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Green Lantern Corps #1 has arrived from DC Comics, written by Jeremy Adams and Morgan Hampton, with art by Oclair Albert and Fernando Pasarin. And there are some big surprises in the pages, not least of which — and spoilers past this point — that big last page featuring Hawkwoman showing up to confront John Stewart. And if you were confused about the continuity here, just know that this isn’t a plot point from DC Comics… It’s from the animated series Justice League Unlimited.
“We’re huge fans, obviously,” Adams told Comic Book Club on the surprise appearance. “Something about the chemistry of those two characters, that’s important. Morgan is a big fan, too. We’re like, this is great because we can pull at that and let somebody else do the homework for us, aka JLU.”
That’s far from the only things going down in the issue. Sinestro makes a big return, not as a villain, but as a member of the Green Lantern Corps. And the Corps itself is no longer sending rings willy-nilly into the universe, hoping they’ll find the right person. Instead, they’re actively recruiting for the Corps.
To find out more about all of this, as well as whether there are plans to tie into the Lanterns HBO series, read on.
Comic Book Club: Let’s start with the last page reveal. I fully admit I’ve read a lot of comics, but… Is that Hawkwoman?
Morgan Hampton: Yeah, we had a lot of back and forth on that for ourselves too. Is it Hawkgirl? Hawkwoman? Which one is it?
Jeremy Adams: When you’re dealing with DC continuity it’s the question… Yeah, it is Hawkwoman, Thangarian. And if you’ve seen what happened in the Green Lantern book, Thanagar is no more, and there’s very few Thanagarians left. So this is a great way to pull some of those threads of the DC universe, cosmic DC universe, into a cosmic book.
Maybe I’m way off base here, but this certainly reminded me of the John Stewart/Hawkwoman relationship from the Justice League Unlimited.
Hampton: You’re not off. You’re not off at all.
Adams: We’re huge fans, obviously. And the animated world informs the [comic books], especially with the JLU. I remember at the time the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern movie was coming out, people being very upset. They’re like, how dare they whitewash Green Lantern? And I was fascinated. I was like, oh my gosh, that’s the impact of John Stewart in the animated form. Those threads are important. Something about the chemistry of those two characters, that’s important. Morgan is a big fan, too. We’re like, this is great because we can pull at that and let somebody else do the homework for us, aka JLU.
Hampton: Yeah, they’ve never outright explored it in the comics. So we can just pull from the public conscious of what they understand those two characters to be. And how can we do that in our own way in this book?
One of the big things that happens in the issue as well, you’re exploring Sinestro, who is, I’m going to put in quotes, a “good guy” now. When you’re dealing with a character like that where, as a reader, you expect, well, it’s going to go bad at some point… How do you thread that line? How do you make sure that this is a character is working as part of the team when you have that weight of expectations on him?
Adams: [Sinestro] is such an interesting character to me in that he’s never, especially for the last, I don’t know how many decades… It’s not that he has been completely evil, as much as a monarch, or that there is an internal moral compass. He does bad things. In the Green Lantern book, he was acting out of the need to want to go home. He was mad about, “I’m stuck here on Earth, and there are people that count on me,” which is interesting.
He’s an interesting character. When you’re watching Game of Thrones and you’re like, “That guy’s the worst character ever,” and then two seasons later, you’re like, “I love him.” Will he turn bad? He’s just so much more complicated than that. He’s so much more complicated than the Super Friends version of Sinestro. We would be doing his character disservice if that was just, “oh well, he’s bad now.” At least for me, I don’t think that’s anything I’ll ever do for Sinestro. There’s much more interesting fertile ground for him to till.
One of the other things that we get in the issue is the idea that they’re now going to be actively recruiting people — that the rings aren’t responding people, the Corps is going to be going out and getting them. How does that change the dynamic for the Green Lantern Corps?
Adams: First of all, the rings sucked at doing it. I don’t think it’s as good a judge a character that… “Well, you have good willpower.” Is that all your criteria is, is terrible. Maybe there should be some training. And also, maybe, like, a 30 day waiting period until they have a better infrastructure. I think it’s best left to people to go, “Yeah, you’re okay.” Versus: this guy’s name is Sinestro. It’s in his name that he shouldn’t be there.
I think it’s a more logical, it’s more interesting. When Morgan and I were talking about it, it’s not the Green Lantern Corps necessarily as cops as much as it is Old West US Marshals. There’s a level of rolling into town and they’re like, “who’s the nicest guy in town? Well, you’re the sheriff.”
You’ve mentioned your Green Lantern title as well a couple of times, and I’m sure you want them to find their own footing, but they already seem like they have a bit of back and forth between the plot. So how much how closely tied together are they?
Adams: Very. Both Morgan and I are are shooting toward an event [when] the Sorrow/Starbreaker stuff is finished. They’re both going to be pretty connected [with a] mission statement. The difference is that in GL you’re going to get all Hal, all the time, with a little little taster of Kyle and his friends. The GLC is going to be rotating cast of Green Lanterns. But, yeah, the plots are very, inextricably linked.
I know how this works, but I’ll ask anyway. Obviously, it’s a while is off, but they’re starting to film a Green Lantern TV show, which you may be aware of. Is that something at all you have an eye to? Like, hey, maybe in a couple of months, we should do an arc where John Stewart and Hal Jordan are teaming up, or something like that?
Hampton: From a marketing standpoint, outside of just Jeremy’s Green Lantern book being very successful, I think probably DC is thinking of that, like, we should have more Green Lantern books on the shelves because of this show that’s coming out. But in terms of plot points trying to mirror [the show], I don’t think we’re doing any of that, that’s so far off anyway. I have no idea what’s going on on that show.
Adams: I bet we’ll get a variant cover.
Have Kyle Chandler draw the variant cover.
Adams: I was such a Friday Night Lights fan. It’s like, dude.
In terms of looking forward, we’ve gotten the tease that there are all these Fractal Lanterns out there. We’ve seen Sorrow. Are we going to see more emotions in the book going forward? And when are we going to get just, like, a Lantern Who Just Wants To Chill Out?
Adams: [Laughs] You know, you’re right. Yes, we will. Chill Out Guy, like the turtle from Finding Nemo. We will get more. That’s a piece of the puzzle going forward.
Green Lantern Corps #1 is now in stores.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
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“]] Green Lantern Corps writers Jeremy Adams and Morgan Hampton discuss full spoilers for the first issue, Sinestro, that JLU connection, more. Read More