What if Hal Jordan had never been selected to become the Green Lantern of Sector 2814. This quandary was presented to Jordan when he discovered a backup Green Lantern had been selected for him, if ever he became incapacitated. And this man would ultimately have a tragic tale when he donned the Emerald Crusader’s spandex uniform, both in the potential past and also in the probable future.
This substitute sentinel, Guy Gardner would have as sad a tale as his counterpart, Mister Billings. While Gardner was a physical fitness instructor, Billings was a wealthy financier. Both were deemed worthy to wield the emerald batteries, each originating from the Guardians of the Universe. The predecessor possessors of these powerful objects were the adventuring alien Abin Sur and the academic Asian Ulthoon.
It wasn’t just Abin Sur and Ulthoon who something commendable in these morally flawed men. Traveling counselor Kari Limbo and rich heiress Miss Smythe also found themselves endeared to these maverick men, and would oversee their therapy over the years until both regained their sanity and reclaimed their lives.
On Earth-Two, Billings actually inherited the green lantern of Ulthoon while residing in Gotham City’s Arkham Asylum. Having been driven insane when a broker cost him his fortune, which led to Billings taking that man’s life, he was now motivated to recondition the lantern into a more contemporary design. In the process of doing so, Billing’s fractured psyche was healed, and he left the asylum a sane man once more, with the lantern next in the possession of engineer Alan Scott, the golden age Green Lantern..
On Earth-One, Guy would later be called upon to substitute for Hal in an adventure that led to the power battery exploding, sending Guy into other dimension only to be retrieved by Hal only after losing his sanity. He would eventually be called upon to officially become a Green Lantern years later when Hal retired.
However, had Guy been selected instead of Hal, he would’ve had a similar early history as Green Lantern. The Guardians allowed Jordan to see an alternate timeline wherein Gardner too up the reigns of Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814. As such, Gardner would have had confrontations with many of Jordan’s nemesis, such as Sonar, Shark, Black Hand, Doctor Polaris and Sinestro. However, Guy would take a side trip to the planet Ghera to aid the world’s orphaned children, as their parents all perished. Returning home, Guy learned he too contracted the yellow plague which claimed the lives of all adult Gherans.
On a third parallel planet, a mysterious man was selected by the Ulthoon of his world to inherit a power ring similar to those worn by the Green Lanterns. Empowered by the same emerald meteorite upon which Scott and Billings’ lanterns and then rings were carved from, this jewelry from the stars gave the man Diamond Jack the ability to wage a crusade against crime on his home world of Earth-S. Sadly, like his counterparts Gardner and Billings, Jack had a short-lived career before disappearing from the scene
No comments:
Post a Comment