Hello and welcome to Comic Drake, where I talk about comic books and my name is Drake.
The Green lantern Corps is an organization that has been around for billions of years
in the DC Comics continuity and it is known throughout the entire universe, but who were
the first members to be recruited.
What’s their story?
Well today, let’s take a look.
The Green Lanterns series coming out of DC Rebirth has added a LOT of new elements to
the Green Lantern mythos, including a new origin for the Corps as a whole.
Now as many of you might know, the Green Lanterns were created by the self proclaimed Guardians
of the Universe who took it upon themselves to police well... the entire universe.
Now I’m sure that many of you are also familiar with the Guardian’s first attempt at a police
force, the robotic Manhunters, that went off programming and destroyed an entire space
sector.
Although the Green Lantern Corps that we know and love today was a replacement for the Manhunters,
the Guardians actually tried them out BEFORE them as well.
You see, ten billion years ago, a future human from an alternate universe named Volthoom
appeared before the Guardians.
Volthoom’s world was destroyed and he used an invention of his own called the Travel
Lantern to cross space, time, and the multiverse itself in order to find a way to save it!
Volthoom was an expert regarding the science of the Emotional Spectrum and his Travel Lantern
was even powered by it!
By working with Volthoom, the Guardians were able to create the very first power ring and
its matching battery, the latter of which was put into Volthoom’s chest.
This ring could harness the entire emotional spectrum and turned Volthoom into the First
Lantern.
However, the more he used the ring, the more mentally unstable he grew.
One of the Guardians, Rami, looked into the future where he saw that in trying to save
his planet, it turns out that Volthoom HIMSELF was the cause of its destruction.
Hoping to prevent this future from taking hold, Rami told Volthoom what he saw, causing
the First Lantern to go on a rampage.
Volthoom was a force to be reckoned with and to combat him, the Guardians needed help.
Rami destroyed the Travel Lantern and used it to create the first seven Green Lantern
power rings, rings that could only wield green willpower, which the Guardians deemed to be
the most stable of the Emotional Spectrum.
These rings were unleashed on the universe to find bearers capable of overcoming great
fear and the first bearer was found on the planet Galactica.
Alitha is a New God of the Third World, a direct precursor to the New Gods of Apokolips
and New Genesis that we know today as the Fourth World.
The second ring went to Z’Kran Z’Rann, a white martian who trained for years after
his village was slaughtered by thieves.
Third was Tyran’r the Mighty, a thief from Tamaran.
Yes, that is the same world that Starfire is from.
It’s been known for a long time that Tamaranians are descendants of felines, but this is one
of the first real times that we’ve gotten a look at ancient Tamaran.
Next up is Kaja Dox of Yod-Colu.
Based on her name and home planet, it appears that she is an early ancestor of Vril Dox
A.K.A.
Brainiac.
Then there’s Calleen, the first plant elemental of the planet Alstair who was recruited by
the ring almost as soon as she was born.
After that came Brill from the planet Grenda.
They were part of an artificial intelligence known as The Hive.
Brill was given a robot body to become isolated from The Hive in order to explore the universe
and almost immediately became a member of the Green Lantern Corps.
The final member was Jan-Al, one of the first off-world colonists of Krypton, giving us
the first Kryptonian member of the Green lantern Corps that we have ever seen in the mainstream
DC Comics continuity!
This first iteration of the Green Lantern Corps was called together on Earth where they
were greeted by a recording of Rami that informed them of Volthoom and his increasing madness.
They…
didn’t really care and almost immediately began fighting one another to either take
their colleague's rings or tried to straight up leave so that they could use their rings
for themselves.
Thankfully, two Green Lanterns from the modern era were accidentally, but conveniently brought
from the future to intervene, Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz.
This pair tried reeling these newcomers in, but… that didn’t work.
In fact it took Jan-Al overloaded her ring which killed her in the process to get everyone
to shut up and work together.
Now Simon’s ring was destroyed by Volthoom before they went back in time, but his experience
was invaluable in training the recruits and although Jessica was still new to being a
Green Lantern in the first place, she also helped out quite a bit in the one issue training
montage.
Despite not mastering their rings, the corps attacked Volthoom and paid the price with
the First Lantern slaying Caleen almost instantly…
Followed by Alitha only two pages later…
And then Brill another two pages later.
If you can’t tell, it is very hard to be invested in some of these characters when
they were basically just cannon fodder.
Anyway, the Lanterns were being creamed, but Simon Baz stood up to Volthoom even though
he didn’t even have a ring.
However, right before being killed, the four rings of his fallen comrades choose Simon
as their bearer.
With this power, the Lanterns were able to turn the tide of battle, but Volthoom was
still a force to be reckoned with and he even managed to kill Z’Kran before being subdued
by the remaining Lanterns.
Upon his defeat, Volthoom was taken prisoner by the Guardians who also confiscated the
original Green Lantern power rings and although Simon and Jessica were able to travel back
to their own time, only two of the original seven Lanterns were left alive, Kaja and Tyran’r.
Their fallen teammates were honored in the Vault of Shadows, a mausoleum created to house
the original Lanterns’ bodies.
Tyran’r was given back his ring in order to act as a guardian of the vault, protecting
it from thieves while Kaja on the other hand went back to her people where she lived as
a great scientist until she also died of old age and had her body kept in the Vault of
Shadows.
Back in the present, Simon and Jessica encountered Tyran’r who it turns out had been keeping
his ring for ten billion years JUST so he could give it to Simon who he knew did not
have a ring of his own, even at the expense of his own life.
Before Tyran’r fell though, the present day Rami was able to use the Jessica and Simon’s
power rings to buy Tyran’r another thousand years of life which he can apparently do with
green energy.
Regardless, he recruited the ancient Tamaranian to help him track down the remainder of the
original Green Lantern power rings so that Volthoom (who is now free again here in the
future) couldn’t use them for his own plans and as of the time of this recording, that
is all we know!
I really wish that I had more information for you, but as of the time of this recording,
this is basically all that we have, but if you liked what you’ve seen here then I highly
recommend picking up the Green Lanterns book and reading about it for yourself.
It’s probably one of the coolest things to come out of DC Rebirth.
But hey, if you liked this video then why not consider subscribing or even watching
another one?
In fact, if you liked the idea of a Kryptonian Green Lantern then you should check out the
video that we did on where Krypton’s Green Lantern was when it blew up!
It’s a really interesting story that I’m very surprised hasn’t made a bigger splash
in the mainstream continuity.
So yeah, hope you like that.
Maybe I’ll see you next time!