Comics

Every Green Lantern from Earth, Ranked

Every Green Lantern from this sector.

Hal Jordan and John Stewart as Green Lanterns
Image Courtesy ofย DC Comics

The Green Lantern Corps is an intergalactic police force that assigns heroes to patrol certain sectors. The sector where Earth resides is Sector 2814, and the most famous Lantern to work in that sector is Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern who started his work in the Silver Age. While there was a Golden Age Green Lantern as well, that ended up being retconned to Earth-2. When it comes to the mainstream DC Earth, the origin has stayed mostly the same, even after the New 52 reboot. Before Hal Jordan, an alien named Abin Sur from Ungara (also in Sector 2814) was the Lantern here.

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Since Jordan, though, there have been several Green Lanterns born on Earth. In all, there have been 10 people born on Earth who served as one of the sector’s protectors in the comics, including Alan Scott, the Golden Age Lantern from Earth-2.

10) Keli Quintela

Keli Quintela Green Lantern
Image Courtesy of DC Comics

Keli Quintela has a lot of time ahead of her to move up this list, but for now, her age and inexperience keep her at the bottom. Known as Teen Lantern, Keli Quintela got her powers thanks to her brilliance and not because a ring chose her. She created a gauntlet that let her tap into the Central Power Battery’s power from Oa. She then used this power and joined Young Justice. While not chosen, she was allowed to go to Oa and begin training with the Lantern Corps. With heroes like John Stewart, Simon Baz, and Guy Gardner looking after her, she is on her way to eventually becoming one of Earth’s protectors.

9) Alan Scott

Alan Scott as Green Lantern
Image Courtesy of DC Comics

Alan Scott is an interesting Green Lantern. The Golden Age version, and a member of the Justice Society of America, he was the first Earth-born Lantern in DC Comics, but he had some severe power issues. Alan Scott had no idea who the Green Lantern Corps were, and he just used his powers and the Lantern power battery (using magic) to fight crime in his era. He unfortunately had some strange weaknesses, where his ring was vulnerable to wood. He also struggled much of his career thanks to issues with his sexuality, which allowed people like J. Edgar Hoover to blackmail him into working with the U.S. Government, often against his morals.

8) Simon Baz

Simon Baz, the Green Lantern
Image Courtesy of DC Comics

Simon Baz grew up in America and faced racism everywhere he looked. Because he was a Muslim, and he was only 10 during 9/11, he and his family had to deal with bullying and hatred for years. This led Simon to become a small-time car thief to support his family. After an arrest, he was deported to Guantanamo Bay to be tortured as a suspected terrorist, and that is when the power ring found him and he became the new Green Lantern. He was chosen because the Guardians of the Universe were attempting to replace the Green Lantern Corps with an evil Third Army, and he was recruited to help save their Corps. Simon Baz has since worked with the Justice League of America and has even won over Batman’s trust.

7) Guy Gardner

Guy Gardner
Image Courtesy of DC Comics

When Abin Sur was dying, his ring departed to find his replacement. The ring found two people on Earth who were possibilities and chose Hal Jordan. The second option was Guy Gardner. In his original origin, Guy finally got a chance to become a Lantern when Hal and John Stewart were out of commission. However, in one of his early battles, the power battery exploded in his face and sent him to the Phantom Zone, where Sinestro tortured him, resulting in a coma and slight brain damage. When he came out, he wasn’t the same man and had developed the rude, arrogant, and aggressive personality that DC readers know to this day. As hard as he tries, there are always forces (such as the Guardians) who sabotage his attempts to be a hero.

6) Sojourner “Jo” Mullein

Sojourner "Jo" Mullein Green Lantern
Image Courtesy of DC Comics

Jo Mullein is a former soldier and NYC police officer who became a Green Lantern after the police force fired her for reporting a fellow officer to internal affairs. She was depressed when a member of the Guardians approached her and offered her a job. However, despite being an Earth-born Lantern, she was assigned to a sector so far away from Oa that it didn’t even have a number to investigate the first murder there in 500 years. She made her debut in Far Sector #1 (2020) and is a brand-new addition to the list of Earth’s Green Lanterns. She returned to Earth to help defend the planet during Dark Crisis, and her military training makes her a valuable asset similar to John Stewart.

5) Jade

Jade Green Lantern
Image Courtesy of DC Comics

Jade made her debut in the New Earth modern age of DC Comics, appearing for the first time in All-Star Squadron #25 in 1983. Her father is Alan Scott, the first Green Lantern, and her mother is a supervillain known as Thorn. Her mother gave her and her twin brother, Todd (Obsidion), up for adoption to keep them safe from her. Jade and Todd both possessed metahuman powers, thanks to their father’s exposure to magical energy, and Jade’s powers were similar to those of a Green Lantern, but without the connection to Oa. She was still part of the Green Lantern storylines thanks to her dating Kyle Rayner. In the current comics, Jade’s powers also come from the Starheart, but she remains connected to the Green Lanterns even without technically being part of the Corps.

4) John Stewart

John Stewart Green Lantern
John Stewart Green Lantern

For an entire generation of DC Comics fans, John Stewart is the man they associate with being the Green Lantern from Earth. This is because he was the Green Lantern in the popular 1990s Justice League cartoons. In the comics, he debuted in Green Lantern Vol. 2 #87 (1972), and the Guardians chose him to serve as Hal Jordan’s backup after Guy Gardner was injured in an accident. In 1985, Jordan quit, and Stewart became Earth’s full-time Green Lantern. Eventually, the Green Lantern Corps restructured its operations, allowing Stewart, Jordan, and Kyle Rayner to serve in different roles simultaneously. In modern DC Comics, John is now the leader of the Green Lantern Corps and part of its Honor Guard.

3) Jessica Cruz

Jessica Cruz Green Lantern
Image Courtesy of DC Comics

Jessica Cruz made her debut in Green Lantern Vol. 5 #20 in 2013. She was a traumatized young woman who witnessed the murder of several friends at the hands of mobsters, and she developed debilitating anxiety. However, she had to figure things out fast during the Crime Syndicate’s rule in DC Comics. When Sinestro killed Earth-3’s Harold Jordan, his ring chose Jessica and forced her to attack her hometown. It took Batman to help talk her down and control the ring’s power. Hal Jordan then appeared and helped train Jessica on how to utilize the ring’s power and become a hero in her own right. During the Darkseid War, her corrupted ring was destroyed, but she was awarded a genuine Green Lantern ring, and Jessica Cruz became the sector’s new protector.

2) Kyle Rayner

Kyle Rayner Green Lantern
Image Courtesy of DC Comics

In the same way that fans chose between Wally West and Barry Allen when discussing their favorite Flash, they do the same with Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner. This comes after Crisis on Infinite Earths, with Rayner and West becoming young versions of the veteran heroes and injecting youth into the DC Comics line. Rayner was an immediate fan favorite thanks to his occupation as an artist. This meant that he created some incredible things from his power ring rather than the brute-force power that Jordan and John Stewart used. Rayner ended up as one of the most beloved Green Lanterns in DC Comics history, and remains one of Earth’s most powerful members of the Green Lantern Corps.

1) Hal Jordan

Hal Jordan Green Lantern
Image Courtesy of DC Comics

The most powerful and respected member of the Green Lantern Corps is an Earth-based hero. Hal Jordan was the man chosen to protect Earth and its sector after Abin Sur’s death, and when he is alive, he is the one most often called upon to serve in this role. He also had his moments of weakness, such as when he became Parallax and later when he committed a murder and was stripped of his standing in the Corps. However, he is the man who has trained most of the Earth’s Green Lantern protectors, and he has saved the universe more than almost any other Lantern, or any other superhero, for that matter.