DC Officially Introduces Green Lanterns' New Power Ring Ability
Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for HBO's Lanterns episode 1.HBO's Lanterns is here, and the new DC Universe series introduces many characters to the franchise, some classic comic book players and some new, as well as a major Green Lantern power that changes the game. Lanterns is the fifth release in the DCU's Chapter One. The HBO series comes after the animated Creature Commandos, Superman, Peacemaker season 2, and Supergirl.
Lanterns focuses on Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan, a veteran Green Lantern who has been active in the DCU since 1986, and Aaron Pierre's John Stewart, the rising star who is being trained by Jordan — the older Green Lantern does not want to do it — to serve as the latter's replacement. For the most part, the Lanterns season 1 premiere shows the usual powers.
Hal Jordan can fly faster than the speed of sound in the live-action DC show, both him and John Stewart use common constructs, like green bubbles, to save themselves from dangerous situations, Hal creates money out of thin air using his Green Lantern ring, and so on. While this is a True Detective-like show, Lanterns leaves plenty of room for superhero action.
Sector 2814 · Corps Edition
How Well Do You Know
Green Lantern Lore?
🌟CorpsProtect
💎RingsPower
☠VillainsFear
💡LanternsWill
🌌UniverseOa
01
The Green Lantern Corps is an intergalactic peacekeeping force powered by the emotional spectrum. Each Green Lantern’s ring is fueled by a specific emotion. Which emotion powers the Green Lantern rings?
✓ Correct! Willpower is the green light on the emotional spectrum, sitting at the very center. The Guardians of the Universe chose willpower because it is the most stable and disciplined of all emotions, making it the ideal force for a peacekeeping corps that spans 3,600 sectors of space.
✗ Your ring’s charge is low on that one! The answer is Willpower. Hope powers the Blue Lantern Corps, Love fuels the Star Sapphires, and Courage isn’t a force on the emotional spectrum. Willpower — the green light — is the foundation of every construct a Green Lantern creates.
02
The most famous Green Lantern in DC Comics is a test pilot from Coast City who was chosen by a dying alien’s ring to become the Green Lantern of Sector 2814. Who is this character?
✓ Correct! Hal Jordan was introduced in Showcase #22 (1959), inheriting the ring from the dying alien Abin Sur. As a fearless test pilot, Hal was the perfect candidate — his indomitable willpower made him one of the greatest Green Lanterns in the history of the Corps.
✗ Your ring’s charge is low on that one! The answer is Hal Jordan. John Stewart is a fellow Earth Lantern and architect, Guy Gardner is the brash backup Lantern, and Kyle Rayner became a Lantern after Hal’s fall. But Hal Jordan is the test pilot from Coast City who defined the modern Green Lantern legacy.
03
The Green Lantern Corps is headquartered on a planet at the center of the universe, where the Guardians of the Universe reside. What is the name of this planet?
✓ Correct! Oa sits at the center of the DC Universe and serves as the headquarters of the Green Lantern Corps. It houses the Great Battery — the Central Power Battery that channels willpower energy to every Lantern ring across all 3,600 sectors of space.
✗ Your ring’s charge is low on that one! The answer is Oa. Maltus is the Guardians’ original homeworld before they migrated, Mogo is a sentient planet that is itself a Green Lantern, and Zamaron is the home of the Star Sapphires. Oa is the iconic green-tinged world at the heart of it all.
04
Sinestro was once the greatest Green Lantern before he was corrupted by his own desire for order and control. He created his own corps powered by a different emotion on the emotional spectrum. What emotion powers Sinestro’s yellow rings?
✓ Correct! The Sinestro Corps wields yellow rings powered by fear. Sinestro believed that fear was a more effective tool for maintaining order than willpower, and he recruited the most terrifying beings in the universe to prove it. The Sinestro Corps War remains one of the greatest Green Lantern storylines.
✗ Your ring’s charge is low on that one! The answer is Fear. Rage powers the Red Lanterns, Avarice (greed) fuels the Orange Lantern Larfleeze, and Death powers the Black Lanterns. Sinestro’s yellow rings channel fear — the direct opposite of willpower on the emotional spectrum.
05
The Green Lantern ring is one of the most powerful weapons in the DC Universe. It can create solid constructs of green light shaped by the wearer’s imagination. What is the ring’s one notable weakness in classic stories?
✓ Correct! For decades, the Green Lantern ring was powerless against anything colored yellow. This “yellow impurity” was later revealed to be caused by Parallax, the fear entity, imprisoned within the Central Power Battery on Oa. Once Parallax was removed, experienced Lanterns could overcome the weakness.
✗ Your ring’s charge is low on that one! The answer is the color yellow. Water was the weakness of the original Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott (whose ring was magic-based), not the Corps rings. The classic Silver Age weakness was yellow — leading to many creative villain strategies involving yellow objects.
06
John Stewart is a prominent Green Lantern who became a household name through his role in the Justice League animated series (2001–2006). Before becoming a Green Lantern, what was John Stewart’s profession?
✓ Correct! John Stewart was an architect before becoming a Green Lantern, which is reflected in his precise, structurally detailed ring constructs. While some later adaptations added a military background, his classic comic book profession is architect — and it shapes how he uses the ring in beautifully engineered ways.
✗ Your ring’s charge is low on that one! The answer is Architect. While the Justice League animated series gave John a Marine background, his original and most iconic profession in the comics is architect. This is why his ring constructs are known for their precise, detailed engineering — he literally designs them.
07
The emotional spectrum in DC Comics features seven corps, each tied to a different color and emotion. Which corps is powered by rage and wields red rings?
✓ Correct! The Red Lantern Corps, led by Atrocitus, is fueled by pure rage. Their rings replace the wearer’s blood with burning red plasma, and they vomit corrosive napalm-like blood as a weapon. Atrocitus founded the corps to seek vengeance against the Guardians for the Manhunter massacre of Sector 666.
✗ Your ring’s charge is low on that one! The answer is The Red Lantern Corps. The Sinestro Corps wields yellow rings of fear, the Orange Lantern is Larfleeze alone (powered by avarice), and the Black Lanterns are undead entities. The Red Lantern Corps, led by Atrocitus, channels pure burning rage.
08
Parallax is one of the most significant threats in Green Lantern lore. It is the living embodiment of fear and has possessed multiple Green Lanterns. In the iconic “Emerald Twilight” storyline, which Green Lantern did Parallax corrupt and drive to destroy the Corps?
✓ Correct! In “Emerald Twilight” (Green Lantern #48–50, 1994), a grief-stricken Hal Jordan — devastated by the destruction of Coast City — was corrupted by Parallax. He defeated every Green Lantern in his path, drained the Central Power Battery, and destroyed the Corps, becoming the villain Parallax. Geoff Johns later revealed that the fear entity had possessed Hal all along.
✗ Your ring’s charge is low on that one! The answer is Hal Jordan. After Coast City was destroyed by Mongul and the Cyborg Superman, Hal’s grief made him vulnerable to Parallax. He marched through the Corps, defeated every Lantern, and absorbed the Central Battery’s power. Kyle Rayner received the last ring after Hal’s fall, becoming the sole Green Lantern for years.
Ring Scan Complete Your Power Level
/ 8
Are you worthy of the ring — or does your willpower need recharging?
That said, all those powers can be seen by opening the pages of DC Comics. While exciting, especially due to the lack of Green Lantern appearances in live-action, they are not really novel. However, early in the Lanterns season premiere, there is a key moment that debuts a new Green Lantern power, and it should play a major role in season 1.
Lanterns Makes Green Lantern Backups Mandatory
A key mechanic of the Green Lantern ring is discovered by John after he uses Hal's ring to save himself when the latter threw his car off a cliff as part of a hardcore training session. Out of nowhere, a Hal Jordan hologram pops out and starts to talk to John. This is where Lanterns reveals that in the DCU, the Green Lantern Corps' members upload a backup of their consciousness to their rings weekly. As such, if anything happens to them and the Green Lanterns are killed, their memories and expertise are saved for the rest of time.
As this particular version of Hal would tell John, he was a backup of Chandler's character from 10 years prior in the show's timeline, so 2006, given that the HBO series' Rushville mystery is set in 2016. Weekly backups of a Green Lantern's consciousness are not a normal ability of Green Lantern rings in DC Comics. Sure, there is a somewhat similar concept to Lanterns', which is that of the energy twins from the Silver Age.
However, back then, the Green Lanterns were mostly creating ghost-like copies of themselves for brief use, mostly to travel great distances and deliver messages. That is not really Lanterns' use of the backup concept, as this is a full-on version of Hal who is stored inside his Green Lantern ring, and a younger one at that.
Where Lanterns' New Green Lantern Power Could Lead To
Lanterns' new Green Lantern power should prove itself extremely useful in the show's 2026 timeline. The Lanterns episode 1 ending reveals that Hal Jordan is dead, but John and Sheriff Kerry seemingly have no clue about who killed him. One key detail that John notices is how Hal's Green Lantern ring was suspiciously missing from his finger. As such, if the character were to find where Hal's power ring is, he could get Hal's backup to come out and perhaps reveal what happened to the DC hero in his final moments.
Additionally, there might be a more recent version of Hal Jordan stored in the Green Lantern ring. After all, while Hal had stopped backing himself up in 2006, there were 10 years between when he and John investigated an alien threat in Rushville and when the Green Lantern legend turned up dead. That is more than enough time for Chandler's character to change his mind and upload his mind into the Green Lantern ring. It remains to be seen whether Lanterns is going down that road.