Green Lantern Poster # 2 GL Issue #1 Alan Scott (1941) Howard Purcell DC Comics

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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).

A 10 one-hour episodic Green Lantern television series separate from a reboot film is currently in development for HBO Max from Marc Guggenheim and Seth Grahame-Smith with Berlanti Productions producing the series. The series will focus on the Guy Gardner, Jessica Cruz, Simon Baz, and Alan Scott versions of Green Lantern alongside Sinestro and Kilowog.

Green Lantern HBO Max Series Reportedly Darker Than First Expected

HBO Max’s live-action Green Lantern series may still be some time away from its debut – series writer and showrunner Seth Grahame-Smith recently offered an update noting that the series is a “big undertaking” and that it will take “a while” to become a reality – but a new report suggests that when the much-anticipated series does debut, it may just have a darker tone than initially expected. According to The Illuminerdi, the Green Lantern series will be more akin to the Watchmen event series in terms of tone, something that may not only shift what fans expect from the series but how each of the characters is portrayed.

While the report doesn’t have much in the way of details when it comes to this possibly darker tone outside of comparisons to Watchmen, the idea that a Green Lantern series could have a similar tone isn’t difficult to imagine. Even on the pages of comics, many of the characters in Green Lantern have complex personal lives, and they each deal with issues of bigotry, homophobia, and more depending upon those personal lives. And given what we’ve learned about the characters for the series, the live-action versions of those characters will have those things to deal with as well.

Previously shared character descriptions have revealed that each character has something that they are dealing with. Guy Gardner, who will be portrayed by American Horror Story star Finn Wittrock, is described as having “a deep undercurrent of pain” driving his outward alpha male nature. Alan Scott, played by Jeremy Irvine, is the image of heroic perfection, but hiding his homosexuality and even the newest Lantern Bree Jarta has complex struggles as a half-human, half-alien black woman who not only has to deal with her human side but racism and sexism on Earth – as well as her alpha male partner, Guy. Other characters expected in the series, such as Jessica Cruz, and Simon Baz, also have issues of trauma and anxiety, as well as racism to deal with. When you put all of those things together, a darker and more serious tone similar to Watchmen makes sense.

A darker tone would also fit in with what Wittrock recently told Entertainment Weekly about the series being “not your average superhero story”.

“It is really cool how sprawling a storyline it is,” Wittrock explained. “It’s pretty epic. It spans time and space and has something for everyone. It’s not your average superhero story… He takes on a lot of this show. He’s a pretty big part of it. I think it’s an interesting way in [to the story]. It’s not the conventional way in, but I think people might see a side of him they didn’t know was there.”

A debut date for Green Lantern has not yet been set, but the series is expected to debut on HBO Max.