? for Green Lantern fans

[lovefist911]

This might sound retarded from me but, I've never been a fan of GL enough to know the history so here it goes, Why does Earth have so many GLs?

I thought like, one is posted to a planet or sector, so why does earth have an old one, a black one, a young one, a jerk with a bowl cut, and one that killed a bunch of people and turned into a Spector and then became a hero again.

So...ugh, why?

[CYOTI]

This might sound retarded from me but, I've never been a fan of GL enough to know the history so here it goes, Why does Earth have so many GLs?
Because the readers are human

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Geoff Johns is planning to answer that question at the end of the Sinestro Corps War.

The real reason, of course, is that the generally white American male readers need a white American male protagonist to relate to.

[Alex L]

The Earth GL's:

- Alan Scott (the old one), whose powers are based off a separate source and so does not have any real connection to the Green Lantern Corps. Think of him like, say, Flash and Quicksilver. Though they have similar powers, they come from different sources.

- Hal Jordan, for a long time the official GL of this sector (the new Corps has two per sector, but at the time there was only one). The last one with the long past you described.

- Guy Gardner, the jerk with the bowl cut, was selected to be Hal's alternate -- he would assume the duties of Green Lantern if Jordan was rendered incapacitated. Not entirely sure how accurate this is, as it would bring up the question, "when Abin Sur crashed all those years ago, why did Hal Jordan receive the ring instead of it going to the alternate?" But that's really, really nitpicky so I'll leave it alone. :)

- John Stewart, the black one, was selected to be the new alternate when Guy was put into a coma.

- When the Corps was destroyed, the final working Ring in existence ended up in the hands of Kyle Rayner. (It would later be retconned that Ganthet, the last Guardian of Oa, first sought out Guy but he refused. This would explain why Ganthet ended up on Earth, of all possible worlds in the universe.)

So, in short:
- One doesn't count
- One was chosen by the ring
- Two are backups who somehow ended up being promoted
- One fell backwards into becoming GL

Hope that helps!

[Fatguy]

Yea, its because we do in fact live on Earth. Plus, didnt they say that Earth is the center of the Multiverse?

[comicstar100]

This might sound retarded from me but, I've never been a fan of GL enough to know the history so here it goes, Why does Earth have so many GLs?

I thought like, one is posted to a planet or sector, so why does earth have and old one, a black one, a young one, a jerk with a bowl cut, and one that killed a bunch of people and turned into a Spector and then became a hero again.

So...ugh, why? Well I guess there could be a number of explanations. Currently most all lantern veteran members are from earth so they are needed to train newer gls, the so called best lantern Hal lives on earth, Kyle the torchbearer, who brought the gaurdains back also lives on earth. As well as new earth being the center of the multiverse. Also Alan isn't part of the corps so automatically earth would have more than one GL for its sector.

[marshal99]

As mentioned

Pre-crisis , there's only 1 ring bearer on earth.

Earth 1 is Hal Jordan , earth 2 green lantern Alan Scott isn't a member of the corps nor is there guardians on his earth.

Guy gardner was his alternate , likewise John Stewart was also an alternate lantern. If Hal was knocked out unconscious during a JLA emergency alert , the ring will seek out the next alternate ring bearer.

Used to be only one ring , when Hal resigned as green lantern , John Stewart took over as GL , which is why he was the green lantern during COIE , at around that time , guy gardner was awakened from his coma and was given a ring by a rogue faction of the guardians , likewise Hal was also given a ring by one of the guardians when all hell was breaking loose in COIE to stop gardner , basically end of it , Hal defeated Guy , brought him to OA and was reinstated as a green lantern alongside John Stewart. Guy was imprisoned on OA and the guardians left with the zamarons to elsewhere. Then the corps disbanded and most of the remaining ones all reallocated to earth while the guardians are away. I could be wrong though.

[Shonuff]

The Earth GL's:

- Alan Scott (the old one), whose powers are based off a separate source and so does not have any real connection to the Green Lantern Corps. Think of him like, say, Flash and Quicksilver. Though they have similar powers, they come from different sources.

- Hal Jordan, for a long time the official GL of this sector (the new Corps has two per sector, but at the time there was only one). The last one with the long past you described.

- Guy Gardner, the jerk with the bowl cut, was selected to be Hal's alternate -- he would assume the duties of Green Lantern if Jordan was rendered incapacitated. Not entirely sure how accurate this is, as it would bring up the question, "when Abin Sur crashed all those years ago, why did Hal Jordan receive the ring instead of it going to the alternate?" But that's really, really nitpicky so I'll leave it alone. :)

- John Stewart, the black one, was selected to be the new alternate when Guy was put into a coma.

- When the Corps was destroyed, the final working Ring in existence ended up in the hands of Kyle Rayner. (It would later be retconned that Ganthet, the last Guardian of Oa, first sought out Guy but he refused. This would explain why Ganthet ended up on Earth, of all possible worlds in the universe.)

So, in short:
- One doesn't count
- One was chosen by the ring
- Two are backups who somehow ended up being promoted
- One fell backwards into becoming GL

Hope that helps!

Hal was closer, that's pretty much the reason given.

[Jack Zodiac]

The real reason, of course, is that the generally white American male readers need a white American male protagonist to relate to.

I don't know if that's exactly what he was asking. I'm sure what he meant was, if each sector is only supposed to have one Green Lantern, why does Earth's sector have four, and why are they all from Earth? Not that your answer is right, relatively speaking, because that's why Hal Jordan was the Silver Age Green Lantern and not a black man or alien. Generic, white males were the cookie cutter leads in all books before the Seventies.

As to why there are still so many human Green Lanterns:

Alan Scott still doesn't count. He's the original Golden Age Green Lantern who was retconned into Earth-1, and then New Earth. Guy Gardner is in the Green Lantern Honor Guard, so he has no space sector, and up until recently, Kyle was Ion, the "torchbearer" of the Corps. Officially, each space sector now has two Green Lanterns, and Sector 2814's are Hal Jordan and John Stewart.

[lovefist911]

Thanks alot guys, that cleared it all up for me.

[Alex L]

Hal was closer, that's pretty much the reason given.

I didn't mean Guy, I meant Abin Sur's alternate -- whoever it may have been.

Because both Guy and John have established that Lanterns do have designated backups in case of...something like a ship crashing and killing the primary Lantern. But apparently Abin didn't have one?

[Shonuff]

I didn't mean Guy, I meant Abin Sur's alternate -- whoever it may have been.

Because both Guy and John have established that Lanterns do have designated backups in case of...something like a ship crashing and killing the primary Lantern. But apparently Abin didn't have one?

I swear I've never thought of that before......That is odd...maybe the alternate thing wasn't started till after Abin passed, kinda like how now every sector gets two GL's.

[joint venture]

To my understanding the ring looks for the best option, if sector ???? has no one good enough, then it is only logical that someone in another sector can be selected to represent a new sector. Perhaps a "another" human from earth.

They never touch this subject, and the universe is big enough, but what I mean is there have to be more GL's born or belonging to the same sector or planet that work for the Guardians.

Dandy...

[davros42]

Geoff Johns is planning to answer that question at the end of the Sinestro Corps War.

The real reason, of course, is that the generally white American male readers need a white American male protagonist to relate to.

John Stewart is white!?!?!?!!?!?

[joint venture]

hahaha! xenophobia or mileaded intentions anyone, haha.

let's do black mojo lantern - white collar lantern and inmigrant lantern.

last one has to be som sort of metamorpho that constatly shifts to a different ethnic group in the USA.

greetings from costa rica! we don't have that here.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

John Stewart is white!?!?!?!!?!?

4 out of 5 are white American guys, yes, so the main GL are generally white American guys.

And, in his entire publishing history, John Stewart has only been written by white guys---with the notable exceptions of James "Priest" Owlsey and Dwayne McDuffie.

[HotRod_Tim]

Dang, I've been wondering the same thing, why does Earth have so many GL's, and I've definitely found the answer here. Thanks guys.