Warning: contains a preview of Green Lantern #1!
In a preview for DC Comics' new Green Lantern series, the Green Lantern Corps' time may be over, and for good reason. The new series will be kicking off with a significant status quo shift in the DC Universe, as many major alien races are seeking to broker peace by forming the United Planets. Instigated by Superman's son Jon Kent, the United Planets is the galactic equivalent of Earth's United Nations, seeing entire worlds coming together to support one another and generate a lasting peace - a process which the recent Future State event suggested would be a huge success, surviving into the distant future. As such, there may not be a need for the Green Lanterns in this new era.
Green Lantern #1 comes from writer Geoffrey Thorne along with artists Dexter Soy, Marco Santucci and Alex Sinclair, forming an all-new creative team for this new and uncertain era for the Green Lantern Corps. While Future State saw the Central Power Battery on Oa dead, leaving the Green Lanterns powerless, that future is not set in stone. However, the end of the Lanterns could still come to the DC Universe all the same, though it would simply come from a desire for peace to prevail with this new United Planets coalition.
However, it looks as though the road to galactic peace without the Lanterns is going to be a long one, as a DC Comics preview of Green Lanterns #1 reveals Oa in chaos, its hosting of the United Planets summit meeting having quickly gone wrong. Furthermore, Corps Leader John Stewart is being blamed by the Thanagarian captain of the powerful United Planets Brigade for the ensuing violence. But even before the battle, Captain Ameyra Khalan suggests that the new galactic status quo means the Green Lanterns may no longer be needed. Enjoy the preview pages and synopsis for the upcoming issue from DC Comics:
As this new Green Lantern series begins, the newly formed United Planets and the Guardians of the Universe hold an intergalactic summit to decide who can best serve and protect the cosmos from danger. With the majority of Green Lanterns called back to Oa, John Stewart arrives alongside Teen Lantern Keli Quintela, whose powerful gauntlet could be one of the most powerful and unstable weapons in the universe. With the entire landscape of the universe in flux, is this the end of the Green Lantern Corps...or a new beginning?
Not only is John worried about so many rivals and former enemies all together in one place (and perhaps rightly so, as evidenced by the subsequent chaos), but he also has to contend with watching over Keli Quintela, the new Teen Lantern and the immensely powerful gauntlet she's more than happy to use. But while the cover shows Keli laying into one of the Guardians, fans of Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp's The Green Lantern: Season 2 know that the Corps' leaders have big plans for Teen Lantern, seeing her as a crucial figure in revamping the group for a new age.
It's unclear whether the chaos on Oa will further convince skeptics that the Corps aren't fit for the new status quo or if it will give them a chance to prove their worth, but change is definitely coming. Where before the Green Lanterns kept the peace in a warring galaxy, they'll now have to function alongside a legitimate power base that may not approve of their prior tactics or mandate. What that will look like is uncertain, but Green Lantern #1 will begin to reveal the answer where it hits retailers April 6.