Since the Green Lantern debuted in 1940, hundreds of characters have used the moniker, ranging from human beings to countless alien variations. No matter who bore the name, however, every Green Lantern shared one key characteristic: an emerald power ring that channeled the user’s willpower into amazing glowing constructs.
Although the specifics change from time to time, most of those members served within the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic police force sanctioned by the wise and powerful Guardians of the Universe. Thanks to that concept, Green Lantern comics have survived multiple cancelations and a dull Hollywood movie to remain one of the most popular series in the DC Comics universe.
1. Green Lantern Corps #222 – 224 (1988)
Of all the great villains in the Green Lantern rogues gallery, none outdo Sinestro. A former Green Lantern who lost his position after using it to enslave an entire planet, Sinestro uses his yellow power ring to establish order in the universe.
Writer Steve Englehart and artist Joe Staton finish out their amazing run on Green Lantern with a storyline that begins with the execution of Sinestro. Sentenced to death by the Green Lantern Corps, Sinestro leaves this mortal coil with a bitter parting gift — a trap that destroys the central power battery and depowers almost every ring, destroying the Corps. The story closes out the ongoing Green Lantern comics series until the next volume begins three years later, forever changing the face of the DC Universe and cementing Sinestro as one of the best villains in the entire franchise.
2. Green Lantern #195-198 (1986)
Any DC Comics fan worth his salt knows about Crisis on Infinite Earths, the company-wide crossover that saw the reboot of the entire comics universe. Given the story’s multiversal stakes, it’s no surprise that the Green Lantern Corps would get involved. But the event came at a troubled time in the group’s existence.
The Guardians of the Universe, the wizened aliens who give the Corps their power, had split into contentious splinters, each with their own different Lantern chosen as their leader — the honorable rookie John Stewart or the more experienced but far more volatile Guy Gardner. Worse, the most experienced and capable Lantern, Hal Jordan, has abandoned his position, all while a cabal of villains seek to recruit him to fight off the coming cataclysm.
Green Lantern #195 – 198 — written by Steve Englehart, penciled by Joe Staton, inked by Bruce D. Patterson, colored by Anthony Tollin, and lettered by Lois Buhalis — does giant crossover comics right, working ongoing storylines from the book into the big story.
3. Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn (1989 – 1990)
As great as Green Lantern comics of the 1980s were, they did leave the franchise in a tough spot. A large roster sometimes watered down the character work, and the Englehart/Staton run ended with most of the Corps depowered and dissolved.
Created by writers Keith Giffen and Gerard Jones, with the first issue written by Jim Owsley aka Christopher Priest, the six-part miniseries Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn seeks to refocus and ground the franchise. Penciled by Mark D. Bright, inked by Romeo Tanghal, colored by Anthony Tollin, and lettered by Albert DeGuzman, Emerald Dawn retells the first days of Hal Jordan’s entrance into the Green Lantern Corps, in which he gets trained by future arch-enemy Sinestro and battles a threat called Legion.
The storyline gives Jordan some clay feet in the form of a drinking problem while still retaining the sense of adventure that makes him the most popular Green Lantern.
4. Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #3 (1987)
With a roster of thousands made up of beings from all across the cosmos, the Green Lantern Corps includes far more than just humanoids.
In Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #3, the legendary Alan Moore and artist Bill Willingham give readers one of the most unique members of the Corps, the Lantern Rot Lop Fan. Rot Lop Fan hails from the lightless sector of Obsidia Deeps, where color and images do not exist.
Because of his environment, Rot Lop Fan cannot use his ring like other Lanterns, and instead creates constructs of sound, allowing Moore to take the Green Lantern concept into new directions.
5. Sinestro Corps War (2007 – 2008)
As he had already done with the Justice Society and The Flash, Geoff Johns revitalized Green Lantern comics at a bit of a fallow period. Despite interesting story twists, such as turning Hal Jordan into a villain and replacing him with compelling new Lantern Kyle Rayner, the series’s popularity had waned.
Johns established his run first by returning to basics — restoring Jordan and finding new roles for the previous Lanterns, such as Rayner, John Stewart, and Guy Gardner — while bringing back old baddies. But Johns’s masterstroke came when he gave former Lantern and arch-enemy Sinestro a corps of his own, a mob of monsters bearing yellow rings designed to induce fear, who attacked the heroes during the Sinestro Corps War.
The storyline ran across all of the Green Lantern books at the time and set a new status quo, not just for the Lantern Corps but for the entire DC Universe.
6. Green Lantern: Mosaic (1992 – 1993)
First introduced as a rebellious young man granted a power ring in the absence of Hal Jordan, John Stewart had the most tumultuous career of any Lantern, as when a moment of arrogance led to the destruction of the planet Xanshi.
Stewart’s first solo series, Green Lantern: Mosiac, assigned him to the planet Maltus, which consists of cities from other worlds. As the various denizens try to figure out a way to live together, Stewart wrestles with questions about his identity and mission.
Working around the high concepts by writer Gerard Jones, artist Cully Hamner, and later Luke McDonnell, depicts the fantastic possibilities of the power ring, giving the deepest parts of Stewart’s imagination form as a series of green constructs, all presented in dynamic splash pages.
7. Far Sector (2020 – 2021)
When acclaimed sci-fi author N.K. Jemisin came on to write a book for DC’s Young Animal imprint she did not want the burden of previous continuity and rules. Thus, she, artist Jamal Campbell, and letterer Deron Bennett created a new spin on the Green Lantern mythos with Far Sector.
As its name suggests, Far Sector takes place on a planet in deep space, never before visited by a Lantern. What’s more, Jemisin and Campbell equip their character Jo Mullein with an experimental power ring, one that gives her different abilities. Throughout twelve issues, Far Sector serves as both a compelling Green Lantern story and a murder mystery that fleshes out the back story of one of DC’s most compelling new characters.
8. Green Lantern #142 – 150 (2001 – 2002)
Introduced as an attempt to reboot the Green Lantern franchise, Kyle Rayner not only replaced Hal Jordan — who turned heel and destroyed the rest of the Green Lantern Corps — but also received a major power upgrade, as he possessed the sole remaining ring.
The “Power of Ion” storyline explored the ramifications of that power boost, in which Rayner gains the ability to remake reality and takes the codename moniker. Written by Judd Winick, drawn by Dale Eaglesham, inked by Rodney Ramos, and colored by Moose Baumann and Chris Eliopoulos, the storyline tests Kyle’s principles and resolve as a hero with an unanswerable question: what good can one do when one can do anything?
9. Green Lantern #87 (1972)
Hal Jordan didn’t become a proper villain until the 1990s, but the acclaimed Green Lantern/Green Arrow, run by writer Dennis O’Neil and artist Neal Adams, didn’t do him any favors either.
Multiple times throughout the story, Jordan gets called out fosr reactionary politics and bigotry, as in Green Lantern #87, inked by D. Giordano and lettered by John Costanza. The story finds the Guardians concerned about Jordan sticking to the U.S. with Green Arrow and appointing a new Green Lantern for the sector in the form of John Stewart.
Jordan takes exception to the discontent of the young new recruit, but the Guardians dismiss his concerns as prejudice. And a good thing, as Stewart became the first major Black hero in the DC Universe (almost four decades after the universe began…) and also one of the most exciting characters in comics.
10. Alan Scott: The Green Lantern #1 (2023)
When Martin Nodell introduced Green Lantern in 1940, he gave his hero Alan Scott little in the way of personality. Over the following decades, other creators have fleshed him out, marrying him to former villain Harlequin (not the Joker’s girlfriend) and letting him father two children, the heroes Jade and Obsidian. However, the most interesting development came in 2021’s Infinite Frontier #0, in which Scott comes out to his children.
The new series Alan Scott: The Green Lantern — written by Tim Sheridan, drawn by Cian Tormey, colored by Matt Herms, and lettered by Lucas Gattoni — explores Scott’s first adventures through this lens. As a closeted man in the 1940s, Scott struggles to defend a nation that will not accept him while looking for a place of safety.
11. Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #1-3 (1981)
For most of the title’s history, Green Lantern comics focused on a single hero, in most cases the Silver Age Green Lantern Hal Jordan. However, that single character is almost always part of a larger group of intergalactic law enforcers called the Green Lantern Corps.
The best stories took advantage of the variety offered by these characters, especially the three-part mini-series Tales of the Green Lantern Corps, written by Len Wein and Mike Baron, with pencils by Joe Staton and inks by Frank McLaughlin. The story introduces some important new Lanterns, including the very problematic Arisia, while telling a galaxy-spanning tale that takes full advantage of the character’s intergalactic stakes.
12. Green Lantern #90 (1976)
Despite the buzz it garnered, teaming Green Lantern and Green Arrow didn’t result in high sales, and the comic ended with Green Lantern #89 in 1972.
Four years later, the book returned, still as a Green Lantern/Green Arrow team-up and still with Dennis O’Neil writing, but this time with more of an emphasis on sci-fi elements that better suit Green Lantern. With Mike Grell replacing Neal Adams as artist, Green Lantern #90 puts the twosome in the middle of a civil war on a distant planet.
The complexities of the war drive the two apart, allowing O’Neil to do political explorations that interest him while still telling a cracking sci-fi adventure.
13. Showcase Comics #22 (1959)
The Silver Age of comics began in 1954, when DC editor Julius Schwartz reimagined the Golden Age character the Flash as a more science-fiction-based hero in 1954’s Showcase Comics #4. That success drove him to do the same with the Green Lantern in Showcase Comics #22, written by John Broome, penciled by Gil Kane, inked by Joe Giella, and lettered by Gaspar Saladino.
Where Schwartz more or less kept the same concept for the Flash, he overhauls Green Lantern, ditching Alan Scott’s magic-based powers and replacing them with sci-fi powers for Hal Jordan. Drawing from the Lensmen series from author E.E. Smith, Schwartz made the Green Lanterns into a space-faring police force, a revision that continues drawing more fans every day.
14. Green Lantern #76 (1970)
Both Green Lantern and Green Arrow have always had their fans, but the two characters could not always carry their own books. So when DC Comics paired the two emerald heroes together in 1970, they hoped only that the two fan bases would result in massive sales.
However, the company got more than it bargained for when it chose Dennis O’Neil as writer and Neal Adams as artist. The two worked their left-wing politics into the book, using stories about viridian adventurers to address issues such as racism and rampant capitalism.
The first issue of the team-up Green Lantern #76 often used Hal Jordan as a wet blanket for Green Arrow to lecture, but Adams’s fluid character work — embellished by Frank Giacoia’s inks, Cory Adams’s colors, and John Costanza’s letters — never disappoint.
15. Green Lantern #40 (1965)
Like all of the other rebooted heroes from the Silver Age, Hal Jordan met his Golden Age counterpart, Alan Scott, as a hero in the alternate reality of Earth-2. But more than a mere team-up, Green Lantern #40 — written by John Broome, penciled by Gil Kane, inked by Sid Greene, and lettered by Gaspar Saladino — fleshes out the newer hero’s world by tracing the origins of the Guardians of the Universe.
The issue explains the motivations of the benevolent, if sometimes controlling, alien leaders and introduces one of the most important villains in the DC Universe, Krona. From Green Lantern #40 come the seeds of Crisis on Infinite Earths and other major DC events.
16. Green Lantern #188 (1985)
In his first few appearances, political activism defined John Stewart. When he joined the larger Green Lantern Corps and found a wife in fellow Lantern Katma Tui, Stewart developed into a more complex figure.
Green Lantern #188 doesn’t feature any large revelations or changes in the lore, but it further develops Stewart as a character. Writer Englehart and artist Staton — along with inker Paterson, colorist Anthony Tollin, and letterer Helen Vesik — establish Stewart as a hero of the people.
Even better, the backup story “Mogo Doesn’t Socialize” from writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons introduces one of the most unique characters in the Corps, the sentient planet Mogo, the largest Green Lantern who ever lived.
17. Green Lanterns #25 – 26 (2017)
Fans didn’t shout for joy when Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz were added to the Green Lantern mythos in the 2010s. Most felt the franchise needed fewer, not more, human Lanterns and fewer Lanterns working on Earth.
However, when the main Green Lantern book became Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps, sending all the other Lanterns into deep space, writer Sam Humphries, penciler Robson Rocha, inker Daniel Henriques, colorist Alex Sollazzo, and Dave Sharpe had room to flesh out the new recruits.
Green Lanterns #25-26 highlights the buddy energy between the sweet Cruz and inflexible Baz, putting the two against powerful space-traveler Volthoom.
18. The Green Lantern #1 (2019)
Writer Grant Morrison made their name writing over-the-top and high-concept stories with the X-Men and Superman, so it made sense that they would take on Green Lantern.
Debuting with The Green Lantern #1, Morrison and artist Liam Sharp — working with colorist Steve Oliff and letterer Tom Orzechowski — emphasize the police procedural parts of the Green Lantern story. Under Morrison’s tenure, Hal Jordan arrests God, goes undercover with a rival police force the Blackstars, and oversees the recreation of the universe. No one before or since has better explored the book’s space cop ideas.
19. Green Lantern #48-50 (1994)
On one hand, the “Emerald Twilight” storyline from Green Lantern #48 – 50 isn’t the best Green Lantern story ever written, as the decision for Hal Jordan to go mad and become the villainous Parallax comes from editorial more than character choices.
Furthermore, the climactic fistfight between Jordan and Sinestro makes no sense for either person. On the other hand, no one can deny that Parallax makes for an interesting turn for the well-established hero. Furthermore, the storyline takes out the Green Lantern Corps and makes way for Kyle Rayner as the last Lantern, one of the most compelling characters of the past thirty years.
20. All-American Comics #16 (1940)
Although most readers associate Green Lantern with space police, the first version drew inspiration from the myth of Aladdin. Artist Martin Nodell imagined Alan Scott’s ring as a modern-day version of Aladdin’s lamp, granting any wish he might conjure.
All-American Comics #16 introduces Alan Scott in a story drawn by Nodell and written by Batman co-creator Bill Finger. Together, the duo brings a level of menace to the proceedings, a darkness that includes a threat as much as it does power.
21. Green Lantern #13 (1962)
When it comes to creative Silver Age comics, most readers think of The Flash, Superman, or Fantastic Four. However, Green Lantern had its share of over-the-top craziness, as seen in 1962’s Green Lantern #13, written by John Broome, drawn by Gil Kane, inked by Joe Giella, and lettered by Gaspar Saladino.
In a story guest-starring the Flash, “The Duel of the Super-Heroes!” pits the two heroes against one another, forced into a mind-bending battle by the alien invaders, the Spectrans. While the clash allows Kane to draw some bizarre versions of the central character, it also cements the two as best friends, more than just Justice League colleagues.
22. Green Lantern #59 (1968)
These days, the Green Lantern Corps features many human members. But that wasn’t the case in the 1960s when Hal Jordan was the one Earthman in the Corps.
Although Broome and Kane, working with inker Sid Greene, do introduce the new Lantern Guy Gardner in Green Lantern #59, the issue tells an imaginary tale, in which Gardner gets the nod because he’s closer than Hal Jordan to the ring. The Gardner of this story is more of a straight-laced hero, as he doesn’t become the crass smart-alec that readers now know until the 80s, but it still sets the stage for a backup Lantern on Earth, something that would make for a rich storytelling vein in the future.
23. Justice League International #10 (1988)
Most ring-wielders joined the Corps because of their honesty and bravery, competent do-gooders who earned the respect of the entire cosmos. That’s not the case with G’Nort of G’Newt, the dog-like Lantern who first got his ring from false Guardians, who empowered buffoons to discredit the Green Lantern Corps.
G’Nort made his ignoble debut in Justice League International #10, during the beloved run by writers Kieth Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis and penciler Kevin MacGuire. As the Justice League searches for the home planet of the killer robots called Manhunters, they discover a stranded and lost G’Nort, who had been ordered to protect “the john” on the planet. G’Nort would go on to win the hearts of fans and get a proper ring. But his first appearance in Justice League International #10 — inked by Al Gordon, colored by Gene D’Angelo, and lettered by Bob Lappan — remains a delight.
24. Ganthet’s Tale (1992)
Artist and writer John Byrne helped revitalize the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and Superman. Writer Larry Niven has won numerous Hugo and Nebula awards for his novels, including his 1970 masterpiece Ringworld. So when the two of them came together for a Green Lantern story, fans knew something special would follow.
Niven and Byrne tell the origin of the Guardians via one of their oldest citizens, Ganthet, who seeks the help of Lantern Hal Jordan. Ganthet’s Tale does have its sillier aspects, such as the reveal that leprechauns of Earth descend from Guardians, but that just makes the story all the more special. And even if that doesn’t work for everyone, no one can deny the power of Byrne’s artwork, enhanced by the rich tones from colorist Matt Webb.
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