The Green Lantern Corps may be recruiting people with powerful wills, but are they picking them for the wrong reasons? One Green Lantern recruit may prove that the Power Rings handed out by the Corps could be put to much better use in the hands of others.
To keep order in a lawless world, the DCU's most ancient beings, the Guardians of the Universe, created an organization capable of reining in the most dangerous interstellar threats. After trial and error, the Guardians created the Green Lantern Corps and actively sought the most willful beings for their army. With the Green Lantern Power Rings as the Corps' primary weapons, the Lanterns have successfully fought back against some of the most vicious criminals in the galaxy. As long as a Power Ring's user has enough willpower and an active imagination, there's virtually no weapon they can't use to help them in their mission.
However, one incident shows that the Power Rings might be being wasted simply being used as a weapon of war. In Green Lantern Corps: Recharge #1 by Geoff Johns and Patrick Gleason, the renowned peacekeepers are coming back to full strength and actively recruiting new members across the universe. A Green Lantern Power Ring finds its way to Korugar and attempts to recruit the respected surgeon Soranik Natu in the middle of a delicate surgery. Knowing the history of the Green Lanterns and other Korugarans such as Sinestro and Katma Tui, Natu rejects the ring's offer. However, in the time it takes Soranik to turn down the ring, her patient suddenly turns critical. Natu takes the ring and demands it fashion medical equipment to help her stabilze her patient. Despite the close call, Natu successfully saves her patient's life.
It’s not out of the question that someone could easily use the Green Lantern ring to create advanced technology for medical purposes. After all, the only conditions to operate a ring are willpower and imagination. Beyond that, the limits are up to the individual ring bearers. With that in mind, it seems that rings are going to waste as weapons when they could be saving lives in a much more direct manner.
The Guardians have notoriously high standards when it comes to who they allow to possess a ring. Which is fair considering that in the wrong hands, it could be a devastating weapon. But Soranik Natu’s ingenious use of the ring shows the Guardians of the Universe might have it all wrong when it comes to recruitment. The DCU has a number of threats and Lanterns do keep that evil at bay. But there are plenty of ailments and diseases that could be treated easily with a Power Ring. However, because the focus of the Corps is on protection and not treatment, medical professionals likely aren't at the top of the list. Soranik Natu makes a strong argument that the Green Lantern Corps could be serving the DCU better by bringing more doctors into the fold.