Green Lantern: A New Dawn is a 1994 Green Lantern storyline written by Ron Marz with art by Darryl Banks. Spanning from Green Lantern (1990) #51-54, the storyline is notable for introducing Kyle Rayner as the new Green Lantern.
At the end of Emerald Twilight, the Green Lantern Corps had been been destroyed, with Ganthet its sole survivor. Desperate to find someone to don the last power ring remaining, he would travel to Earth, appearing randomly in an alleyway outside of a nightclub where he would encounter Kyle Rayner. Out of options, Ganthet would thrust the final ring into Kyle's hand and disappear, leaving Kyle Rayner the sole Green Lantern in the Universe.
With his girlfriend Alex DeWitt explaining to him that it was the suit of the Green Lantern, Kyle decides to become a super hero. However, being a Green Lantern turns out to be harder than he thought, as he barely defeats his first supervillain, Ohm, just by the skin of his teeth. Things don't get better, as he is soon after attacked by Mongul, only defeating him with the help of Superman.
Tragedy would occur when the government, who had discovered what had happened, sends in Major Force to kill Kyle and get the ring. However, Major Force's sadistic tendencies would lead him to kills Alex instead, stuffing her in the fridge just to taunt and anger Kyle. This infuriates Kyle and leads to him nearly killing Major Force, with him only being saved by Federal agents at the last minute.
Finally, Alan Scott would appear before Kyle to recruit him to help put an end to Hal's rampage, giving him the whole backstory of the Green Lantern Crops and Hal Jordan in the process. Grief-stricken, Kyle decides to continue on as Green Lantern while mourning the loss of Alex, and help Alan defeat Hal.
A New Dawn contains examples of:
- Cassandra Truth: Kyle, you have Green Lantern's ring! How did you get it? Oh, sure, of course. A blue midget in a red dress...
- Chekhov's Gunman:
- Ganthet shows up in a dark alley, and gives the ring to Kyle. There was someone else in there who saw it, a vagrant. This vagrant would become more important later on.
- One of the villains seen escaping during Mongul's breakout was Major Force. He would be used immediately afterwards.
- Cryptic Conversation: Kyle Rayner gets out of the disco, and finds a blue midget in a red dress in the dark alley. The conversation did not help him, at all.Ganthet: This ring. Take it.Kyle Rayner: Uh... what am I supposed to do with it?Ganthet: What you must.Kyle Rayner: But what is supposed to happen?Ganthet: What must. (and goes up and dissapears)
- Discredited Meme: In-Universe. Alex is lecturing Kyle that, if we wants to be a super hero, he must use his ring for something better than he did against Ohm. A sword and a shield? Come one, try something better. What, a giant boxing glove? "No, definitely not a giant boxing glove".
- Fake Action Prologue: First page, Green Lantern flies directly to someone crying out "Stop, I'll shoot!!". Second page: Green Lantern is staying still in the air, as Alex shoots some photos of him.
- George Lucas Altered Version: In the original comic book, the penultimate page has Kyle Rayner mourning Alex, and deciding to go on with the Green Lantern thing because that's what she would have wanted. In the last page, Superman and Metron show up to recruit him for the Zero Hour crossover. The trade paperback left this last page out, to provide a good "And the Adventure Continues" ending to the whole thing. The "Kyle Rayner Rising" Compendium also omits these pages, even though that collection continues to the next issue in the series.
- How We Got Here: The second issue starts with Kyle Rayner being beaten to a pulp by a C-class villain. Then we find out what happened after he received the ring and up to that point.
- The Men in Black: The employers of Major Force (revealed in a later saga to be Guy Gardner's enemies the Quorum). They even leave the lights intentionally low, so that people can not see them clearly.
- Mr. Exposition: Alan Scott, shows up to provide Kyle with some info about the Green Lantern Corps and what has happened with Hal Jordan. Then he leaves, so that Kyle can mourn Alex a bit, before Superman and Metron recruit him for the action..
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Kyle's ring run out of power during his fight with Major Force, turning him into a helpless punk in a funny suit against a super-powerful villain. But, before killing him, he showed and asked about a strange green stone that Ganthet left behind. The stone suddenly becomes the battery, and the ring gets recharched. Second round!
- Not in This for Your Revolution: Mongul created a massive jail breakout when he left, but not because he thought that Evil Is One Big, Happy Family. It was just to get away more easily in the confusion. A Khund warrior hailed him, in gratitude for his liberation, and Mongul killed him: he does not like the Khund.
- Stuffed into the Fridge: The trope namer. Alex is targeted since her identity is known, in an attempt to get at Green Lantern. She's strangled to death by Major Force and stuffed into the refrigerator for Kyle to find.
- Targeted to Hurt the Hero: Kyle Rayner and Alex were both new characters, with hardly a few issues published so far. Kyle left Alex's house to deal with a portion of future L.A. that popped up in the middle of L.A., and Major Force shows up then and kills Alex, while Kyle is gone. Then, he stuffs her into the fridge, and leaves a note "surprise for you in the fridge" note.
- This Loser Is You: The main point of replacing Jordan with Rayner was to have a character of this type.
- Training from Hell: Averted. All the new Green Lanterns are supposed to have one, but the main idea with Kyle Rayner was to have him figure out everything by himself, without training or mentors.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Averted. All Green Lantern rings are vulnerable to the yellow color, but Kyle isn't. He didn't even know he was supposed to be vulnerable to that, until Mongul attacked him with yellow light and could not understand how he was shielding against it.
