With rumors circulating that DC Entertainment will not select a single Green Lantern to headline their movie, but rather a number of Green Lanterns, one has to ask: Which ones?
Even taking away the fact that there are literally thousands of Green Lanterns in the DC Universe (see above), there are dozens whose characters are deeply enough developed that fans would enjoy seeing them adapted to live action.
So...besides Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner and John Stewart, each of whom is already rumored to appear, who would we like to see show up on the big screen in the next Green Lantern movie? Read on...!
Kyle Rayner
The biggest, most obvious omission when you consider that the rumors say Hal, John and Guy are all part of the movie is Kyle Rayner, who headlined the Green Lantern title following the loss of Hal Jordan, who went crazy and killed the rest of the Green Lantern Corps in the early '90s.
(Don't worry, they got better.)
Kyle was the only Green Lantern for years, serving as the main character of the monthly title from 1994 until 2005's Green Lantern: Rebirth. He was also kind of the Spider-Man of the Green Lantern universe, a young, hip character who also represented an everyman whose responsibilities as Green Lantern were thrust upon him by circumstance.
Kyle would be a great addition to the film and his fan base would love to see him represented, but since the story in the comics required the more "traditional" Lantern candidates to be out of the picture for a while, and since three human Green Lanterns is already a lot for one movie that will also presumably serve as a reintroduction of the mythology, a fourth one might be hard to justify.
Kilowog
Kilowog, the trainer of the Green Lanterns, appeared in the Ryan Reynolds version of the film, but as we've seen with Marvel's Daredevil, that shouldn't necessarily discourage an appearance the second time around.
The Green Lantern of Sector 674, Kilowog is the last survivor of Bolovax Vik, giving him an interesting backstory, and the culture of Bolovax Vik tended toward the very socialist, often putting him at odds with other heroes, particularly Guy Gardner, the "all-American" Green Lantern who grew up admiring General Glory (DC's answer to Capatin America). He (and a few others on this list) played a key role when the Corps was reduced to only a few members, all of whom were headquartered on Earth.
He's a great character who has one of the most unique voices in the Green Lantern Corps and plays a great counterpoint to Sinestro, the expert/trainer who betrayed the team.
His strange look also conveys something that most other really popular Green Lanterns do not: a sense of the truly alien.
Katma Tui
If we're going to have a movie in which John Stewart plays a significant role, we really ought to introduce Katma Tui.
Briefly Stewart's wife, her death was one of a number of tragic events that defined his future -- but while she was alive, she had an even more profound effect on him, humanizing the heretofore less-developed Green Lantern and helping to differentiate him from the dozens of minor Corps members who were a part of the DC Universe at the time.
She's also a cool, interesting character in her own right, and while we wouldn't recommend actually killing her onscreen, setting up the conflict between Katma and the Star Sapphire -- one of the villains most likely to appear in a Green Lantern film -- could be a lot of fun.
She was also another member of the "Green Lantern Corps of Earth," a concept that gave a lot of tangential characters some great development and helped to really solidify the relationships between characters.
Arisia
Despite being the subject of one of the creepiest Green Lantern stories of all time, where she aged herself to adulthood and then used that new status quo to engage in a relationship with adult Green Lantern Hal Jordan, Arisia is an interesting character in her own right, who had some great stories both in the pages of the Green Lantern titles and in Guy Gardner: Warrior.
She'd also be an interesting change of pace; as a young woman whose father was her world's Green Lantern, she's got the kind of "daddy issues" subplot that nearly every male character in fiction is saddled with built in, although we rarely see the father/daughter relationship explored in the same way.
Arisia is an underutilized character in general, but she's one of the most recognizable female Green Lanterns (hell, her costume is easy to find at Halloween time, marketed as the female version of a Green Lantern uniform). In a world where having at least one major female character in your big tentpole franchise is a big asset, bringing in Katma, or Arisia, or both, would be a good idea.
Simon Baz
Recently introduced as one of the main characters of the New 52's Green Lantern Corps, Simon Baz is one of the few human Green Lanterns not represented by the three-man tag-team rumors.
As we said above, since three human Green Lanterns is already a lot for one movie that will also presumably serve as a reintroduction of the mythology, a fourth one might be hard to justify. But between the importance of the character to DC executive Geoff Johns and the press a Muslim Green Lantern would get, it could certainly be a plausible option.
Jessica Cruz
One of the most recent additions to the Green Lantern family, Cruz is Power Ring, a Punisher with a power ring.
And that could be a lot of fun, really.
Her ring comes with the bonus of being from Earth-3, which opens the door to the Multiverse. That's something that would please a lot of comic book fans, but obviously it would be hard to follow for some casual fans...and it's a concept already being played with in Season Two of The Flash.
Mogo
He's the planet at the center of the image at top.
And he's alive.
And he's awesome.
Put Mogo in the movie, Warner Bros. Do it.
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