Power Rings, Retcons, and Rebirths

Some characters and titles have gone through retellings of their histories or manipulations of certain elements of their past in order put a fresh spin on an old concept (Superman) or to set the record straight when their backgrounds have become so convoluted that major reconstructive surgery has been necessary to make sense of it all (Power Girl, Donna Troy). But no franchise is as rooted in retcons like Green Lantern. Some make sense and fit in perfectly with the past, others make no sense at all and seem to ignore continuity altogether, but all have been integral in enriching the world that the characters inhabit, opening doors for a multitude of stories in the process. When the character first appeared in 1940, Alan Scott was the keeper of the green flame and the only hero bearing the name and power ring. Today, Alan is still Green Lantern, but there are thousands of others, and their power comes from an ancient race of immortals called the Guardians of the Universe on the planet Oa and they police the entire universe.

The crazy part? Alan Scott was never considered to be one of them. Alan’s power is said to come from a different source, the Starheart, which is completely separate from the green energy of Oa. So is it just a coincidence that the first Green Lantern of Earth chose the same name that was already being used by heroes of other worlds with the same powers who had nothing to do with him? Apparently yes.

Cut to the mid-1990s. Hal Jordan, the silver age Green Lantern and the first human to be a part of the Guardians’ intergalactic police force returned to Earth from outer space to find that his home, Coast City, had been obliterated by the Cyborg Superman and Mongul. After helping Superman defeat his foes, Jordan attempted to use his power ring to recreate his home town. The Guardians reprimanded Jordan for using the green energy for personal use, causing a grief-stricken GL to fly to Oa to claim their power for himself so he could do what he felt was right.

After killing a slew of fellow Lanterns and leaving others for dead in space, Hal arrived on Oa, where he was met by Sinestro, sent by the Guardians as a last resort to stop Hal. Hal killed Sinestro, entered the Central Power Battery – the main source of the Lanterns’ power – and destroyed it, gaining its power in the process.

With this newfound and near-infinite power Hal Jordan, now assuming the name Parallax, attempted to reshape time to avert catastrophes such as the destruction of Coast City. Despite fighting with the heroes of the DCU, Hal was not your typical villain. All he wanted to do was set things right by “fixing” the past; a misguided endeavor with benevolent intentions. Hal/Parallax later redeemed himself by giving his life and power to reignite the sun during the Final Night story.

Parallax was later retconned to be a cosmic parasite that possessed Hal Jordan when he entered the battery and influenced his decisions through fear, making him unstable and causing him to do all of the above. Parallax was also revealed to be the embodiment of the yellow impurity, explaining why the all-powerful rings were ineffective against the color yellow. The Guardians imprisoned Parallax in the Central Power Battery for millennia, and this presence affected the energy within.

What was once an odd, nonsensical weakness became a logical part of a grander story. Today, Parallax is one of seven entities that represent the different colored energies across what is known as the emotional spectrum (green = will, yellow = fear, etc.), but originally it was just a name that Hal Jordan gave himself.

Two other retcons that have serious implications in today’s Green Lantern landscape have to do with Hal Jordan’s one-time successor as GL of Earth, Kyle Rayner. Kyle became Green Lantern after Hal destroyed the Central Power Battery and killed all of the Guardians except for the one known as Ganthet during his transformation into Parallax.

With the source of the Lanterns’ power gone as well as the race who created them, the intergalactic police force was no more. Ganthet created a single ring and traveled to Earth to give it to Kyle, who became the only Green Lantern in the universe, with no council of Guardians (only Ganthet) to advise or order him.

After battling the mega-powerful Oblivion, a villain who was actually created by Rayner’s subconscious, Kyle absorbed the green energy that created his foe, in addition to the residual energies in the sun left by Hal Jordan when he reignited it. This gave Kyle a tremendous amount of power that allowed him to be in multiple places at the same time, and prevent natural disasters with a mere thought.

Since he was more than just a Green Lantern, Kyle gave himself a new name and thus Ion was born. Kyle later decided that he possessed too much power and expended his internal green energy by recreating the Guardians of the Universe. These new Guardians were toddlers under the care and leadership of Ganthet.

At the end of Infinite Crisis, Kyle absorbed the green energy of Jade, daughter of Alan Scott. Like her father, Jade’s powers did not come from Oa, but from the Starheart. Having both the power of the Starheart and a Green Lantern ring, Kyle once again adopted the Ion moniker.

Suddenly though, it was revealed that Kyle got this power because the Guardians chose him to be the keeper of the Ion power. It was soon made known that Ion was actually the green entity, just as Parallax was the yellow entity.

Ion was later removed from Kyle (it is unclear as to when the entity began inhabiting his body) and placed in Sodam Yat, a Green Lantern from the planet Daxam. So it’s just a coincidence that the embodiment of the green energy that fuels the Green Lantern Corps bears the same name that Kyle Rayner gave himself years before when he was not the keeper of any entity? Apparently, yes. Furthermore, today’s Guardians now appear to be the same age as Ganthet, and act as if they have been around since the beginning of time, when nearly all of them were created by Kyle Rayner quite recently.

Given all of the above – and there are certainly other significant GL retcons that have not been discussed here (see GL Secret Origins, which ties Hal Jordan’s start as Green Lantern to the multiple corps and Blackest Night) – we are left with one question:

does the quality of retcons matter when their result is a richer universe with more story possibilities? 

The shift in the Ion story came out of nowhere and didn’t jive at all with past stories, while the Parallax retcon was storytelling genius that not only set the stage for future events and tied to past events. It brought Hal Jordan back into the GL fold in a way that truly exonerated the character for his misdeeds and also answered age-old questions that were no longer even thought about, such as why there was a weakness to yellow in the first place, and why Hal Jordan’s temples suddenly went gray when his contemporaries didn’t seem to age at all. (Parallax was influencing him through the ring and the resulting fear caused the hair color change)

In the end, the stories that brought the new information to light advanced the characters and plots to epic tales such as the Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night, and the Green Lantern franchise has never been more popular. So while fans love to nitpick about details and inconsistencies between different stories, if the current product is enjoyable as a result of these changes, should anyone care?