By: Scott Johnson on June 1, 2012
Today, DC Comics officially announced that Alan Scott, who is the Earth 2 Green Lantern, would be re-introduced as a gay character in Earth 2 #2. However, his sexuality isn’t the only change that is in store for Alan Scott. In addition to the fact that he is being re-introduced as a much younger man, it looks like parts of his origin story will be changing as well.
DC Comics is trying to re-introduce this new version of the old Green Lantern in the most positive light possible, but there is a lot of back story with Alan Scott from the old DC Universe. Unfortunately, some of this back story has proven to be easy fodder for online comedians. It’s also almost certainly to be easy pickings for late night talk show hosts, who luckily for DC Comics appear to be airing mostly repeat episodes tonight.
In the old DC Universe, the original Alan Scott got his powers from a magical green flame. But that’s not all. Powerful superheroes often have a weakness. For Superman there is Kryptonite and for Alan Scott, his weakness was..well…it was wood. We don’t have to explain the jokes that are already starting to come out of this one. TMZ notes the weakness as one of their fun facts.
However, it looks like DC Comics already anticipated this might be an issue. In their report, Rolling Stone notes, “Unlike previous versions of Scott dating back to the Forties, wood will not be a weakness for the new Green Lantern.” It also seems that there might be other change in store for Alan Scott’s origin story as well. Rolling Stone quotes Robinson as saying, “He is the receptacle, the conduit for the energy of the Earth, which is this green energy.”
