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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: Green Lantern: Agent Orange hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)
1 Feb 2010 at 3:02pm
Possibly the Green Lantern series has set its own bar a little too high, because after volume upon volume of what's been a consistently high quality series, Green Lantern: Agent Orange just failed to impress. As Geoff Johns continues the build-up to the Blackest Night crossover, part of me says "Enough already!" -- Agent Orange might just be one last prelude too many before the main event.

Compared with the great last Green Lantern volume, Rage of the Red Lanterns, it's easy to see why Agent Orange didn't measure up. Both stories introduce new hues of Lantern into the mythos, but whereas Rage contrasts the Red Lanterns with the Lost Lantern Laira's grief over her fallen comrade and Hal Jordan's mixed feelings about Sinestro's upcoming execution, Agent Orange follows a mostly straightforward hunt for the Orange Lantern. There's some interesting conversation regarding the differences between greed, represented by the Orange Lantern, and hope, represented by the Blue, but nowhere near the crackle that Rage contained.

At this point, the characters in Green Lantern are so set in their ways (in advance, perhaps, of larger character changes in Blackest Night) as to no longer be suspenseful or surprising. The constant bickering between the Green Lanterns and their ruling Guardians grows old; one wonders why the Lanterns, heroes in their own right, tolerate the Guardians' constant recalcitrance.

And writer Geoff Johns seems to delight in doling out the Guardians' secrets one by one, playing a constant game of "I know something you don't know." The entirely unsurprising origin of Agent Orange Larfleeze is such a letdown that it spoils my eagerness for the next hidden tidbit. The Guardians' new rule that the Vega system is no longer offlimits to Lanterns fell flat for me, since even I -- well versed in DC comicbooks lore -- didn't know there was something about Vega in the first place; far better were the Guardians' previous rules about love and capital punishment that dealt with the Lantern's emotions, rather than minutia.

I enjoyed artist Philip Tan well enough on Final Crisis: Revelations, with his dark, sketchy art that brought out the moodiness of that story. Agent Orange has similarly suspenseful, secretive moments, though Johns seems through Lantern Hal Jordan to want us to envision Larfleeze like a Muppet; I wondered what the whole story would've looked like with more energetic art suited to animated characters. Tan offers beautiful scenes, but then also ones where the Lanterns, especially John Stewart, appear wooden. Strangely, Tan also paints just one panel per page, and not often the most pertinent or emotional panel; that the painted panel had no story relevance beyond appearing once per page seemed to me gimmicky and distracting, rather than adding to the story.

I did appreciate Agent Orange's unique Lantern power to kill, and then replicate his victims, creating a virtual Orange Corps and calling it -- Johns being punny -- "identity theft." While this seems to mildly duplicate what I understand of the Black Lantern power yet to be revealed (animating the actual dead corpse trumps stealing the corpse's identity any day), it's better by far than the Red Lantern power which is, no joke, to vomit fiery blood. In the measly four issues collected here, the Agent Orange power doesn't get much change to shine, but I'm curious what Johns does with it down the road.

Bottom line, I'm just ready to get on with it. It's January now -- the Blackest Night trades don't hit until July, kids. That's a long, long, almost interminable time to wait. Green Lantern is good, really good, I know it, but Agent Orange didn't do it for me -- that makes the wait for the better things to come all that much harder.

[Contains Philip Tan sketchbook, various Lantern corp profile pages from Blackest Night #0.]

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