
Up next, we have Red. The Red Lanterns are focused on rage. Users of red lantern rings have little
control over the energy, so a lot of people become violent and uncontrollable.
The red lantern rings are drawn to users who have suffered severe loss and can funnel that energy
into rage. They have the unique ability that their blood can be spit out and caught ablaze,
burning even in space. Their power ring eventually takes the place of their heart in pumping this
blood, so it’s deadly to remove it from one of them, only Blue lanterns can do so safely and keep
the host alive. Red lanterns can possibly create constructs
with most users lack the willpower and focus to harness their energy that way.
We now move on to Orange. We can’t talk about the Orange Lanterns without talking about Larfleeze,
because he’s typically the only one, aside from a few special cases. The orange light
is about avarice, or greed, and there can only be one user because they have such a greed and
hunger for the power that they can’t share that power. If an entire orange lantern corps shows up,
it’s typically been a host of constructs created by Larfleeze, the only user. Larfleeze is
incredibly powerful and incredibly ancient, though his paranoia and insatiable hunger
causes him to stay buried away and protected. On rare occasions, Lex Luthor has been able
to wield the orange lantern due to his greed as well, but only for short stints of time.
Now we get to Yellow. Yellow was originally created to directly combat the Green Lanterns,
having an especially powerful effect against them. The emotion they harness is fear,
so these users cause fear in those around them, demanding authority and making themselves
stronger. This group is usually seen as being led by Sinestro, a former Green Lantern turned bad,
but a few other villains have used this group to cause fear as well.
Then we have Blue. The emotion of the Blue Lantern Corps is Hope,
specifically hope for the future. A lot of their users tend to be holy and religious individuals,
such as former priests and equivalents to monks on whatever planets they’re from. In terms of powers,
the Blue rings are incredibly powerful but difficult to harness. They can counteract
the Red energy of rage, so these users can safely remove the red ring from a Red Lantern.
They can also do immensely powerful things like move through time, disassemble their molecular
body, travel across space through wormholes, and heal others to a degree not seen by any other
lantern ring. It’s said that blue lantern ring may be one of the most powerful artifacts in the DC
universe, if the user can control it. It’s much more fickle than other rings. When others can’t
use their rings, it stays on them in a waiting state, but blue rings may leave a host and find
another if they ever lose the hope that powers them. Blue Lanterns also require
Green willpower energy nearby. Hope is useless if there’s not the will to make it happen, so
if they’re alone without a Green Lantern nearby, these immense powers are reduced dramatically.
Next we have Indigo, standing for compassion. This is an interesting power, as people can be forced
to feel compassion, almost enslaved to it. Instead of a corps, this group is called the Indigo Tribe
and consists of various people who either willingly or unwillingly took on this power.
Many of its members are reformed criminals and evil entities. In terms of powers,
Indigo has the unique ability to replicate any other lanterns nearby, except for Black or White.
And lastly we have Violet, which harnesses love. This could be love that they feel,
love that they’ve lost, or even love they’ve been denied. This energy was first discovered
in a crystal called a Star Sapphire, so users of the violet light are often called Star Sapphires
instead of the Violet Lantern Corps. Users of this energy have very little control over,
almost equivalent to Red energy and rage. Users of the Violet light may find themselves
aggressive and violent, attacking those that they love or those that rejected them. Star
Sapphires have traditionally been only women, with a few exceptions. So that’s it for our brief overview of the
nine different lantern colors and what they mean. This was superficial, I know, but there’s plenty
of places out there to do deep dives if this sounds interesting to you. Thanks for watching!