Golden Age Martin Nodell (initially using the pen-name Mart Dellon) created the first Green Lantern in collaboration with
Bill Finger. He first appeared in the
Golden Age of Comic Books in
All-American Comics #16 (July 1940), published by
All-American Publications, one of three companies that would eventually merge to form
DC Comics. This Green Lantern's real name was
Alan Scott, a railroad engineer who, after a railway crash, came into possession of a magic lantern which spoke to him and said it would bring power. From this, he crafted a
magic ring that gave him a wide variety of powers. The limitations of the ring were that it had to be "charged" every 24 hours by touching it to the lantern for a time and that it could not directly affect objects made of wood. Alan Scott fought mostly ordinary human villains, but he did have a few paranormal ones such as the immortal
Vandal Savage and the zombie
Solomon Grundy. Most stories took place in New York. Green Lantern rings are made from magic. As a popular character in the 1940s, the Green Lantern featured both in anthology books such as
All-American Comics and
Comic Cavalcade, as well as his own book,
Green Lantern. He also appeared in
All Star Comics as a member of the superhero team known as the
Justice Society of America. After
World War II the popularity of
superheroes in general declined. The
Green Lantern comic book was cancelled with issue #38 (May–June 1949), and
All Star Comics #57 (1951) was the character's last Golden Age appearance. When superheroes came back in fashion in later decades, the character Alan Scott was revived, but he was forever marginalized by the new
Hal Jordan character who had been created to supplant him (see below). Initially, he made guest appearances in other superheroes' books, but eventually got regular roles in books featuring the Justice Society. He never got another solo series, although he did star in individual stories and in the single-issue 2002 comic book
Brightest Day, Blackest Night. Between 1995 and 2003, DC Comics changed Alan Scott's superhero codename to "Sentinel" in order to distinguish him from the newer and more popular science fictional Green Lanterns. In 2011, the Alan Scott character was revamped. His costume was redesigned to be all green and the source of his powers was changed to that of the mystical power of nature (referred to in the stories as "the Green").
Silver Age In 1959,
Julius Schwartz reinvented the Green Lantern character as a science fiction hero named
Hal Jordan. Hal Jordan's powers were more or less the same as Alan Scott's, but otherwise this character was completely different from the Green Lantern character of the 1940s. He had a new name, a redesigned costume, and a rewritten origin story. Hal Jordan received his ring from a dying alien and was commissioned as an officer of the
Green Lantern Corps, an interstellar law enforcement agency overseen by the
Guardians of the Universe. Hal Jordan was introduced in
Showcase #22 (September–October 1959).
Gil Kane and
Sid Greene were the art team most notable on the title in its early years, along with writer
John Broome. His initial physical appearance, according to Kane, was patterned after his one-time neighbor, actor
Paul Newman.
Later developments With issue #76 (April 1970), the series made a radical stylistic departure. Editor Schwartz, in one of the company's earliest efforts to provide more than fantasy, worked with the writer-artist team of
Denny O'Neil and
Neal Adams to spark new interest in the comic book series and address a perceived need for social relevance. They added the character
Green Arrow (with the cover, but not the official name, retitled
Green Lantern Co-Starring Green Arrow) and had the pair travel through America encountering "real world" issues, to which they reacted in different ways — Green Lantern as fundamentally a lawman, Green Arrow as a
liberal iconoclast. Additionally during this run, the groundbreaking "
Snowbirds Don't Fly" story was published (issues #85–86) in which Green Arrow's teen sidekick
Speedy (the later grown-up hero
Red Arrow) developed a
heroin addiction that he was forcibly made to quit. The stories were critically acclaimed, with publications such as
The New York Times,
The Wall Street Journal, and
Newsweek citing it as an example of how comic books were "growing up". However, the O'Neil/Adams run was not a commercial success, and the series was cancelled after only 14 issues, though an additional unpublished three installments were finally published as back-ups in
The Flash #217–219. The title saw a number of revivals and cancellations. It changed to
Green Lantern Corps at one point as the popularity rose and waned. During a time there were two regular titles, each with a Green Lantern, and a third member in the Justice League. A new character,
Kyle Rayner, was created to become the feature while Hal Jordan first became the villain
Parallax, then died and came back as the
Spectre. In the wake of
The New Frontier, writer Geoff Johns returned Hal Jordan as Green Lantern in
Green Lantern: Rebirth (2004–05). Johns began to lay the groundwork for "
Blackest Night" (released July 13, 2010)), viewing it as the third part of the trilogy started by
Rebirth. Expanding on the Green Lantern mythology in the second part, "
Sinestro Corps War" (2007), Johns, with artist
Ethan Van Sciver, found wide critical acclaim and commercial success with the series, which promised the introduction of a spectrum of colored "lanterns".
Timeline Awards The series and its creators have received several awards over the years, including the 1961
Alley Award for Best Adventure Hero/Heroine with Own Book and the
Academy of Comic Book Arts Shazam Award for Best Continuing Feature in 1970, for Best Individual Story ("No Evil Shall Escape My Sight",
Green Lantern (vol. 2) #76 by
Dennis O'Neil and
Neal Adams), and received two
GLAAD Media Awards for his Green Lantern work. In May 2011, Green Lantern placed 7th on IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time.
Legal disputes DC Comics has been involved in two disputes concerning Green Lantern trade marks before the United States Patent and Trade Mark Office, the first in 2012 and the second in 2016. ==Characters==