Data Specialist Plus (2008 New) ,
Publication history
The original Green Lantern was created by young struggling artist Martin Nodell, who was inspired by the sight of a New York Subway employee waving a red lantern to stop a train for track work and a green lantern once the track was clear.[citation needed] With the name in hand and borrowing heavily from the story of Aladdin, Nodell created a mystical crimefighter who got his powers from the flame of a strange lamp.[citation needed]
Nodell was teamed with writer Bill Finger, who wrote the scripts for stories, which were often drawn by Martin Nodell and sometimes by ghost artists such as Irwin Hasen.
The character made his debut in All-American Comics #16 (July 1940). The art was credited to Nodell via his pseudonym “Mart Dellon”. Like many creators of the time, Nodell hoped to keep the stigma of comic books from tarnishing his career in commercial illustration.[citation needed]
According to Mordecai Richler, “there is no doubt… that The Green Lantern has its origin in Hassidic mythology”. However, Richler gives no reasons for saying this. Creator Martin Nodell has written that he originally intended to name the character Alan Ladd, after Aladdin, but changed the name to avoid confusion with the movie actor of the same name. Nodell mentions Richard Wagner’s opera cycle The Ring of the Nibelungen and the sight of a trainman’s green railway lantern as inspirations , lantern candle holders .
Scott was a charter member of the Justice Society of America, beginning in All Star Comics #3 (Winter 1940). He served as the team’s second chairman, in #7, but departed following that issue and returned a few years later. He has been a key member of the group ever since, appearing in all three titles bearing the teams’ name , religious candles .
Fictional character biography
Discovery
All-American Comics #16.
Art by Sheldon Moldoff.
Thousands of years ago, a mystical “green flame” fell to Earth. The voice of the flame prophesied that it would act three times: once to bring death, once to bring life, and once to bring power. By 1940, after having already fulfilled the first two-thirds of this prophecy, the flame had been fashioned into a metal lantern, which fell into the hands of Alan Scott, a young railroad engineer. Following a railroad bridge collapse, the flame instructs Scott in how to fashion a ring from its metal, to give him fantastic powers as the superhero Green Lantern. He adopts a colorful costume (setting himself apart from his successors, as he wore both red and purple in his outfit, besides the standard green) and becomes a crimefighter.
Scott uses his ring to fly, to walk through solid objects (by “moving through the fourth dimension”), to paralyze or blind people temporarily, to create rays of energy, to melt metal as with a blowtorch, and to cause dangerous objects to glow, among other things. Occasionally, he uses it to create solid objects and force fields in the manner usually associated with fellow Green Lantern Hal Jordan, and to read minds. His ring could protect him against any object made of metal, but would not protect him against any wood or plant based objects. This was said to be because the green flame was an incarnation of the strength of “green, growing things”.[citation needed]
During the 1940s, Green Lantern seemed to alternate between serious adventure - particularly when his arch-nemesis, Solomon Grundy, appeared - and light comedy, usually involving his sidekick Doiby Dickles. Toward the end of his Golden Age adventures, he was reduced to the role of a sidekick to Streak the Wonder Dog, a heroic canine cut from the mold of Rin-Tin-Tin and Lassie.
Justice Society of America
Green Lanterns of two worlds:
The Silver Age Hal Jordan meets the Golden Age Alan Scott in Green Lantern #40 (Oct. 1965). Cover art by Gil Kane & Murphy Anderson.
Scott was a member of the JSA in 1951 when the team was investigated by the “Joint Congressional Un-American Activities Committee,” a fictional organization based on the real-life House Un-American Activities Committee but stated to have been created after the death of Senator Joseph McCarthy on Earth-Two.[citation needed] They were accused of possible Communist sympathies and asked to reveal their identities. The JSA declined, and most of the membership retired in the 1950s.
One piece of retroactive continuity fills out Scott’s early history: All-Star Squadron Annual #3 states that the JSA fought a being named Ian Karkull who imbued them with energy that retarded their aging, allowing Scott and several other members (as well as their spouses) to remain active into the late 20th century without infirmity. The events of that incident also led to his taking a leave of absence from the JSA, explaining why the character vanished from the roster for a time.
Also, during this period, he and his friend Jay Garrick (the Flash) had an encounter with Abin Sur, the Green Lantern who preceded Hal Jordan; tracking a criminal to Earth, Sur’s ring is immobilized by his foe forming a yellow barrier around the ring. Sur then secretly borrows Alan’s ring after he and Jay were knocked unconscious.[citation needed] With the new ring, which lacks a weakness to yellow, Sur was able to take his foe by surprise and defeat him, before returning the ring to Alan and leaving Earth.
The team re-formed in the 1960s with Scott as a member, though little is known of their adventures during this time save for their team-ups with the Justice League of America, of the parallel world Earth-One, and a few cross-universe adventures Scott shared with Earth-One’s Green Lantern, Hal Jordan.
From the late 1940s to the 1970s, Scott runs the Gotham Broadcasting Company (GBC). The company ends up ruined by creditors. The Psycho Pirate temporarily drives Alan mad and the rest of the JSA help him recover. Jay Garrick helps him start a new career as a scientist, although he eventually regains control of the GBC and is still running it to this day.
Progeny
It was eventually revealed that in the late 1950s or early 1960s, Scott marries the woman with the dual identity Rose and Thorn, and the two had a pair of children who would grow up to become the superheroes Jade and Obsidian of the team Infinity, Inc.
In the 1980s, Scott married his longtime nemesis (now reformed) Molly Mayne, also known as The Harlequin, and reconciles with his son and daughter.
Post-Crisis on Infinite Earths
The Last Days of the Justice Society of America Special (1986) one-shot told how Adolf Hitler (in 1945) caused a massive wave of destructive energy to erupt over the post-Crisis Earth. Scott and the JSA, fresh from burying their Earth-Two comrades Robin and Huntress, entered into a limbo dimension in order to fight an eternally recurring Ragnarok.
The Return
Through the machinations of Waverider the JSA teammates are able to leave limbo and begin living in the post-Crisis earth which they had fought to save (Armageddon: Inferno 1992). That mini-series is followed by Justice Society of America (1992-1993) which shows how Alan Scott adjusts to his new world. In the short-lived series the JSA fight the newest incarnation of the Ultra-Humanite as well as Pol St. Germain and Kulak the Sorcerer. Scott reconnects with his wife and children, in issue #1 he states that Molly “is pretty much handling things at the company…” and of Jade and Obsidian, “They’re fine off doing their own thing in Hollywood. Not too interested in being super-heroes.” The series ends with issue #10, not with the team disbanding but with the members gathered together at their first formal meeting after returning home.
Alan followed Guy Gardner and a small group of heroes to investigate a mysterious distress from Oa, only to be defeated by Hal Jordan, who was apparently driven mad after the destruction of his home Coast City and called himself Parallax. After the confrontation, Alan later discovered an artist, Kyle Rayner, inherited the remaining Green Lantern ring, and after meeting the young hero, informed him of the situations of Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps. During the Zero Hour event, Alan witnessed the villain Extant incapacitated and killed several of his JSA teammates. After suffering defeat by the villain, Alan gave Kyle his original ring, passing the name “Green Lantern” to him. Alan’s ring was later destroyed by Parallax.
For a time, the Starheart became part of Scott’s body and he adopted the name Sentinel, becoming a founding member of a new JSA. Thanks to the rejuvenative properties of the Starheart, Scott’s physical body was again temporarily revitalized so that he resembles a man in his 30s or early 40s. This drives his wife Molly, who has not been affected, to sell her soul to the demon Neron in exchange for youth. Alan enters a demonic realm, with help from entities such as the Phantom Stranger and Zatanna. He manages to win Molly’s soul back, and with Kyle Rayner’s aid, he reunited Molly’s essence with her souless being.
He has since been physically altered again so that he more closely resembles his true chronological age. He returns to using the name Green Lantern during the JSA’s battle with Mordru. He continues to fight crime in his original costumed identity, rebuilding a ring, and serving as an elder statesman to the Justice Society of America and to the superhero community in general.
In Green Lantern: Rebirth, Alan and his daughter Jade, assisted the surviving members of the Green Lantern Corps; Hal Jordan (who was discovered to be possessed by the ancient fear entity Parallax), John Stewart, Guy Gardner, Kyle Rayner, and Kilowog, in defeating the Parallax-possessed Ganthet. Alan…
