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A selection of members of the Green Lantern Corps on duty, as depicted in Justice League Unlimited
The Green Lantern Corps is a fictional, intergalactic police force of Green Lanterns that existed in the pages of DC Comics, chosen to patrol the vast reaches of the Universe, fighting evil whever it could be found. It was founded by the Guardians of the Universe in the early stages of their existence, and it has lasted for over three billion years despite suffering rebellions, murder and collapses from within and without.

Publishing history
Many believe the Green Lantern Corps was modeled after the Lensman science fiction series of E.E. Doc Smith. There were many parallels between the two: both were intergalactic law enforcement agents chosen for their high moral character and willingness to do good, and empowered with an awesome weapon of alien design that also had safeguards against abuse and evil trickery. However, John Broome, who wrote the Silver Age Green Lantern stories, and Julius Schwartz, who edited those stores, have both denied any connection. Broome and Schwartz claimed to never have read the Smith stories, although Schwartz admitted that as an SF fan, he had of course heard of them.
Comic book writers were attracted to the concept of an intergalactic corps made up of Green Lanterns from various alien races. An occasional backup series in the Green Lantern comic book series, Tales of the Green Lantern Corps, featured guest writers who often penned short stories about the idiosyncrasies of individual alien Green Lanterns, who might never be heard of again.

Fictional history

Origins

The Guardians of the Universe
In the early days of the Universe, natives of the overpopulated planet Maltus (sometimes spelled Malthus) evolved into immortals of great power. They subsequently settled the planet Oa and declared themselves the Guardians of the Universe and enemies of evil after one of their own, the renegade scientist Krona, performed a forbidden experiment that had terrible consequences for the Universe at large.
Exactly what those consequences were have varied with different versions of the stories; originally, it was supposed to have unleashed Evil in the first place. Later, it was attributed to have created the Antimatter Universe of Qward. Later still, it was used as the explanation for the existence of parallel universes in the DC Universe (and the creation of the Monitor), which eventually led to the rearrangement of Time itself, as seen in the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Finally, it has been stated that it accelerated entropy, shortening the duration of the universe by a billion years.
Some of the Guardians, however, disagreed on how to deal with the chaos that had been unleashed. One group, calling itself the Controllers, separated itself from the others and favored using more violent methods to achieve their ends (a later interpretation says they left over a disagreement on how to use the Manhunters - see below). They would later found the Darkstars organization. The female Oans, feeling no need to involve themselves in the situation, also left, becoming later known as the Zamarons.
To enforce their will and guard against alien menaces of all sorts, the Guardians had created a legion of robotic sentinels called the Manhunters. However, the Manhunters eventually came to resent their servitude. They rebelled against the Guardians, eventually breaking away and forming their own robotic society where they pursued their own agenda (which often included interfering with, and foiling the plans of, the Guardians).
Chastened by the failure of the Manhunters, the Guardians decided that their newest force of soldiers for good would consist of living beings, ones who had free will and strong moral character. To arm this new legion of celestial knights, the Guardians created the Power Rings, rings of inconceivably-advanced technology that allowed their wearers to project green beams of energy that had the power to do literally anything, provided the one wielding the ring had the force of will to achieve his goals.
When recharging thier weapons, Corps members recite an oath. This oath can differ from Corps member to member but the most popular seems to be:
In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight! Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power.. Green Lantern's light!
a notably different version, created by a blind power ring holder, was:
In loudest din or hush profound, my ears catch evil's slightest sound. Let those who toll out evil's knell, beware my power: The F-Sharp Bell!
The Power Rings were invincible against anything except objects of the color yellow. The Guardians often stated that the Rings' weakness against yellow objects was due to a necessary yellow impurity that allowed them to process the green energy, though scholars (and comic book fans) often speculated that the impurity was actually designed as a mental safeguard, to prevent any member of the Green Lantern Corps from thinking himself or herself (or itself) invincible and above the rule of law. This thinking has been proven incorrect. The Battery, in addition to being a source of power, was a prison as well. The prisoner, within the Battery, was a fear elemental (Parallax) that weakened the Battery's control over the yellow coloured portion of the plasma-light spectrum. This was one of the reasons that members of the Corps were expected to be fearless. It was an attempt to prevent the fear elemental from engineering an escape.

Green Lantern latest reviews

Comic Reviews: War of the Green Lanterns hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)
19 Jan 2012 at 3:02pm
Green Lantern is one of those series, as most readers will know, that's continuing virtually unchanged into the DC comicbooks New 52 relaunch. War of the Green Lanterns, though a crossover, needed not necessarily to be an ending; however, writer Geoff Johns accomplishes both, setting up the next arc while bringing to close, at least in part, his uninterrupted sixty-seven issue run on Green Lantern. As a crossover, War of the Green Lanterns has interesting elements but as a whole feels somewhat tired; hopefully it portends better things to come.

[Contains spoilers]

What is meant to differentiate War of the Green Lanterns from previous Green Lantern crossovers like Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night, I'm guessing, is that its focus is the four Earthman Green Lanterns. Though Hal Jordan, Guy Garnder, John Stewart, and Kyle Rayner are often in lead roles, in this story they have to battle an entire mind-controlled Corps often without their green rings. This would be a cause for much celebration at the end of the story, cementing the place of these four as the greatest of the Green Lanterns, if not for the pyrrhic nature of their victory -- where both Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night ended in triumph, War of the Green Lanterns ends in victory for the Corps but defeat for our heroes.

I have written before that I'd like to see Johns bring some change to the Corps-leading Guardians of the Universe. It is basically the structure of every Green Lantern story that the Lanterns are sent on a mission by the Guardians for which the Guardians withhold some key piece of information or criticize the Lanterns in the end for some "out of the box" action. Johns has demonstrated any number of betrayals committed by the Guardians that ought have made Hal and the Corps rebel, but after every adventure the Corps returns to status quo.

War is no exception, with the Guardians in command again and Hal censured (stripped of his ring, this time). Perhaps its necessary that Johns bring things back to basics before the start of the New 52 Green Lantern, though I very much wish we might at some point see a story where a democratized Corps must lead itself sans Guardians, because the old patterns are getting repetitive.

Indeed, there's a lot in this crossover between Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, and Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors that did feel repetitive. Johns and fellow writers Peter Tomasi and Tony Bedard divide the crossover so that Johns writes Hal and Tomasi writes Guy while Bedard takes John and Kyle; this leads to at least three issues where the various characters all come to the same conclusions about the mind-controlled Corps, and when John and Kyle split off from Hal and Guy, one knows they'll have to wait until Bedard's turn comes around again two issues hence before the characters will appear again.

I wish DC would structure these crossovers so every writer takes a piece rather than splitting things up so severely; maybe every writer has a character with which they're most comfortable, but it creates a ready experience that seems very predictable and artificial.

Johns and company also use as cliffhanger fodder, once again, the appearance of the sentient planet-Lantern Mogo. Mogo's arrival was a big moment in Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night too, to the point where it lacks the same excitement in War; John Stewart's destruction of Mogo seems too cruel for John's character, famously already living down the destruction of one planet, but I admit to some pleasure in seeing Mogo taken off the table so he can't be a "dramatic" plot point yet a fourth time.

The worst sin, in my opinion, is that War of the Green Lanterns fails to challenge the reader in the way both Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night did. In Sinestro, aside from the story's unprecedented scope, Johns introduced the idea of the Lanterns using lethal force, and the reader had to decide how they felt about it. Blackest Night was a gigantically emotional (and often terrifying story) with the surprise resurrections at the end. Maybe War's big moment is supposed to be the destruction of Mogo, or Hal losing his ring, but neither of those really shocked me; the most that War raised my blood pressure, really, was when Hal and Guy boarded the spaceship not-coincidentally named "Aya" -- pity the thing crashed to pieces just a few pages later.

War does not diminish my estimation for Johns's Green Lantern work as a whole; indeed I chose his expansive, complicated Green Lantern: Brightest Day as one of my best picks for 2011, and I'm eager to see what he does with Sinestro in the new series. War has some fun moments, including a Hal Jordan/Guy Gardner fistfight that reminds me of the Justice League International days, and especially the flashbacks to the early days of the Guardians by Ed Benes are all quite entertaining. At the same time, the writers' characterization of John Stewart, especially, seemed off to me, and the other chapters didn't have the same pizazz that the ones by Johns and artist Doug Mahnke did.

In closing Green Lantern, Johns provides a partial answer to why Hal Jordan, who seemingly respects no authority, should be a member of the Green Lantern Corps. "I fight for what's right," Hal struggles to say as the mad Guardian Krona chokes him. "I fight for the ideals the Corps embodies." It's ironic that the Guardians should take Hal's ring given that Hal is perhaps their more loyal Corpsman -- fighting for the Corps not because of the Guardians, but despite them. It made me wonder: if Hal were not a Green Lantern, would he find himself a Legion flight ring and still be a superhero? Heroics seem to be in Hal's blood, and though I know Johns has other plans for the new Green Lantern series, I'd have been interested to see this explored.

War of the Green Lanterns is not the best conclusion for what's been a ground-breaking Green Lantern series ("This isn't how it's supposed to end," for sure); for a series credited with returning Hal Jordan to greatness, this final crossover felt mostly like paint-by-numbers. Green Lantern: Brightest Day was great, though, and I have no doubt Green Lantern can be great again; this stumble just makes me more eager for the relaunch volume to come.

[Includes original and variant covers. Printed on glossy paper]

Next week, we'll take a look at some Superman books. Also there's a DC TPB Timeline update lurking around here somewhere ...
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