When DC Entertainment Chief Creative Officer and former Green Lantern writer Geoff Johns introduced Simon Baz, identified in the earliest interviews as a Muslim, gun-toting Green Lantern, he made no bones about the fact that the comic would deal with some of the fallout from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, which changed the way average American viewed men of Arab descent. Apparently, though, that’s not the first time that such themes had crept into his work–even if it was the most obvious.Asked about the creation of Simon Baz, the first Arab-American Green Lantern and thus immediately elevated to the role of the most visible character of Arab descent in the DC Universe, Johns told Collider that he’d been mining September 11 and its repercussions on the collective American psyche since he began writing the character.”My dad is Lebanese. Detroit has the biggest Lebanese community outside of Lebanon,” said Johns of his hometown. “I really wanted to talk about cultural fear. The best thing about Green Lantern – and this is for anyone who ever writes the character – is that fear is never going to be out of date. Batman’s parents can die 70 years ago or tomorrow, and he’s still relevant. Superman can land here 70 years ago or today, and he’s still relevant. As long as Green Lantern is still dealing with fear, it’s going to be relevant. [Green Lantern: Rebirth] really grew out of 9/11. 9/11 happened, and then two years later, I was writing about fear. It was obviously connected. That affected everybody, in so many ways, and Simon was the next step to that. It had been so long since 9/11. I’m half Lebanese, but a lot of my family, on my dad’s side, is full Arabic and they’ve had to deal with a lot of things, in the way of 9/11. Just getting on a plane is a pain in the ass. So, I wanted to write something about cultural fear, and Simon grew out of that. I knew I was going to get some flack for it, from certain groups, and some racist reactions, but it’s a very personal character for me. I wanted to develop somebody like Simon and explore the idea of cultural fear. It’s just a different kind of fear.”
