Green Lantern Poster # 2 FRAMED Green Lantern #1 (1941) by Howard Purcell

Description

You are purchasing the item pictured, framed. Priority mail, tracking and $50 insurance is included with purchase. Item will be bagged to protect from dust, packed in packing peanuts and boxed. Just open box and hang it on the wall…makes a perfect gift!

The first Green Lantern, today known as the Golden Age Green Lantern (who was actually more red than green), made his debut in the summer of 1940 in the pages of All-American Comics. By the fall of 1941 he had been awarded his own quarterly title. As conceived by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell, Green Lantern was the alter ego of engineer Alan Scott (originally called Alan Ladd, a pun on “Aladdin,” but changed to avoid the confusion with the actor of the same name), whose possession of a magic power ring and its accompanying lantern gave him virtual omnipotence. Sadly, it didn’t give him much dress sense, as he proceeded to fashion a somewhat garish costume. The moody cover for Green Lantern #1 came from artist Howard Purcell- best known as one of the contributors to the questionably named Golden Age DC hero the Gay Ghost. It effectively captures the quasi-supernatural element then predominant in the character. “If I must fight evil beings, I must make myself a dreaded figure! I must have a costume that is so bizarre that once I am seen I will never be forgotten!”- Golden Age Green Lantern. The first Green Lantern (Alan Scott) was created by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell in All-American Comics #16 (July 1940). The ring of the Golden Age Green Lantern (Alan Scott) is magically powered. Martin Nodell (using the name Mart Dellon) originated the Green Lantern. 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 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 objects made of 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 had missed a great opportunity. As a popular character in the 1940s, the Green Lantern featured both in All-American Comics and in his own title, as well as 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. Howard Purcell (November 10, 1918 – April 24, 1981) was an American comic-book artist and writer active from the 1940s Golden Age of comics through the 1960s Silver Age. A longtime penciler and cover artist for DC Comics, one of the field’s two largest firms, he co-created the Golden Age characters Sargon the Sorcerer and the Gay Ghost (renamed in the 1970s the Grim Ghost) for All-American Publications, one of the companies, with National Comics and Detective Comics, that merged to form DC. Purcell also drew the famous cover of Green Lantern #1 (Fall 1941).