History YMMV / GreenLantern

** The Franchise/{{DCAU}} was this for John Stewart when he was used as the primary Green Lantern for ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague''. After getting several on and off shots at the spotlight John Stewart had more or less faded into obscurity by the time the show went into production, and at the time that the roster was announced he was initially met with disdain by fans who were either angry that the Bruce Timm and his colleagues weren't using Kyle Rayner, who was the current Green Lantern of the comics at the time and had been previously introduced in ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'', or Hal Jordan, who was the best known Green Lantern among comics fans but who had not appeared in the wider-media at that time (even though Hal was technically dead at the time of the show's creation) and, in some cases, because Timm and co admitted that one of the reasons for using Stewart was because they wanted a black hero to break up what would have otherwise been an all white line up (not counting the ComicBook/MartianManhunter of course). Fortunately, Stewart received enough CharacterDevelopment over the course of the series that fans eventually warmed up to him, and when DC comics bosses noticed this they decided to capitalize on it by making Stewart an important character in the comics again. Some critics even speculate that the reason the 2011 film failed was because general audiences who only knew of the Green Lantern mythos from the DCAU were confused at seeing Hal Jordan being used instead of John Stewart thanks to the exposure the DCAU had given him.

* CantUnHearIt: Most fans are likely to read John Stewart with Creator/PhilLaMarr's voice because of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', the cartoon which brought the character into the mainstream.

* DorkAge:
** Guy Gardner's "Warrior" incarnation, though he also underwent a whole lot of CharacterDevelopment during this time.
** The post-Johns New 52 ongoings, for introducing stupid concepts (the rings are actively destroying the universe), stupid villains (Relic) and just dumb creative decisions that were already proven to be bad ideas (making Hal the sole Green Lantern). Most of the creative decisions were undone for ''ComicBook/DCRebirth''.

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** Fans were so angry about the Parallax storyline where Hal underwent a FaceHeelTurn and subsequently died that when Geoff Johns took over the title, he brought Hal back to life and retconned the incident into Hal having been possessed and brainwashed by a physical embodiment of fear named Parallax who exploited his grief over the destruction of Coast City. And to a much lesser extent, the Parallax entity and its association with the color yellow provided what readers found a satisfying answer to the Green Lanterns power rings' WeaksauceWeakness.
** In an issue of ''Wizard'' magazine, Johns stated he also used the Parallax entity as to explain why Hal is such an idiot in the Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams issues with Green Arrow.
** Arisia was first introduced as a 13-year-old GL who had a sort of little sister/big brother dynamic with Hal. This eventually turned into Arisia harboring an unrequited PrecociousCrush on Hal, which later resulted in a story where she used her ring to [[PlotRelevantAgeUp age herself up]] so that she could enter a relationship with him. Fans found the whole thing kind of {{Squick}}y, so Johns later stated that due to her planet's prolonged orbit around its two suns, 13 years on her world were technically closer to 240 years on Earth.
** As society marched on, fans began to raise eyebrows at Hal's origin, specifically the fact that the most fearless guy on the planet conveniently turned out to be a straight, white, male American. A story was eventually done that showed there were many Green Lantern candidates all throughout the globe, and Hal was chosen because he just happened to be the one closest to Abin Sur's crash site.

* WhatAnIdiot: Hey Mongul--Sinestro created the friggin' rings; he'd have a manual override in case of an attempted coup!

** In the very first comic featuring the Green Lantern (then the first incarnation of Alan Scott, when the green light was connected to chinese folklore rather than the Emotional Spectrum), the Lantern's green light was refered to as [[HaveAGayOldTime "queer"]]. Flash forward to 2012, where Alan Scott's counterpart in ''ComicBook/Earth2'' is reinterpreted as a gay man, and 2021, where the Post-Crisis version of Alan Scott was retconned to have been a closeted gay man all along in issue 0 of ''ComicBook/DCInfiniteFrontier''.

** In the very first comic featuring the Green Lantern (then the first incarnation of Alan Scott, when the green light was connected to chinese folklore rather than the Emotional Spectrum), the Lantern's green light was refered to as [[HaveAGayOldTime "queer"]]. Flash forward to 2012, when Scott comes out as gay.

* ProtectionFromEditors: The Green Lantern books under Creator/GeoffJohns are one of the two things to enter the New 52 unscathed, the other being Creator/GrantMorrison's ''ComicBook/BatmanGrantMorrisons'' run, which only had a few alterations. Whilst Morrison's ''Batman Inc.'' continued the plot he was writing before ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'' it had everyone spontaneously change costumes and some supporting characters' retconned out (E.g., Batwoman never joined Batman Inc., Cassandra Cain doesn't exist). The Green Lantern books don't even do that and just carry on as they were before the reboot. This can be attributed to Johns being the Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics, essentially the No. 3 guy at the company after co-publishers Creator/DanDiDio and Jim Lee.

** John Stewart's earliest appearances were little more than AngryBlackMan stereotypes, but John was also shown to be objectively correct in his anger (just short-tempered). He was also always the most-educated of the earthbound Green Lanterns, being an architect when Hal was a pilot who never attended college and Guy's original status as a public defender all but forgotten in {{Flanderization}}.

* MemeticMutation:
** Kyle Rayner has a poison dick. [[labelnote:Explanation]] A reference to the infamous Green Lantern issue #54, in which Kyle returns home and finds his dead girlfriend stuffed into the fridge. It's often joked that dating Kyle is the equivalent of signing your own death sentence.[[/labelnote]]
** The color-coded rings have spawned a takeoff of the "[[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/advice-dog Advice Dog]]" meme. Examples:
*** (Larfleeze) [[VideoGame/BioShock1 Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?]] NO, IT'S FUCKING MINE!
*** (Atrocitus) FUCK GRAMMAR! PUNCH DICTIONARIES!
*** (Saint Walker) Don't worry, I'm sure your girlfriend will live...Kyle Rayner.
%%** Hal sure does get hit on the head a lot, doesn't he?
%%** "Help me, Green Lantern. I have no arms." *PUNCH!*
%%** Hal Jordan [[ReallyGetsAround WILL FUCK ANYTHING!]]
%%** [[ComicBook/BlackestNight RAGE]][[WebOriginal/LOLCats CAT]]. He's in ur sector, killing ur Lanterns.
%%** "Mogo doesn't socialize."

* MemeticBadass:
** In certain sections of the Internet, Rot Lop Fan is this, being a Green Lantern despite not even grasping the concept of "light" or "color" because his race sees with sound.
** Guy Gardner is a straighter example, one which would delight him immensely if he knew about it.

** Hal sure does get hit on the head a lot, doesn't he?
** "Help me, Green Lantern. I have no arms." *PUNCH!*
** The color-coded rings have spawned a takeoff of the "Advice Dog" meme. Examples:

** Hal Jordan [[ReallyGetsAround WILL FUCK ANYTHING!]]
** [[ComicBook/BlackestNight RAGE]][[WebOriginal/LOLCats CAT]]. He's in ur sector, killing ur Lanterns.
** "Mogo doesn't socialize."
** Kyle Rayner has a poison dick. It's often joked that dating Kyle is the equivalent of signing your own death sentence.

** There was an episode of ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries'' which featured multicoloured emotion-''inducing'' rings – including a yellow one which made you cowardly, an orange one that made you self-destructively greedy and a red one which filled you with UnstoppableRage – well before the Red and Orange Lanterns, and quite probably the modern Sinestro Corps, came onto the scene.
** In the very first comic featuring the Green Lantern (then the first incarnation of Alan Scott, when the green light was connected to chinese folklore rather than the Emotional Spectrum), the Lantern's green light was refered to as [[HaveAGayOldTime "queer"]]. Flash forward to 2012...

* CantUnHearIt:
** Most fans are likely to read John Stewart with Creator/PhilLaMarr's voice because of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague''.
** Creator/JoshKeaton, Creator/AdamBaldwin, or Creator/NathanFillion for Hal Jordan.
** Fans like to read Kilowog's lines in the voice of Creator/DennisHaysbert, Creator/JohnDiMaggio, Creator/MichaelClarkeDuncan, or Creator/KevinMichaelRichardson.
** For Kyle Rayner, there's Michael P. Greco or Creator/WillFriedle.
** Creator/DiedrichBader for Guy Gardner.
** Creator/CristinaMilizia, Creator/MyrnaVelasco, or Creator/DianeGuerrero is Jessica Cruz.
** ComicBook/{{Sinestro}} is either Creator/TedLevine, the late Creator/MiguelFerrer, Creator/RonPerlman, Creator/VictorGarber, Creator/JasonIsaacs, Creator/MarcWorden, or Creator/TroyBaker.
** Atrocitus is either Creator/JonathanAdams, Creator/MichaelDorn, or Creator/IkeAmadi.
** Creator/DeeBradleyBaker is Larfleeze for many.

* FoeYay: Between Hal Jordan and Sinestro, according to {{Yaoi Fangirl}}s.

* CompleteMonster: See [[Monster/DCUniverse here]].

*** (Saint Walker) Don't worry, I'm sure your girlfriend will live...[[StuffedIntoTheFridge Kyle Rayner]].

* CompleteMonster:
** ''Green Lantern Corps Quarterly'' #7's one-shot "Triumph of the Will": [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Ayria]] is a vicious, corrupt Green Lantern who uses his powers to oppress the residents of Aegri Somnia. Ayria has his forces brutally slaughter their way through the rebelling yellows on Aegri Somnia 2, resulting on millions of casualties on both sides, before establishing a holocaust and sending the yellows who remain into labor camps where they slowly and agonizingly perish by the millions to [[HumanResources fuel Ayria's power battery]]. A [[TheCaligula paranoid despot]] unable to take any form of perceived challenge to his rule, Ayria viciously tortures to death several members of his staff--including his own brother--for reasons as varied as apparent treachery to as petty to having no faith in his rule, and ultimately orders every single remaining yellow to be sent to the camps and executed after torturing one who swallows his ring--ultimately resulting in Ayria's downfall when the ring resonates with the dead yellow's will to resurrect the billions Ayria has killed to tear him to bloody shreds. An unrelenting dictator, Ayria proves even the ostensibly righteous Green Lanterns aren't immune to pure evil in their ranks.
** [[OverlordJr Mongul II]] has dedicated his life to aping and surpassing [[Characters/DCComicsMongul his equally unpleasant father]]. During his first appearance in Green Lantern, Mongul II used the Black Mercy plants to trap Hal Jordan and [[ComicBook/GreenArrow Oliver Queen]] in a fantasy world; he subsequently murdered his sister, Mongal, and kept her corpse as a trophy. When Mongul II really comes into his own, however, is after gaining a Sinestro Corps Ring (by murdering its owner). Taking control of the Black Mercy homeworld, Mongul II uses his ring to alter the genetics of the Black Mercies so that they will trap their victims in their worst nightmares, instead of their ideal fantasies. He coerces the benevolent Mother Mercy into aiding him by threatening to make her eat her own children if she does not. Defeated by the Green Lanterns, Mongul II escapes from prison, seizes control of the Sinestro Corps by killing anybody who disagrees with him (or even annoys him in the slightest), rips out [[TheDragon Arkillo]]'s tongue, and overruns the planet Daxam, slaughtering or enslaving the population. Beaten off by Sodam Yat and Arisia, Mongul II later arrives on Korugar, and is in the process of having the citizenry strung up along the streets when his reign is finally halted by the return of Sinestro.
** Nekron, Lord of the Unliving definitely counts as a monster (though he wouldn't be seen as one until ''ComicBook/BlackestNight''). He is an [[EldritchAbomination entity]] that eventually proves himself to be far too {{sadist}}ic a being to simply be a cosmic force doing its job. The force behind the necromantic Black Lanterns, Nekron implicitly influences Black Hand into killing himself and his entire family to become his tether into the living world in his bid to enact the "Blackest Night," a [[OmnicidalManiac state of eternal death imposed upon all creation]]. Nekron reveals the constant death and resurrection within the universe is a matter of his influence, making those who die and revive sleeper agents--keeping them aware and conscious in their own bodies--and eventually simply turning them all into Black Lanterns, twisting them into horrible, undead mockeries of the people they once were. Through the Black Lanterns, Nekron unleashes a wave of death across everything in his path, turning more and more into Black Lanterns and intent on never stopping until all is silent.

** Flash once had a villain called the Rainbow Raider, who could make hard-light rainbows and induce emotions in people by coloring them. He'd fit right in with the emotional spectrum retcon, but sadly, he's dead, so the only time he's been used since then was as yet another Black Lantern.

** Also, Guy Gardner. When you look at his history, it's no wonder he's constantly pissed off-- he had an alcoholic father, he's been struck by buses, had Hal's power lantern explode in his face, which [[ItMakesSenseInContext somehow caused him to get stuck in the Phantom Zone to get tortured by General Zod]] ([[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer no, really, that happened]]), rendered comatose, it all affected his personality to make him the Guy Gardner we all know.

** Mongul II is a case of OverlordJr at its worst, and has dedicated his life to aping and surpassing his equally unpleasant father, Mongul I. During his first appearance in Green Lantern, Mongul II used the Black Mercy plants to trap Hal Jordan and [[ComicBook/GreenArrow Oliver Queen]] in a fantasy world; he subsequently murdered his sister, Mongal, and kept her corpse as a trophy. When Mongul II really comes into his own, however, is after gaining a Sinestro Corps Ring (by murdering its owner). Taking control of the Black Mercy homeworld, Mongul II uses his ring to alter the genetics of the Black Mercies so that they will trap their victims in their worst nightmares, instead of their ideal fantasies. He coerces the benevolent Mother Mercy into aiding him by threatening to make her eat her own children if she does not. Defeated by the Green Lanterns, Mongul II escapes from prison, seizes control of the Sinestro Corps by killing anybody who disagrees with him (or even annoys him in the slightest), rips out [[TheDragon Arkillo]]'s tongue, and overruns the planet Daxam, slaughtering or enslaving the population. Beaten off by Sodam Yat and Arisia, Mongul II later arrives on Korugar, and is in the process of having the citizenry strung up along the streets when his reign is finally halted by the return of Sinestro.

* ProtectionFromEditors: The Green Lantern books under Creator/GeoffJohns are one of the two things to enter the New 52 unscathed, the other being Creator/GrantMorrison's ''[[ComicBook/GrantMorrisonsBatman Batman]]'' run, which only had a few alterations. Whilst Morrison's ''Batman Inc.'' continued the plot he was writing before ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'' it had everyone spontaneously change costumes and some supporting characters' retconned out (E.g., Batwoman never joined Batman Inc., Cassandra Cain doesn't exist). The Green Lantern books don't even do that and just carry on as they were before the reboot. This can be attributed to Johns being the Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics, essentially the No. 3 guy at the company after co-publishers Creator/DanDiDio and Jim Lee.

** Kyle Rayner, as written by Creator/GrantMorrison in ''[[ComicBook/GrantMorrisonsJLA JLA]]''. Grant Morrison asked Ron Marz "How would Rayner work in a team book as opposed to a solo one?" The characters were very similar, and Kyle's era was a best seller until Ron Marz left the book, and by that time Morrison was no longer writing JLA. It would be BETTER to say he became a Scrappy during the Creator/JuddWinick[=/=]Ben Raab Era and Ron Marz and Creator/GeoffJohns rescued him from the Scrappy Heap. The only people to whom he was ever a scrappy were [[BrokenBase die-hard Hal Jordan fans]]. Kyle Rayner was the star of the Green Lantern book for ten years, and thus had a generation of ''his own fans'' who couldn't care less about Hal Jordan and thus never saw him as TheScrappy in the first place. To those fans, it was Hal Jordan, and not Kyle Rayner, who was RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap.

* TheWoobie: Ch'p has it pretty rough after the events of the ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths. He returns to his home planet H'lven only to discover that history has been changed so that there was never a Green Lantern in his sector, he died 15 years ago and that M'nn'e, the woman who used to be his wife, is now married to his friend D'll. Ch'p tries to tell them it's him, but they mistake him for an imposter trying to tarnish Ch'p's memory. The little alien squirrel manages to find solace in the fact that his fellow Green Lanterns still remember him, but he still feels upset about his cosmic divorce, even breaking down into tears and wailing about his marriage being retroactively erased from history after being informed that John Stewart and Katma Tui will be wed.

* MagnificentBastard: Sinestro is Hal Jordan's personal nemesis, and both a [[FallenHero former Green Lantern]] and planetary dictator. Convinced that the Green Lanterns have failed in their mission of bringing order and security to the universe, Sinestro formed his own Sinestro Corps, and led them into a war against the Green Lanterns, who were only able to defeat Sinestro by resorting to lethal force--the very result the renegade Lantern had been aiming for. Since then Sinestro has changed allegiances multiple times, always with the intention of bringing his vision of stability to the DCU, whether it wants it or not.

** ''ComicBook/BlackestNight'' has Nekron. Lord of the Unliving and the face of all death within the DCU, he is an [[EldritchAbomination entity]] that eventually proves himself to be far too {{sadist}}ic a being to simply be a cosmic force doing its job. The force behind the necromantic Black Lanterns, Nekron implicitly influences Black Hand into killing himself and his entire family to become his tether into the living world in his bid to enact the "Blackest Night," a [[OmnicidalManiac state of eternal death imposed upon all creation]]. Nekron reveals the constant death and resurrection within the universe is a matter of his influence, making those who die and revive sleeper agents--keeping them aware and conscious in their own bodies--and eventually simply turning them all into Black Lanterns, twisting them into horrible, undead mockeries of the people they once were. Through the Black Lanterns, Nekron unleashes a wave of death across everything in his path, turning more and more into Black Lanterns and intent on never stopping until all is silent.

* EthnicScrappy: UsefulNotes/{{The Silver Age|of Comic Books}} ComicBook/GreenLantern Hal Jordan had an Inuit sidekick called Pieface who served as his mechanic. Today, he is strictly called Tom Kalmaku and depicted with respect as an engineer. In a retelling of Hal's origin, the "Pieface" nickname is used by a {{jerkass}} rival pilot.

* {{Misblamed}}: When [=McDuffie=] took over the ''Justice League of America'' comic, he was told to use John instead of Hal as the Justice League of America's Green Lantern on orders from above (partly because Hal was being given [[ComicBook/JusticeLeagueCryForJustice HIS JLA TEAM!]]). Sadly for [=McDuffie=], fandom took the change badly, not helped in the least by the fact that Hal's JLA spin-off was delayed and reduced to a mini-series when it became apparent that James Robinson's artist was never going to get the book done on time. This lead to Hal returning to the title until his book was ready, followed by John's reinstatement just long enough for him to be bounced again and replaced with Hal until he was quickly replaced with Jade when they needed a book to focus on her ''ComicBook/BrightestDay'' storyline. The entire process was made progressively worse and worse by ExecutiveMeddling, in case you couldn't tell. And when [=McDuffie=] had the ''gall'' to describe this and the other creative difficulties on his forum (without assigning blame or complaining), DC [[ShootTheMessenger responded by firing him]].

* TheWoobie: Ch'p has it pretty rough after the events of the ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths. He returns to his home planet H'lven only to discover that history has been changed so that there was never a Green Lantern in his sector, he died 15 years ago and that M'nn'e, the woman who used to be his wife, is now married to his friend D'll. Ch'p tries to tell them it's him, but they mistake him for an imposter trying to tarnish Ch'p's memory. The little alien squirrel manages to find solace in that his fellow Green Lanterns still remember him, but he still feels upset about his cosmic divorce, even breaking down into tears and wailing about his marriage being retroactively erased from history after being informed that John Stewart and Katma Tui will be wed.

%%* TheWoobie: Holy ''shit'' did Karu-Sil have a horrifying childhood. %%(This could use more context. Why was it horrifying?)%%

'''Guardian:''' You leave us much to ponder, Hal Jordan... none of it pleasant.

* BrokenAesop: The resolution to the Anvilicious arc mentioned above? It's okay to consume a limited resource in a way that might harm others as long as it's for a good reason. It completely skips over any attempts to lessen dependence on the resource or find a substitute for said resource. Or even trying to figure out whether it's possible to produce more of the resource. It's probably meant to be a message against environmentalism-fueled nihilism; it instead reads like a carte blanche to guzzle gas, even if there's an electric car right next to you.