FEAT Une \V-

By Garth McLennan
uperman and Batman? Forget
em’. Spiderman? Iron Man?

P Sooooo last year (or well, I
y guess in the case of Iron Man, it’s

more like four months ago). The fact
is, while all of the aforementioned
heroes all have great their merits, both
on the big screen and inside the pages
of comic books, there is a new top
hero in town: Green Lantern.

Well, maybe I should specify.
Green Lantern: Hal Jordan. After all,
in the DC Universe, there’s something
like 7200 different Lanterns in the
intergalactic police force that is the
Green Lantern Corps.

Next summer will feature the
release of the next blockbuster
superhero franchise, with Ryan
Reynolds being the perfect choice to
portray Jordan and Gossip Girl’s Blake
Lively to play Carol Ferris, one of the
best female characters in comics at the
moment.

For those who aren’t familiar with
Green Lantern, the basic premise is
that the entire DC universe is policed
by a force of space cops, Green
Lanterns, who harness the power of
will and channel it through the green
rings they wear on their fingers. They
have to charge their rings through
lantern shaped power batteries. The
rings choose the lanterns, and those
selected are beings with the ability to
overcome great fear.

With the way the movie has been
shaping up lately (the full cast was
unveiled at this year’s San Diego
comic con event), Green Lantern has
the very real possibility of becoming
yet another home run in the most
popular movie genre in the world right
now. However, it isn’t the movie, no
matter how good it might become, that
has made Jordan DC’s biggest and
most high profile superhero in the last
year and a half. No, that honour goes
to what is quite possibly the biggest
DC mega-event in recent memory:
Blackest Night, the latest masterpiece
turned in by superstar writer Geoff
Johns.

Back in 2004, Johns took
over writing duties for the Green
Lantern book and revamped just
about everything to do with it. He
resurrected Jordan, one of the most
popular heroes of the 60’s, 70’s and
80’s, and who went down back in 1994
in one of the most reviled character
deaths in history. When writer Ron
Marz killed off Jordan to introduce
Kyle Rayner as the new title Green