podcast cohost Lauren 12/7/2023

We continue our tradition of researching how different animations portray the December holiday season with Green Lantern: The Animated Series #8. This comic series ran in conjunction with a one season animated cartoon airing in 2012 that arguably owes its short lifespan to the poorly received Green Lantern (2011) movie starring Ryan Reynolds. While this appears to me to be decent Y7 children’s media vs the PG13 movie, and thus a different audience to appeal to, I guess it is the parents who buy the toys/fund the show.

West Coast test pilot and Green Lantern Corps member Hal Jordan is aboard the listless Interceptor as its crew attempts to access a subspace link through a singularity hoping to kickstart their vessel. Jordan recalls seeing a pre-industrial planet he wishes to visit in downtime and leaves not before senior Green Lantern member Kilowog upbraids him for his failure to recharge the ring which supplies his superpowers from the onboard lantern–the charge only lasts a standard Earth day. On the planet, Jordan witnesses a blue alien girl of the Hammer tribe fleeing from the Lizardriders and carrying a scroll detailing the Lizardriders’ plans to punish captive Hammer tribe members. Despite Kilowog calling Jordan to alert him that their signal to the main lantern would be off for eight days and he would be unable to recharge the ring, Jordan decides he will switch to low power mode and assist the Hammer tribe in retaking their city from the Lizardriders. Just as the Hammer tribe proves victorious and Jordan’s life support times out on the eighth day, Kilowog arrives to take him back to the ship and remark that it “reminds [him] of that Earth story with the light that burned eight days insteada just one.”

I’m not certain of the intention behind the parallel of Hal Jordan’s adventure in Green Lantern: The Animated Series #8 and the Chanukah (spelling chosen in the comic) story. Hal Jordan is the child of a Jewish mother and Catholic father, but I cannot find many examples of his faith or heritage explored in comics, so it may not even be widely known to fans. In fact, in this issue, Kilowog is the one making latkes back on the ship without Jordan and whose quote at the end prompts Jordan to reply, “Oh, you mean Chanukah,” whilst Jordan’s relationship to the holiday is never stated. Perhaps readers are being counted on to pick up on the visual cue that Jordan uses a dreidel projected by the ring to spin away one of the young alien girl’s pursuers, and to acknowledge the lantern is a fitting stand-in for the menorah being a source of light. Instead of a Chanukah introduction for the unaware Green Lantern fan, this story could have been meant for Jewish fans specifically, since the names of the Hammer tribe aliens reference the Maccabean Jews who revolted against the Seleucid Empire. Still, Kilowog’s observations paint Chanukah as an Earth custom instead of a holiday belonging to a particular ethnic and cultural group of whom Hal Jordan is a member.

Q: Previously, I was under the impression that the green lantern picked a champion for bravery or courage until you corrected me that it uses willpower. You also explained that the lanterns were using the rainbow for emotion powers. How is that supposed to go, and did it play into this comic?

A: Yeah the ring picks a champion but yeah not for bravery lol. I never really understood how Willpower is an emotion to be honest but looking into the history it… Kind of makes sense. Apparently it’s also Will and it’s like tied to the creation of the universe “I watch the first sentient creature in the universe to ever will itself to move…do just that. And it is the origin of willpower itself.” –The Entity-possessed Sinestro speaking of Ion’s creation/transformation, and that will was white light that spilt into the colors but was still tied to green… Cause reasons i guess? It’s still odd cause bravery to me works better as a mirror to fear and they play up them as opposites a lot, but I guess to drive to push on no matter what is also a counter to fear. I just feel it’s just less clear.

The 7 lantern colors are the 7 colors of visible light tied to emotions ( apparently there is also like Ultraviolet light thats like more primal emotions? No idea) and they are just like a part of the universe. One of the Seven Forces in the DC universe the Emotional Electro- magnetic spectrum has its origins in the first living beings. How each color was picked for each emotion I’m not sure but it seems like Ion’s original white light just spilt that way.

In this comic he doesn’t have his powers for most of it, so I guess you can’t Willpower a battery recharge lol. But I guess it’s meant to show how he has those traits himself, not because of the ring. But that is why the ring picked him to begin with. Overall this story is more about being a metaphor then going too deep into how the light spectrum works lol.