Green Lantern - Profile

Real Name
Hal Jordan

Location
Coast City

First Appearance
Showcase #22 - 1959

Created By
Martin Nodell and Bill Finger

Team Affiliations
JLA (Justice League of America)

Currently Seen In
Green Lantern

Powers
The Green Lanterns use a ring that channels pure willpower in the form of green energy. This energy can be used to do just about anything the wielder can imagine, from blasting a ray of energy like a laser, protecting the user with a force field, allowing them to fly, and even create solid objects.

Most wielders bring their own personality into the projection of their power such as John Stewart an architect whose green creations are extremely detailed to the smallest rivet of a structure. Others, like Kyle Rayner are through the eyes of an artist and are highly creative. In Green Lantern's case, his tend to be more forceful and less streamlined, but by no means less powerful. In fact, Hal is considered to be the greatest Green Lantern that has ever wielded a ring.

The downside to the rings is that they are not unlimited in power. The rings must be recharged up to full power. They do these with a device called, “The Green Lantern”. This is a lantern that is, of course, green and when the wielder puts the ring in the lantern and says,” In brightest day, in darkest night, No evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might, BEWARE MY POWER ... Green Lantern's Light! ,“ the ring is restored to full power.

At the beginning of the Green Lantern comics, the rings were inactive against the color yellow. This was because an entity known as Parallax was imprisoned in the Central Battery. Parallax is a creature that feeds off of fear, and that fear comes across as the color yellow. During the "Green Lantern Rebirth"mini-series, the lanterns learned to overcome this flaw in the rings. In overcoming fear, the color yellow holds no bar to them.

Interesting Fact
When Hal Jordan was removed as the current Green Lantern. A group of fans got together and formed the organization H.E.A.T., which stands for Hal's Emerald Advancement Team.

Origin

Green Lantern was a fighter test pilot for the Air Force. That all changed when on one day, he was mysteriously transported to a crashed spaceship. There he met Abin Sur, a Green Lantern. Abin Sur was dying and offered Hal the opportunity to succeed him. Hal Jordan accepted.

With the ring in his possession, Hal Jordan became the greatest member of the Green Lantern Corps. He became a founding member of the Justice League and has helped save the world countless times.

That changed when Hal couldn’t save his hometown, Coast City, and it was destroyed by the villains Mongul and a Cyborg Superman, killing millions. This event shattered Hal and sent him on a dizzying course of destruction.

Hal tried to use the power of his ring to bring back Coast City and its citizens. But the Guardians of Oa, the leaders of the Green Lanterns, forbade him to do it. This sent Hal on a mission to get the full power of the ring from the Central Battery on the planet Oa. Hal seemingly went mad, when a parasite creature entered his body and Hal stopped calling himself Green Lantern, and emerged as Parallax.

His mission to restore Coast City destroyed most of the Green Lanterns and Guardians of Oa. Parallax was set to redo history as he saw it with the full power of the Green Lantern Central Battery, but the heroes of the DC universe stopped him. Alongside those heroes was the last of the Green Lanterns, newly appointed Kyle Rayner, who was given the power ring by Ganthet the last of the Guardians.

In the end, Hal, as Parallax, sacrificed himself when a giant alien was devouring the sun. Hal used his powers to reignite the sun and in doing so sacrificed his life as well. His spirit went and became one with the Spectre. An avenging spirit of God who righted wrongs and persecuted the guilty. Hal’s penance had begun.

But this was not Hal’s end. It was discovered that Parallax was an ancient enemy of the Green Lanterns and was imprisoned in the Central Battery for eons. This entity was still with Hal, but with the joined effort of the remaining Green Lanterns, (by this time there was John Stewart, an alien named Kilowog, current GL Kyle Rayner and onetime Lantern Guy Gardner, they reinstated Hal’s spirit into his body and defeated Parallax, sealing him again into the Central Battery, and restoring the Guardians to oversee the Green Lanterns. Hal is now the core Green Lantern of the DC universe.