REVIEW: McAvoy and Fassbender Are First-Rate in X-Men: First Class

X-Men: First Class wants to be five movies at once, and it occasionally succeeds at being a few of them: One minute it’s a stylish James Bond-style retro pleaser, the next a bitter-edged revenge melodrama, the next your boilerplate “embrace individuality” empowerment brief. It is also, of course, a movie based on a comic-book franchise — in this case, Marvel’s long-running, multi-tentacled X-Men saga — and for that reason alone, it comes with a million other expectations attached. I don’t know what director in his right mind would want to take on such a project, but I admire Matthew Vaughn for trying.

And he tries hard to make X-Men: First Class all things to all people, to the extent that some of it sticks quite well. X-Men: First Class opens in Nazi Germany, just as a young lad named Erik Lehnsherr is being wrest from his parents en route to the death camps. Eric is so distraught at the separation that, even as he’s being restrained by Nazi guards, he opens and mangles a set of heavy iron gates seemingly at will. This performance intrigues mad-doctor-type Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon, wearing the perfect know-it-all sneer for this sort of villainy), who orders Erik to move a coin on command. When the boy fails, Shaw shoots his mother in his presence, unleashing a storm of rage that reveals the extent of Erik’s powers.

Meanwhile, over in Westchester, N.Y., a youngster named Charles Xavier discovers a girl with blue skin hiding out in his kitchen.

Meanwhile, over in Westchester, N.Y., a youngster named Charles Xavier discovers a girl with blue skin hiding out in his kitchen. Fast-forward to 1962: Erik (now played by a dashing Michael Fassbender, in a series of Cary Grant turtlenecks) and Charles (James McAvoy, whose lips always manage to look just-bitten) are hurtling along separate paths but are soon destined to meet. Erik wants to wreak revenge on the man who caused him so much childhood trauma; Charles is an Oxford-educated smarty-pants whose specialty is mutant genetics. (Handily, he can also read minds.) Before long, the two have rather uneasily joined forces and collected a coterie of comely young people with interesting skills, including Havok (Lucas Till), who summons killer hula-hoops of fire from his fingertips; Beast (Nicolas Hoult), a shy nerd whose attempts to “cure” his apelike mutant aberrations backfire; Angel (Zoë Kravitz), a go-go dancer who sprouts dragonfly wings at will; and blue-girl-grown-up Mystique (a subdued but not unappealing Jennifer Lawrence), a willful beauty who, when not completely encased in matte blue scales, can temporarily assume the form of anyone she chooses.
You’ve seen these characters before, in different, more aged iteratons: X-Men: First Class is a prequel to Bryan Singer’s X-Men pictures. (Singer is one of the movie’s producers, and is credited with co-writing the story on which the script is based; the screenplay was written by Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman and Vaughn.) Fassbender’s Erik will eventually become Ian McKellan’s Magneto; McAvoy will assume the form of Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier. And Lawrence’s Mystique Jr. will stretch out, and fill out, just a bit more to become Rebecca Romijn’s cobalt-hued hottie (a transformation that’s alluded to in one of the picture’s several X-planatory in-jokes).



In laying out the X-Men backstory, Vaughn has done lots of things right. In the first half, in particular, he’s conscious of keeping the story grounded on a modest, human scale that isn’t overshadowed by booming special effects. Maybe that’s the approach you’d expect Vaughn to take. Together, Vaughn’s movies — which also include the gritty Brit-crime caper Layer Cake and the spirited but not-quite-cohesive Kick-Ass, as well as the flawed but still hypnotic Neil Gaiman adaptation Stardust — are a motley group that nevertheless come with a sensibility attached. Vaughn is interested in human interaction, in vulnerability, in glancing humor rather than heavy-duty laughs. His instincts are good, though he doesn’t always follow them fully — or perhaps, depending on who’s holding the purse-strings, he isn’t always allowed to.

There are some superb Bond-style sparkling phallic submarines, and we get to see January Jones, as mind-reading ice-maiden Emma Frost, in a series of Emma Peel-style zippered jumpsuits.

And so while X-Men: First Class at first takes its source material with just the right amount of self-deprecating seriousness, it founders in the second half, when it becomes overburdened with squirrelly plot mechanics and an excess of self-evident dialogue. (Sample mutant talk: “Society should try to become more like us.”) X-Men: First Class wants to give itself over to stylized stylishness early on: There are some superb Bond-style sparkling phallic submarines, and we get to see January Jones, as mind-reading ice-maiden Emma Frost, in a series of Emma Peel-style zippered jumpsuits. (X-Men: First Class does commingle 1962 Mad Men-era fashion a bit too liberally with 1968 Austin Powers mod garb, but costume designer Sammy Sheldon may have been going for a vibe rather than spot-on historical accuracy.)
I hooted and laughed when Fassbender’s Erik extracted a gold filling from a baddie simply by holding his quivering hand aloft, as if he were playing a theremin. There’s also a marvelous sequence in which the youngsters amuse themselves while holed up at a CIA research facility: They strut their superpowers to the rockin’ strains of “Hippy Hippy Shake.” But X-Men: First Class becomes bogged down in its late — and seemingly everlasting — action sequences, which it frames in terms of real-life Cold War horrors. The resulting geopolitical action fable is too clever by half, and it’s wearying to watch, not least because it drains our attention from the movie’s two star attractions.
Because if nothing else, X-Men: First Class is anchored by two superb actors, McAvoy and Fassbender, who embrace this sometimes ludicrous material without acting as if they’re slumming (or just collecting a paycheck). Fassbender, born in Germany and raised in Ireland, is something of a magnificent mutant himself — his Erik Lehnsherr is urbane, unflinching, unapologetically sexy in a menacing way. (He also manages to look surprisingly not-ridiculous in that absurd Magneto helmet.) And McAvoy brings thespian gravity even to that old-timey chestnut of a line, “I can’t feel my legs.” When he suffers, his eyes stare into space, but they’re hardly blank. He and Fassbender circle each other warily, like elegant but very different animals, one feral, one cautious and intuitive. Instead of stooping down to the material, they do the work of elevating it, and they’re a pleasure to watch even as X-Men: First Class derails around them. Sometime partners who end up rivals, they’re the movie’s most spectacular special effect.

Green Lantern

June 1st, 2011 popcornt (online)

The Green Lantern is the shared primary alias of several fictional characters, superheroes appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The first Green Lantern (Alan Scott) was created by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell in All-American Comics #16 (July 1940).^[2]
Each Green Lantern possesses a power ring and power lantern that gives the user great control over the physical world as long as the wielder has sufficient willpower and strength to wield it. The ring is one of the most powerful weapons in the universe, and can be very dangerous. While the ring of the Golden Age Green Lantern (Alan Scott) was magically powered, the rings worn by all subsequent Lanterns were technological creations of the Guardians of the Universe, who granted such rings to worthy candidates. These individuals made up the intergalactic police force known as the Green Lantern Corps.^[2]
After World War II, when sales of superhero comic books generally declined, DC ceased publishing new adventures of Alan Scott as the Green Lantern. In 1959, at the beginning of the Silver Age of Comic Books, DC editor Julius Schwartz assigned writer John Broome and artist Gil Kane to revive the Green Lantern character, this time as test pilot Hal Jordan, who became a founding member of the Justice League of America. In 1970, writer Denny O’Neil and artist Neal Adams teamed Green Lantern with archer Green Arrow in groundbreaking, socially conscious, and award-winning stories that pitted the sensibilities of the law-and-order-oriented Lantern with the populist Green Arrow. Several cosmically themed series followed, as did occasional different individuals in the role of Earth’s Green Lantern. Most prominent of these are John Stewart, Guy Gardner, Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner.
Each of the Earth’s Green Lanterns has been a member of either the Justice Society of America or the Justice League of America, and John Stewart was featured as one of the main characters in both the Justice League and the Justice League Unlimited animated series. The Green Lanterns are often depicted as being close friends of the various men who have been the Flash, the most notable friendships having been between Alan Scott and Jay Garrick (the Golden Age Green Lantern and Flash), Hal Jordan and Barry Allen (the Silver Age Green Lantern and Flash), and Kyle Rayner and Wally West (the modern age Green Lantern and Flash), as well as Jordan being friends with West.

Publication history

Golden Age

 

Green Lantern’s debut in All-American Comics#16 (July 1940).
Art by Sheldon Moldoff.

Green Lantern was created by Martin Nodell (using the name Mart Dellon) and 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. The collector market for original copies of this issue is strong, with a sale in October 2007 selling on an online vintage comic trading site, ComicConnect.com, for $29,250.^[3]
This Green Lantern’s real name was Alan Scott, and he was a railroad engineer who had come into possession of a magic lantern after a railway crash which spoke to him and said it would bring power. From this, he crafted a magic ring which 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 did not work on non-metals like wood.
Nodell had originally planned to give the Green Lantern the alter ego “Alan Ladd,” this being a linguistic twist on Aladdin, who had a magic lamp and magic ring of his own. DC considered the wordplay distracting and foolish, and the character’s name was changed before publication to “Alan Scott.” In May 1942, the film This Gun for Hire suddenly made the journeyman actor Alan Ladd a movie star. Nodell would always joke that they’d missed a great opportunity.^[4]
The Green Lantern was a popular character in the 1940s, featured in both All-American Comics and in his own title and co-starring in Comic Cavalcade along with Flash and Wonder Woman. He was a charter member of the Justice Society of America, whose adventures ran in All Star Comics. After World War II, the popularity of superheroes declined. The Green Lantern comic book was cancelled with issue #38 (May–June 1949). All Star Comics #57 (1951) was the character’s last Golden Age appearance.

Silver Age revival

 

Cover to Showcase#22 (October 1959), the first appearance of Hal Jordan. Art by Gil Kane.

In the late 1950s, DC Comics successfully revived superheroes, ushering in what became known as the Silver Age of comic books. Rather than bringing back the same Golden Age heroes — as Atlas Comics, the 1950s precursor of Marvel Comics, unsuccessfully attempted — DC reimagined them as new characters for the modern age. Following the successful revival of the Flash in Showcase #4 (Oct. 1956), a new Green Lantern was introduced in Showcase #22 (September–October 1959).
This Green Lantern was Hal Jordan, a test pilot who was given a power ring by a dying alien, Abin Sur, and who became a member of the Green Lantern Corps, an interstellar organization of police overseen by the Guardians of the Universe. The Corps’ rings were powerless against anything colored yellow, due to a yellow-colored “dopant” in the master power generator located on Oa, where the Guardians maintained their headquarters, without which dopant the master generator would not function as such. Jordan’s creation was motivated by a desire to make him more of a science fiction hero, editor Julius Schwartz having been a longtime fan of that genre and literary agent who saw pop-culture tastes turning in that direction.

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 and address a perceived need for social relevance. They added the character Green Arrow (with the cover though 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 and #86) in which Green Arrow’s teen sidekick Speedy (the later grownup 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”.^[5] However, the O’Neil/Adams run was not a commercial success, and after only 14 issues, the two left the title, which was cancelled.
The title would know a number of revivals and cancellations. Its title would change 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 groundwork for “Blackest Night” (released July 13, 2010^[6]), 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”. Currently, all four “current” Green Lanterns have stories being told in simultaneously published series: Green Lantern (primarily Jordan), Green Lantern Corps (primarily Rayner and Stewart), and Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors (primarily Gardner).

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 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 in 1971 for Best Individual Story (“Snowbirds Don’t Fly”, Green Lantern vol. 2, #85 by O’Neil and Adams).
Writer O’Neil received the Shazam Award for Best Writer (Dramatic Division) in 1970 for his work on Green Lantern, Batman, Superman, and other titles, while artist Adams received the Shazam for Best Artist (Dramatic Division) in 1970 for his work on Green Lantern and Batman. Inker Dick Giordano received the Shazam Award for Best Inker (Dramatic Division) for his work on Green Lantern and other titles.
In Judd Winick’s first regular writing assignment on Green Lantern, he wrote a storyline in which an assistant of Kyle Rayner’s emerged as a gay character in Green Lantern #137 (June 2001). In Green Lantern #154 (November 2001) the story entitled “Hate Crime” gained media recognition when Terry was brutally beaten in a homophobic attack. Winick was interviewed on Phil Donahue’s show on MSNBC for that storyline on August 15, 2002 and received two GLAAD awards for his Green Lantern work.In May of 2011,Green Lantern placed 7th on IGN’s Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time.[5]

Fictional character biographies

Golden Age Green Lantern

Alan Scott

Main article: Alan Scott

Alan Scott’s Green Lantern history traditionally began thousands of years ago when a mystical “green flame” meteor fell to Earth in ancient China. The voice of the flame prophesied that it would act three times: once to bring death (a lamp-maker crafted the green metal of the meteor into a lamp; in fear and as punishment for what they thought sacrilege, the local villagers killed him, only to be destroyed by a sudden burst of the green flame), once to bring life (in modern times, the lamp came into the hands of a patient in a mental institution who fashioned the lamp into a modern lantern; the green flame restored him to sanity and gave him a new life), and once to bring power. By 1940, the lantern passed into the possession of Alan Scott, a young engineer. Following a railroad-bridge collapse of which he was the only survivor, the flame instructed Scott how to fashion a ring from its metal, to give him fantastic powers as the superhero Green Lantern. He adopted a colorful costume and became a crime-fighter. Alan was a founding member of the Justice Society of America.
After the Crisis on Infinite Earths (although the original origin story was still in continuity), a later Tales of the Green Lantern Corps story was published that brought Scott even closer to the Corps’ ranks, when it was revealed that Alan Scott was predated as Earth’s Green Lantern by a Green Lantern named Yalan Gur, a resident of China. Not only had the Corps’ now-familiar green, black and white uniform motif not yet been adopted, but Yalan Gur altered the basic red uniform to more closely resemble the style of clothing worn by his countrymen. Power ultimately corrupted this early Green Lantern, as he attempted to rule over mankind, which forced the Guardians to cause his ring to manifest a weakness to wood, the material from which most Earth weapons of the time were fashioned. This allowed the Chinese peasants to ultimately defeat their corrupted “champion.” His ring and lantern were burned and it was during this process that the “intelligence” inhabiting the ring and the lantern, and linking them to the Guardians, was damaged. Over time, when it had occasion to manifest itself, this “intelligence” became known as the mystical ‘Starheart’ of fable.
Centuries later, it was explained, when Scott found the mystical lantern, it had no memory of its true origins, save a vague recollection of the uniform of its last master. This was the origin of Scott’s distinctive costume. Due to its damaged link to them, the Guardians presumed the ring and lantern to be lost in whatever cataclysm overcame their last owner of record. Thus Scott was never noticed by the Guardians and went on to carve a history of his own apart from that of the Corps, sporting a ring with an artificially induced weakness against anything made of wood. Honoring this separate history, the Guardians never moved to force Scott to relinquish the ring, formally join the Corps, or adopt its colors. Some sort of link between Scott and the Corps, however, was hinted at in a Silver Age cross-over story which depicts Scott and Hal Jordan charging their rings at the same Power Battery while both reciting the “Brightest Day” oath. During the Rann-Thanagar War, it was revealed that Scott is an honorary member of the Corps.

Silver Age Green Lantern

Hal Jordan

Main article: Hal Jordan

The second Green Lantern to see publication is also the most notable. The character of Harold “Hal” Jordan was a second-generation test pilot, having followed in the footsteps of his father, Martin Jordan. He was given the power ring and battery (lantern) by a dying alien named Abin Sur, whose spaceship crashed on Earth. Abin Sur used his ring to seek out an individual who was “utterly honest and born without fear” to take his place as Green Lantern. Jordan became a founding member of the Justice League of America and as of the mid-2000s is, along with John Stewart, one of the two active-duty Lanterns in Earth’s sector of space.
Jordan was also a member of the Green Lantern Corps, which bears some similarities to the “Lensmen” from the science fiction novel series written by E.E. Smith, although both Julius Schwartz and John Broome denied ever reading Smith’s stories.^[7] Nonetheless, the early 1980s miniseries “Green Lantern Corps” honors the similarity with two characters in the corps: Eddore of Tront and Arisia. A different interpretation of Jordan and the Corps appears in Superman: Red Son.
Following the rebirth of Superman and the destruction of Green Lantern’s hometown of Coast City in the early 1990s, Hal Jordan seemingly went insane and destroyed the Green Lantern Corps and the Central Power Battery. Now calling himself Parallax, Hal Jordan would devastate the DC Universe off and on for the next several years. However, after Earth’s sun was threatened by a Sun-Eater, Jordan sacrificed his life, expending the last of his vast power to reignite the dying star. Jordan subsequently returned from beyond the grave as the Spectre, the divine Spirit of God’s Vengeance, whom Jordan attempted to transform into a Spirit of Redemption, which ended in failure.
In Green Lantern: Rebirth, it is revealed that Jordan was under the influence of a creature known as Parallax when he turned renegade. Parallax was a creature of pure fear that had been imprisoned in the Central Power Battery by the Guardians of the Universe in the distant past. Imprisonment had rendered the creature dormant and it was eventually forgotten, becoming known merely as the “yellow impurity” in the power rings. Sinestro was able to wake Parallax and encourage it to seek out Hal Jordan as a host. Although Parallax had been trying to corrupt Jordan (via his ring) for some time, it was not until after the destruction of Coast City that it was able to succeed. It took advantage of Jordan’s weakened emotional state to lure him to Oa and cause him to attack anyone who stood in his way. After killing several Green Lanterns, Jordan finally entered the Central Power Battery and absorbed all the power, unwittingly freeing the Parallax entity and allowed it to graft onto his soul.
The Spectre bonded with Jordan in the hopes of freeing the former Green Lantern’s soul from Parallax’s taint, but was not strong enough to do so. In Green Lantern: Rebirth, Parallax began to assert control of the Parallax-Spectre-Jordan composite. Thanks to a supreme effort of will, Jordan was able to free himself from Parallax, rejoin his soul to his body and reclaim his power ring. The newly revived (and rejuvenated) Jordan awoke just in time to save Kyle Rayner and Green Arrow from Sinestro. After the Korugarian’s defeat, Jordan was able to successfully lead his fellow Green Lanterns in battle against Parallax and with help from Guardians Sayd and Ganthet, imprisoned it within the personal power batteries of Earth’s Lanterns, rendering the Green Lantern’s rings free of the yellow impurity, provided they had the power of will to do so. Hal Jordan is once again a member of both the Justice League and the Green Lantern Corps, and along with John Stewart is one of the two Corps members assigned to Sector 2814, personally defeating Sinestro in the Sinestro Corps War. Jordan is designated as Green Lantern 2814.1.
Post-”Sinestro Corps War”, DC Comics revisited the origin of Hal Jordan as a precursor to “The Blackest Night” storyline, the next chapter in the Geoff Johns era on Green Lantern. Hal Jordan is the Green Lantern that will be portrayed by Ryan Reynolds in the upcoming Green Lantern film.

Bronze Age Green Lanterns

Guy Gardner

Main article: Guy Gardner (comics)

In the late 1960s, Guy Gardner appeared as the second choice to replace Abin Sur as Green Lantern of sector 2814. Gardner was originally supposed to receive Abin Sur’s ring, but Jordan was closer. This placed him as the “backup” Green Lantern for Jordan. But early in his career as a Green Lantern, tragedy struck Gardner as a power battery blew up in his face, putting him in a coma for years. During the Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Guardians split into factions, one of which appointed a newly revived Gardner as their champion. As a result of his years in a coma, Guy was very emotionally unstable, although he still mostly managed to fight valiantly. He has gone through many changes, including wielding Sinestro’s yellow Guardian power ring, then gaining and losing Vuldarian powers, and readmission to the Corps during Green Lantern: Rebirth. He later became part of the Green Lantern Honor Guard, and oversees the training of new Green Lanterns. Gardner is designated as Honor Guard Green Lantern.
Guy Gardner helped lead the defense of Oa during the events of “Blackest Night.” In Green Lantern Corps #43, Guy succumbs to his rage due to the temporary death of Kyle Rayner and becomes a Red Lantern.

John Stewart

Main article: John Stewart (comics)

In the early 1970s, John Stewart, an African-American architect, was selected by the Guardians to replace a comatose Guy Gardner as the backup Green Lantern for Jordan. When Jordan resigned from the Corps for an extended period of time, Stewart served as the regular Lantern for that period. Since then, Stewart was in and out of action due to various circumstances, even becoming the first mortal Guardian of the Universe. He also joined and led the Darkstars when the Green Lantern Corps were destroyed by Parallax. After that, he took over being Green Lantern for Kyle Rayner when he left Earth, also taking his place in the JLA. Now he has begun serving with Jordan as one of his sector’s two designated regular-duty Lanterns, designated as Green Lantern 2814.2.

Modern Age Green Lantern

Kyle Rayner

Main article: Kyle Rayner

Kyle Rayner is a struggling freelance artist when he is approached by the last Guardian of the Universe, Ganthet, to become a new Green Lantern with the last power ring. Ganthet’s reasons for choosing Rayner remained a secret for quite some time. Despite not being cut from the same cloth of bravery and fearlessness as Hal Jordan — or perhaps because of that — Rayner proved to be popular with readers and his fellow characters. Having continually proven himself on his own and with the JLA, he became known amongst the Oans as The Torch Bearer. He briefly operated as Ion after using the power of the entire Green Lantern Corps. He was responsible for the rebirth of the Guardians and the re-ignition of the Central Power Battery, essentially restoring all that Jordan had destroyed as Parallax.
Kyle Rayner was chosen to wield the last ring because he knew fear, and Parallax had been released from the Central Power Battery. Ganthet knew this and chose Kyle because his experiences dealing with fear enabled him to resist Parallax. Because Parallax is a manifestation of fear, and yellow, none of the other Green Lanterns, including Hal, could harm Parallax and, therefore, came under his control. Kyle taught them to feel and overcome fear so they could defeat Parallax and incarcerate him in the Central Power Battery once again.
Kyle became Ion, who is later revealed to be the manifestation of willpower in the same way Parallax is fear. During the Sinestro Corps War between the Green Lantern Corps and the Sinestro Corps, Ion was imprisoned while Parallax possesses Kyle. In Green Lantern (vol. 4) #24, Parallax consumes Hal Jordan. Hal Jordan enters into Kyle’s prison, and with his help, Kyle finally escapes Parallax.
Afterward, Ganthet and Sayd trap Parallax in the Lanterns of the four Green Lanterns of Earth. Ganthet asks Kyle to give up his right to be Ion and become a Green Lantern again. Kyle accepts, and Ganthet gives Kyle a power ring. Kyle is outfitted with a new costume including a mask that looks like the one from his first uniform. Kyle is now a member of the Green Lantern Corps Honor Guard, and has been partnered with Guy Gardner.
Kyle now shows up mostly as part of the ensemble cast of Green Lantern Corps. Corps rookie Sodam Yat took over the mantle of Ion. Sodam has made an appearance in the Legion of Super Heroes Final Crisis tie-in Legion of Three Worlds as the last surviving Green Lantern/Guardian of the Universe.
Kyle is designated as Green Lantern 2814.4 within the Corps.^{[citation needed]}
Kyle Rayner died in Green Lantern Corps #42 (Jan. 2010) after sacrificing himself to save Oa from an attack by the Black Lantern Corps. The following issue, Kyle is brought back to life by the power of a Star Sapphire who connects Soranik Natu’s heart to his heart.

Others who have headlined as Green Lantern

Jade

Main article: Jade (comics)

The daughter of Alan Scott, Jennifer-Lynn Hayden would discover she shared her father’s mystical connection to the Starheart, which gave her the abilities of a Green Lantern. Choosing to follow in her father’s footsteps, she became the superheroine Jade. She would later fight a manifestation of the Starheart and lose those abilities.
After Jade was stripped of her powers, Kyle Rayner gave her a copy of Hal Jordan’s power ring. When Rayner left Earth to restart the Green Lantern Corps, Jade donned the classic Green Lantern uniform and served as the planet’s Green Lantern until losing the ring during a battle with the villain Fatality. Later, when the ring was returned to her, she changed her Green Lantern uniform to a modified version of Rayner’s. Jade continued to function as a Green Lantern until Rayner, as Ion, used his power to restore her connection to the Starheart. During Infinite Crisis, she died while trying to stop Alexander Luthor, Jr. from destroying the universe to create a new multiverse. Upon her death, Jade returned her Starheart power to Rayner. In the Blackest Night event, her remains have been reanimated as one of the Black Lantern Corps after receiving a black power ring. She was resurrected by Hal Jordan while he was bonded with the White Entity along with eleven other Black Lantern Corps members.

Powers and abilities

Main article: Power ring (weapon)

Each Green Lantern wields a power ring that can generate a variety of effects, sustained purely by the ring wearer’s imagination and strength of will. The greater the user’s willpower, the more effective the ring. The upper limits of the power ring’s abilities remain undefined, and it has been referred to as “the most powerful weapon in the universe” on more than one occasion. It has also been stated^{[by whom?]} that every weapon has a weakness and the weakness a Green Lantern ring has is its wearer (though some argue that this is its strength). Across the years, the rings have been shown capable of accomplishing almost anything within the imagination of the ring bearer. Stories in 2006 retconned the ring’s long-established ineffectiveness on yellow objects, stating that the ring-wielder need only feel fear, understand it and overcome it in order to affect yellow objects (however, it is a learned and practiced ability, making it a weakness to some Green Lanterns), giving retroactive credence to the explanation of the ring’s real but surmountable weakness to yellow.
Power rings as used by various wielders have exhibited (but are not limited to) the following effects:

• Constructs of green ‘solid-energy,’ which can vary from microscopic to tremendous in size and/or complexity and are limited by the imagination of the ring’s wielder. This can be used to attack, defend, or to grab targets (Pre-Crisis, the rings generated telekinectic skills without constructs, if needed).
  • Force field generation, a somewhat protective aura (limited by user’s willpower) used to shield the wearer from the rigors of the vacuum of space. This provides a breathable atmosphere for the user as well. Contrary to older canon, a Green Lantern ring currently does not automatically protect its wearer from harm but must be willed to do so (previously, an unconscious wielder generated a protective force field automatically).
  • Generation of mental “earplugs” to block out telepathic communication and manipulation.^[8]
  • Rendering targets invisible.^[9]
  • Lights and beams of various intensity and colors, such as destructive plasma and harmless multicolored lights.
• Movement capabilities:
  • Flight, including flight at speeds beyond that of light, although this creates an enormous expenditure of energy.
  • Relatively instantaneous transport across the galaxy and other distances through generated wormholes
  • Teleportation (an ability that has not been used in quite some time and may be outside the ability of modern Green Lanterns)
  • Pre-Crisis, the rings allowed for travel faster than the speed of light.
  • Time travel, though several power rings are needed to complete this.
• The rings can act as semi-sentient computers and accesses information through its connection with the Book of Oa; the rings have problem-solving skills but they cannot make decisions or take actions on their own, and must be given directives by the wearer:
  • Translation of nearly all languages (originally, this was accomplished by using willpower, but this has changed in the modern era to be a function of the rings themselves).
  • Communication between ringwielders, regardless of distance apart
  • Diagnostic capabilities, allowing the user to see in X-Ray, diagnose illnesses, and identify materials.
• Mental powers of various stages:
  • Telepathy
  • Hypnosis, including projecting the target’s thoughts onto constructed maps
  • Creation and emission of certain types of radiation, including simulated wavelengths, such as kryptonite
  • Placing humans into a state of suspended animation ^[10] and pulling them out of it
• Changing the state of targeted matter and the wearer:
  • Allowing targets and the wearer to phase through solid objects
  • Rendering the wearer and targets to become invisible
  • Accelerated healing of wounds, protection and treatment from viruses and biological attacks and certain surgical procedures including reattachment of severed limbs and digits. More advanced medical procedures may be performed manually and are limited by the wearer’s knowledge of medicine. Pre-Crisis, a wearer could instantaneously reinvigorate limbs that had not been used in years, so someone bedridden for years could walk as though their muscles had not atrophied.
  • Virtual shape-shifting by generating a hard-light holographic disguise around the ring bearer.
  • “Digitizing” the wearer to absorb them into the ring where they can live in a wearer-generated “world” of their own nearly indefinitely.
  • Pre-Crisis, a ring could alter a being’s molecular size (including shrinking to an atomic level), evolutionary stage (such as turning a target human into an ape), or distort specific targeted areas of the body (slowing the Flash down by making his upper torso too large for him to run).
  • Pre-Crisis, a wearer could animate non-living matter and make the target do whatever is willed.
  • Pre-Crisis, the rings could create a construct of a ring that a “non-Lantern” could use for 4 hours at a time (as opposed to 24) without a great effort of will.
  • Pre-Crisis, a ring could create multiple copies of its wearer if certain conditions were met; each copy had the capabilities of the original wearer.
  • In Green Lantern: First Flight Sinestro was able to “reconnect synapses” in the brain of a dead criminal in order to extract information via a kind of guided discussion.

Green Lantern oath

Green Lantern is famous for the oath he recites when he charges his ring. Originally, the oath was simple:

“	…and I shall shed my light over dark evil. For the dark things cannot stand the light, The light of the Green Lantern!	”
—Alan Scott

(This oath was later given as an in-joke to Tomar-Re, Green Lantern of sector 2813 and the first Lantern Hal Jordan met after Abin Sur.)
In the mid-1940s, this was revised into the form that became famous during the Hal Jordan era:

“	In brightest day, in blackest night, No evil shall escape my sight Let those who worship evil’s might, Beware my power… Green Lantern’s light!	”
—Hal Jordan/Many Current Lanterns

The science-fiction writer Alfred Bester, who wrote many Green Lantern stories in the 1940s, has been credited^{[by whom?]} as the creator of this oath. However, in an interview with journalist F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre at the 1979 World Science Fiction Convention in Brighton, England, Bester stated that the brightest-day oath was already in place before he began writing for the character.^{[citation needed]}
The Pre-Crisis version of Hal Jordan created the oath when he had three early adventures that inspired him on how he can defeat any attempt to elude him: he captured robbers who used a magnesium bomb to blind everyone in an area by using his ring as a radar to find them; he tracked criminals in a dark cave by using his ring to make them glow with phosphorescence; finally, Jordan tracked down safecrackers by detecting the faint shockwaves from the explosives used by the criminals and tracing it back.
It had been established in the past that many Green Lanterns have their own oath. For example, Medphyll, the Green Lantern of the planet J586 (seen in Swamp Thing #61, “All Flesh is Grass”), a planet where a sentient plant species lives, has the following oath:

In forest dark or glade beferned

No blade of grass shall go unturned

Let those who have the daylight spurned

Tread not where this green lamp has burned.

Other notable oaths include that of Jack T. Chance:

You who are wicked, evil and mean

I’m the nastiest creep you’ve ever seen!

Come one, come all, put up a fight

I’ll pound your butts with Green Lantern’s light!

Yowza.

and that of Rot Lop Fan, a Green Lantern whose species lacks sight, and thus has no concepts of brightness, darkness, day, night, color, or lanterns:

In loudest din or hush profound

My ears catch evil’s slightest sound

Let those who toll out evil’s knell

Beware my power, the F-Sharp Bell!

Since Green Lantern: Rebirth and the restart of the Green Lantern Corps, the only oath used has been the Brightest Day, Blackest Night version.
In Green Lantern (vol. 4) #27, the Alpha Lanterns are revealed to have their own oath:

In days of peace, in nights of war

Obey the Laws forever more

Misconduct must be answered for,

Swear us the chosen: The Alpha Corps!

In Legion of 3 Worlds, Sodam Yat in the 31st century – as the last of the Green Lanterns and the last of the Guardians – recited a new oath:

In brightest day, through Blackest Night,

No other Corps shall spread its light!

Let those who try to stop what’s right,

Burn like my power, Green Lantern’s Light!

In the animated TV series Duck Dodgers, Duck Dodgers temporarily becomes a Green Lantern after accidentally picking up Hal Jordan’s laundry. In the first part of the episode, he forgets the real quote and makes up his own version:

In blackest day or brightest night

Watermelon, cantaloupe, yadda yadda

Erm… superstitious and cowardly lot

With liberty and justice for all!