Green Lantern: Earth One
Green Lantern: Earth One is a series of original graphic novels published by DC Comics as part of the Earth One line. The series is written by Gabriel Hardman and Corinna Bechko, with art by Hardman. Volume One of the series was released on March 20, 2018,[1] while Volume Two was released on August 11, 2020.[2]
| Green Lantern: Earth One | |
|---|---|
 Cover for Green Lantern: Earth One Art by Gabriel Hardman | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Earth One (DC Comics) |
| Genre | Science fiction Superhero |
| Publication date | (Volume One) March 20, 2018 (Volume Two) August 11, 2020 |
| Main character(s) | Hal Jordan Kilowog Arisia Rrab John Stewart Sinestro Guardian |
| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | Gabriel Hardman Corinna Bechko |
| Artist(s) | Gabriel Hardman |
Publication history
Green Lantern: Earth One Volume One is the fifth original graphic novel to be announced by DC Comics as part of the Earth One line of graphic novels established in 2009.[3] It follows the releases of Superman: Earth One,[4] Batman: Earth One,[5] Teen Titans: Earth One,[6] and Wonder Woman: Earth One.[7]
Plot summary
Volume One
In the not too distant future, companies like Ferris Galactic engage in deep space mining operations, looking for materials, while contractually getting bonuses for any discoveries during their salvages. As Ferris orders the crew of the Ferris 6 to come home, due to a rival company beating them, ex-pilot turned mining worker Hal Jordan discovers something. Along with crewman Volkov, Hal discovers an alien spaceship buried within an asteroid; inside, they discover a deactivated robot, a dead alien body, a power battery the shape of a Lantern, and a ring. The support gives way, causing them to escape with the battery and ring. Back in their ship, as Hal reports their findings to the rest of the crew, Volkov tries on the ring and an energy blast is triggered, damaging the hull and killing Volkov. Hal takes the ring, shocked over what it does, and survives in space using his willpower to control the ring. The crew, fearful over possible radiation exposure, forbids Hal to enter their ship. Just then, the robot is reactivated, and attacks Hal. Almost dying, Hal uses all of his energy from the ring to destroy the robot; in turn, Hal is blasted further away into outer space.
Hal wakes up on an alien planet named Bolovax Vik, and meets with resistant Kilowog. Kilowog explains the use of the both the ring and power battery, and reveals they belong to the Green Lantern Corps. He tells the history of the Corps, that they were a peace keeping space force until they were all hunted and mostly destroyed by the same robots Hal fought, known as the Manhunters. Kilowog also reveals that he carries a ring, passed down by generations, and reveals to the inexperienced Hal that he wishes for him to train him to become a Green Lantern. However, Hal reveals to a disbelieving Kilowog that he does not know anything, and beating a Manhunter was just luck. Kilowog decides to team with Hal to learn how to use the ring, from flying to defensive attacks, but their actions are caught by the Bolovax Homeguard, whose General orders Hal to taken into custody, due to their dangerous actions. It is still too late, as the Manhunters, who have been tracking Hal and Kilowog, attack his lab, and then the Homeguard to get to them. Hal tries to fight, but with Kilowog almost getting killed, he takes him and flees. Kilowog is upset, as leaving a fight is seen as cowardice. As Hal tries to figure out how to get back, he gets an idea to find whoever Lantern that is still alive to fight the Manhunters.
They both head off, searching planet after planet, risking their depleting power rings, to find any old Lanterns, with no luck in sight until they reach a planet where they are attacked by a Green Lantern named Arisia Rrab. She demands they leave, refusing their help, and pointing out how naive Hal is. They reach another person, Veca Trana, whose late partner was a Green Lantern, who reveals the shocking truth that the Guardians of the Universe, who created the Corps, were the ones who created the Manhunters in their intention to the destroy the Green Lanterns. With their pursuit fruitless, they decide to get drunk at a space station. There, Hal reveals how hard it is for him to trust people; he is reminded of when he used to work for NASA to develop an orbiting platform called Arrowhead, which was then used to attack its own people. Because Hal trusted the wrong people, the same who performed that massacre, and he did not speak up, he ran away. Just then, Hal is alerted by panicked aliens the approaching Manhunters, only to get knocked out.
Hal awakes to find himself, along with many others, to be used by slave labor by the Manhunters. Hal keeps his cool, being obedient, and not attacking them. Things get weird when he realizes that the ring is being charged by unknown means. When a big alien threatens him, Hal accidentally blasts him with his ring. He hides with another slave, who reveals that this planet is Oa. Miles away from the Central Battery, Hal wants to help others on the planet too, but the slave reveals it's everyone for themselves. She ends up stealing the ring, but fails to breach the barrier housing the Central Battery. Just as Hal arrives and gets his ring back, the Manhunters blast her. Hal gets inside and discovers the Central Battery. Using his ring, he meets with the last Guardian who tells him to free the Central Battery to contact the other Lanterns, and use the Central Battery to destroy Oa, the Manhunters, and everyone else. Hal doesn't want to do that, but has no choice. With his ring fully charged, Hal easily destroys the approaching Manhunters, but the numbers are too much for him that he escapes again. Being reminded of his cowardice, he decides to harness his bravery and sends a distress call to all surviving Lanterns to return to Oa.
Hal goes ahead to attack the other Manhunters, and just when he is about to die, Kilowog and the other Green Lanterns, including Arisia and Veca Trana, arrive. All of them destroy the barrier, freeing the Central Battery. They begin to debate what's next, some agreeing with the plan to use the Central Battery to destroy Oa, including the innocent slaves, but Hal wants a better course of action. With the entire army of Manunters coming, they decide on a new plan: they still use the Central Battery, but they control the blast's direction, and with that, the Manhunters are destroyed. They head out to save the slaves, but with the death of Veca, Hal elects a random person to become the first new Green Lantern since Hal. They then fight together as a team, electing Arisia as the Corps' leader due to her experience, and then proceed to successfully destroy the Manhunter's grasp on the universe.
The Guardian reveals his disgust at Hal not doing what he said, claiming that the Green Lantern Corps always knew best, but they don't. In his secret location, he reveals his new Yellow Lantern Corps. Hal returns to Earth, meeting with his Captain, Amy Seaton, who is surprised to see him alive. Hal reveals there is more out there, and now they have the tools to take care of the job, as he reveals himself as a Green Lantern.
Volume Two
Nearly three years ago since Hal Jordan's return to Earth, humanity is brought into the intergalactic community after the Green Lantern Corps saved the planet from invasion by the Manhunters. Currently, humanity is making progress in establishing relations with the Llarans. However, the situation is still tense as many of Earth's authoritarian governments chafed to dealing with aliens. During a trade deal being negotiated on one of the Llaran's envoy ships, the commander of the orbital defense platform Arrowhead is suddenly given orders by Global Central Command (CENTCOM) to target the ships. The commander refuses to follow the order. But without warning one of the Llaran ships is blown up. This prompted the Llarans, believing it was the humans who attacked, to retaliate by launching missiles on Arrowhead. Jordan shields the platform, but Arrowhead takes significant damage which is then quickly exacerbated by CENTCOM sending fighters on the Llaran ship. The Arrowhead is soon destroyed but Jordan manages to save its crew.
The Llaran withdraw their ships from Earth along with taking the human representatives Ngendo Muturi, Sophie Rivas, and John Stewart as hostages. The Arrowhead incident has put Earth in an intergalactic crisis, as word of humanity being responsible for firing first on the Llarans spread. Jordan takes the Arrowhead's crew to a hospital and learns from the Arrowhead's commander about CENTCOM's order and that he did not fire on the Llaran. Soon after, CENTCOM demands for Jordan to surrender to their custody. Jordan refuses to surrender and flies off to the Jordan Aeronautics R&D Facility on the moon. Now becoming a wanted fugitive, Jordan request Amy Seaton to evacuate everyone out of the base and try to get rid of their prototype interstellar ship and its deep-space drive schematics from falling to CENTCOM's hardliners, while he will try to convince the Llaran to give the hostages back. During his transit to Llaran Prime, Jordan contacts Carol Ferris to help the lunar base.
Upon arriving in Llaran Prime's orbit, Jordan is confronted by Llaran warships and to his surprise a Lantern who carries a yellow ring. The Yellow Lantern declares to Jordan that he is the defender of Llaran Prime and its sector, and demanding Jordan to leave or else his presence will be considered an act of war. Jordan tries to make his case with the Lantern, stating that the incident on Earth was a tragic mistake and he wants to make amends. Unfortunately, the Yellow Lantern heed to Jordan by shooting him a burst of yellow energy. Jordan, knowing that fighting the Lantern will only provoke war, flies away to seek help from Arisia.
Meanwhile, Arisia and her fellow Lanterns Sinestro and the Lantern of Komed are fighting Manhunters on Komeda IV. Jordan joins in the fight in which it quickly ends with Manhunters being utterly destroyed by two Yellow Lanterns, who then immediately make their leave. Arisia tells Jordan that this is not the first time to encounter these Yellow Lanterns as there has been reports of them appearing throughout the galaxy, and the Corps have no idea when they first appeared as the Corps is too occupied in tamping down Manhunter hot spots other than that their yellow rings are vastly powerful. What is even more troubling is the Yellow Lantern defending the Llarans, which is the first time a Yellow Lantern is aligning with a world. So Arisia advises caution in dealing with the Yellow Lanterns. Also, Arisia informs Jordan that the Corps cannot come to Earth's defense if the destruction of the Llaran ship is perceived as an act of aggression, but will help establish a back channel to negotiate the release of the hostages.
Traveling to Graxos IV, which is the current headquarters of the Corps, Jordan is reunited with Kilowog and Arisia learns reports of every Manhunter in the galaxy are being recalled to Oa. Sinestro sees this as a chance of finally wiping out the Manhunters and retaking Oa in which Arisia agrees to his suggestion. The entire Corps assembled and launched their assault on Oa. As they make their approach to the city housing the Central Battery, they are stunned to find mountainous piles of scrapped Manhunters due to the Yellow Lanterns that are being led by the Last Guardian. The Guardian makes his proper introduction to the Corps, explaining that he had returned to ridding the last of the Manhunters and returning order to the galaxy through the power of his new yellow rings that are more advanced and powerful than the original green rings. So he makes a proposition to the Green Lanterns to join forces with his Yellow Lantern Corps and together they will protect their homeworlds and better the galaxy. However, Jordan cast his doubts with the Guardian's intentions as he remembered his instructions to destroy Oa and the Manhunters along with their slaves, and he even refuses the Guardian's offer of resolving the crisis on Earth and returning the hostages in turn for joining his Corps. Arisia also shares Jordan's concerns and acting on behalf of the Green Lantern Corps she declines the Guardian's offer. But several Lanterns including Sinestro willingly join the Guardian's offer.
Meanwhile on Llaran Prime, the planet's Yellow Lantern unexpectedly frees the hostages and takes them to an isolated alleyway. He then explains to them that he is giving his ring and battery to them to help them on their escape. Dr. Muturi demands why he is doing this in which the Lantern admits that he had killed many Llarans and is immensely ashamed for what he did. It is revealed that he and the other Yellow Lanterns came from Qward from another dimension, and they were once systematically oppressed until the Guardian came to free them and give them yellow rings to defeat their oppressors. In return, the Qwardians owed a debt to the Guardian and joined in his war. After finishing his tale, the Qwardian makes his leave to find some way to repent and make right to the Llarans. Back on Earth's moon, Seaton and along with a crew flies off the prototype starship into deep space just as CENTCOM has invaded the base, and are left drifting in an unknown part of space.
Jordan has an argument with Kilowog over the latter's favorable view on the Yellow Lanterns. After Kilowog left in a huff, Jordan is then informed about the hostages' escape. Just then the Guardian broadcast a galaxy-wide announcement concerning on the situation on Earth, claiming that humanity is responsible for attacking the Llaran envoys and deeming them an imminent threat to the galaxy by showing footages of the Jordan Aeronautics starship, accusing humanity will one day use faster-than-light ships to spread their violent intolerant ways across the galaxy. The Guardian has already dispatched his Yellow Lanterns, including Sinestro, to contain Earth and working along with the Global Central Command, and promising that his new corps will deliver on the failed promises of the Green Lantern Corps. Against Arisia's words, Jordan heads back to Earth. During his flight, Jordan is contacted by Arisia, who relays Carol's message on her discovery on what caused the attack on the Llaran ship: it was Llaran Prime's Yellow Lantern who destroyed the ship. It is then made clear that the Guardian had conspired with CENTCOM to cause the attack; it is part of the Guardian's plan to sow chaos on smaller planets like Earth defended by GLC members, giving the opportunity to step in with the Yellow Lanterns and discrediting the GLC at the same time. Before Jordan and Arisia could make their next move, dozens of GLC members are reporting of Yellow Lanterns attacking them on their respective worlds. Graxos IV is likewise attacked and Jordan loses contact with Arisia.
At the same time the Guardian cuts off the Green Lanterns' access to the Central Battery by teleporting it to Qward's dimension. Without the Central Battery, the Green Lanterns are depowered and being easily killed off by the Yellow Lanterns. Jordan is left drifting in space and resorts to creating a feedback loop with his battery to energize his ring, at the cost of sending his battery into a nearby star. He eventually winds up meeting the former Llaran hostages thanks to his distress call. Upon learning from the former hostages about the situation on Earth from hearing on the yellow ring's communications, Jordan realizes that stopping the Guardian is the only way to prevent the galaxy from falling to his tyranny. Using the yellow ring, they find Seaton and the others on the starship. After repairing the ship with the yellow ring, Jordan makes his intentions of flying the ship to Oa and kill the Guardian after dropping the crew to a safe and neutral place. But everyone doesn't agree with Jordan fighting his battle by himself just because he blames himself for allowing the Guardian's return, and is willing to help.
Muturi manages to contact the Llaran ambassador and gets the Llarans' help. Stewart, who wields the yellow ring, acts to scout Oa and find the Guardian's location, which then Seaton will overload the starship's engine and eject it on the Guardian. But the plan goes awry as Stewart is soon attacked by the Yellow Lanterns guarding Oa, and the starship nearly collides with the Guardian's ship. The Guardian teleports Jordan to his ship, inside a room containing an interdimensional rift.
The Guardian wants to talk with Jordan, making him listen to what he is trying to do that may seem harsh. He reveals that he is responsible for how everything went wrong for the Manhunters after creating them and in turn led to his banishment, not having fled as previously stated, to the Qwardian dimension. Now, everything from the Yellow Lanterns, the war on the GLC, and his tyrannical control of the planets are just part of his grand plan to rewrite reality in his image of supposed peace. He reveals to Jordan that the rift he sees before him is a window to the multiverse, containing countless worlds and universes, and all of them are plagued by pain and horror. Acting on the lessons of a previous Oan known as Krona who had first attempted to touch time to discover the universe's origins, and consequently shattering it, the Guardian is confident that he can successfully recreate that experiment and shape the universe through his expertise and Jordan's moral compass in which their reality is free of war and pain. But Jordan calls out on his plan to be absolutely insane and that his attempt to rewrite reality will only wipe out everything out of existence.
The Llaran reinforcements soon arrive with the Bolovax Homeguard, Kilowog and Arisia (who now wield a yellow ring that she gained from the Yellow Lantern who attacked her world). During the battle, Sinestro and the other former Green Lanterns abandon their allegiance with the Guardian after becoming appalled by the Qwardian Yellow Lanterns' actions and realizing that they were being used by the Guardian.
The Jordan Aeronautics starship is badly damaged from its near collision, and Rivas is left mortally wounded. The ship's crew reassess their plan and come up with a way to pilot the ship toward the Guardian's ship and detonate its core; however, they have to manually overload the core. Rivas suddenly volunteers to sacrifice her life to overload the core. The Guardian quickly teleports the ship to the Qwardian dimension and escapes from the explosion. Before the Guardian pilots his ship back to Oa, Jordan's ring is fully recharged by the Central Battery in the Qwardian dimension and allows him to destroy the Guardian's machine containing the dimensional rift. This causes the rift to implode and the Guardian is stuck inside it. Jordan then uses his ring to contain the rift and allow everyone to pull back safely before the rift collapses and seemingly kills Jordan.
With the Guardian dead, the Qwardian Yellow Lanterns have broken off their attack and seeing their debt to the Guardian is done. They are now stuck in this dimension and lay claim of Oa as a refuge. As for the Yellow Lanterns who defected from the GLC, they did not participate in the slaughter of the GLC but are complicit. Sinestro takes responsibility and, speaking for the Yellow Lanterns, declares that there was never a Yellow Lantern Corps and urges his comrades to go protect their homes and live a quiet life, which is what he intends to do. The Lanterns and Jordan's friends make their return home; Muturi plans on staying with the Llarans as a sort of ambassador-in-exile for Earth to bring peace between Llarans and humanity. Kilowog sadly mourns Jordan and regrets arguing with him.
On Earth, the Global Central Command instantly loses control of the planet after the Yellow Lanterns disbanded and cut their ties, forcing their leader General Jask to go into hiding while different factions are taking advantage of the chaos. John Stewart set up an appointment with Carol Ferris, offering to continue Ferris Galactic's work as Jordan had asked him to. But Carol isn't so sure about interstellar travel being a priority given to the current chaos on Earth. Though Stewart insists it is worth trying and as well doing it for Jordan's memory.
Three years later on the planet Qward, a Qwardian city is under attack. A Qwardian runs to a building with the Central Battery nearby, crying out for the "Guardian's" help. Coming from out of the building in a green streak of light is a very much alive Hal Jordan, who flies off to save the day while insisting that people stop calling him "Guardian."
Reception
Jesse Schedden of IGN gave the title a positive review, stating that "in a lot of ways, Green Lantern: Earth One is DC's most successful addition to the line yet. It shows a willingness to subvert expectations and reinvent a character who's remained very locked in one particular course for the past 14 years. The familiar problems remain in terms of pacing and structure, but this is clearly a story that deserves to be continued." He also stated, "Like all of DC's Earth One graphic novels, Green Lantern: Earth One offers a streamlined, continuity-free take on the title character. Generally, these books haven't strayed too far from the norm. The biggest change in Batman: Earth One is the fact that the Dark Knight is more incompetent than his traditional counterpart, while Wonder Woman: Earth One made waves largely by resurrecting the character's Golden Age trappings and bondage subtext. Green Lantern: Earth One feels like the first case where the creators really tried to fundamentally rethink the character and the universe in which they operate."[8]
See also
References
- Yehl, Joshua (July 12, 2017). "Green Lantern: Earth One Makes a Drastic Change to Hal Jordan's Tale (Exclusive)". IGN. Retrieved September 21, 2018.
- Magnett, Chase (August 11, 2020). "Green Lantern: Earth One Vol. 2 Review: An Overstuffed Sequel Explores Green Lantern Canon". Comic Book. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
- Segura, Alex (December 7, 2009). "WELCOME TO EARTH ONE". DC: The Source. Archived from the original on July 21, 2011. Retrieved August 21, 2011.
- Ayres, Tom (January 2, 2011). "DiDio reveals 'Earth One' plans for 2011". Digital Spy. Retrieved June 25, 2013.
- Schedeen, Jesse (May 6, 2015). "Graphic Novel Review: Batman - Earth One Vol. 2". IGN. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
- Bull, Clark (March 27, 2014). "COMIC BOOK RESOURCES announces TEEN TITANS: EARTH ONE!". Comic Book Resources. Retrieved March 27, 2014.
- Clark, Noelene (June 26, 2013). "Wonder Woman graphic novel: Grant Morrison takes on the feminist icon". Hero Complex @ Los Angeles Times.com. Retrieved June 28, 2013.
- Schedeen, Jesse (March 9, 2018). "Green Lantern Hal Jordan Gets an Impressive Makeover (Green Lantern - Earth One Vol. 1 Review)". IGN. Retrieved December 12, 2020.
