Follow TV Tropes

Following

Comic Book / Green Lanterns

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/green_lanterns.jpg
Pictured from left to right: our titular heroes, Green Lanterns Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz, actually getting along for a change!

Jessica Cruz: Courage over fear. Light over darkness. I keep repeating these to myself so I don't feel so afraid. In Brightest Day, in Blackest Night.
Simon Baz: No evil shall escape my sight. Blah blah blah. Protect and serve. You know the rest.
Green Lanterns, Issue #1 (Internal Monologues)

Green Lanterns — not to be confused with Green Lantern, which is the franchise as a whole — is a comic book series published by DC Comics, introduced as part of the 2016 DC Rebirth line-wide relaunch event.

The reason for the pluralized title is straightforward: instead of a single title hero, at launch it featured dual protagonists, both of whom are newly-inducted members of the Green Lantern Corps. Like all Rebirth titles are, it is intended to continue from the New 52 continuity, while also acting as a suitable jumping-on-point for new readers. It kicked off with a Rebirth "one-shot" that acted as both a setup for Green Lanterns itself (which continues from there with an "Issue 1"), and a tease for the central characters' appearance in the new Justice League comics.

At the start of the series, the central protagonists are rookie Earth-based Lanterns Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz, both of whom were previously introduced during New 52 (Simon in Green Lantern in 2012, Jessica in Justice League - as Power Ring - in late 2014). Much like a Buddy Cop film, the two have vastly different personalities (cautious vs impulsive), which hypothetically could complement each others'... assuming they don't rip each other apart in irritation first, since they fail to get along from the moment they meet, and thus begin to blunder rather spectacularly.

This prompts Hal, in the opening "one-shot" chapter, to fuse their Power Batteries together so that they're forced to charge their Power Rings at the same time and place, forcing them to learn to work together. Hal then goes off to space on his own mission, leaving Earth in their care.

Of course, the moment he leaves, the rookie-protected planet gets invaded by the Red Lantern Corps - oddly, not because they still are technically in charge of its sector, and Hal broke their agreement to have no active Green Lanterns in said sector, but for an arguably much worse reason.

In November of 2017, Sam Humphries announced that he would be leaving the series. Tim Seeley (best known for his Dick Grayson works) would be taking over, while Humphries would take over the Rebirth series Seeley launched, Nightwing. After Seeley Dan Jurgens wrote the final arc.

Note: Those planning to read the story in its original single-biweekly-issues format should be aware that an unusual (and confusing) numbering/naming system was used to kick off the series, which may cause them to inadvertently skip the second chapter in the story; see "Covers Always Lie" example, below, for more detail.


This series provides examples of:

  • Aborted Arc:
    • At one point Jessica is a fugitive from the Green Lanterns because they're afraid that she's altered her ring into a possibly Deadly Upgrade or that she could be heading into a Superpower Meltdown. Hal Jordan promises to bring her in himself. Then the writer changed. The plotline is resolved when they meet up and talk after a different situation temporarily made Jessica Brainwashed and Crazy, and Jessica points out that all she did was re-write her ring with willpower — not unlike what Hal did when he used willpower to make a ring whole-cloth. Hal immediately agrees and apologises to her, calling off the entire manhunt. Since Jessica was also being hunted for the other situation, the plot with her ring has absolutely no impact and is tied up in less than two pages.
    • Plotlines concerning Simon and Jessica learning how to re-adjust to society are largely dropped in the second half of the book, with the focus instead going to Simon's romantic life and Jessica dealing with her ring. Simon's supporting cast largely disappears, he moves off of Earth and stops having to deal with the stigma of being falsely accused of terrorism, Jessica's job is dropped and never mentioned again, and Jessica's crippling social anxiety becomes an Informed Attribute.
    • Both of the arcs involving the Phantom Ring end in ways implying a follow-up would come, but neither Frank Laminski nor Cyborg Superman ever resurfaced to use the Phantom Ring to get their revenge against the Green Lanterns either here or in subsequent Green Lantern series.
  • Action Duo: With Jessica being the Action Survivor half and Simon being Action Hero half, the two form a rather rocky alliance of superheroes that still manage to get the job done.
  • Amoral Attorney: Singularity Jain is this trope in the extreme, an alien Baroness lawyer who is a living black hole. She ropes her clients (usually desperate criminals) into owing her favors, making them kill people for her, and if they don't go through with it it's heavily implied she eats them.
  • Ascended Extra: Frank Laminski, the racist, sexist Jerkass from Geoff Johns' Secret Origin storyline who appeared in only the second part of the arc was promptly forgotten afterwards, returns as a major character in the Phantom Lantern arc, where he is given the Phantom Ring by Volthoom and Simon and Jessica have to get the ring away from him.
  • Assimilation Backfire: A rather spectacular example occurs in Issue #3, when a Red Lantern attempts to convert Simon Baz by infecting him with Rage. Instead, he fights back against it, controls his anger, and winds up choosing to try curing her of her Rage instead! Successfully.
  • Back from the Dead: Despite having been pretty comprehensively killed back in Wrath of the First Lantern, Volthoom returns in Issue #9. Mostly, at least. He's been reduced to a living shade, forced to survive by feeding off emotions.
  • Badass Creed: Frank Laminski makes up his own version on stealing the Phantom Ring, which matches the previous GL creeds.
    In desperate day, in hopeless night,
    The Phantom Ring is our last light...
    We yearn for power, strength and might...
    I seize the ring, that is my right!
  • Better as Friends: During the Caper app arc, Jessica discovers that the app's algorithm thinks her and Simon would make an ideal couple, which makes her briefly doubt their Platonic Life-Partners status. In the end though, she ultimately decides on this and dismisses any feelings as just confusion on her part. Simon then casually informs her he got matched with her too, though he laughed it off because he'd already long-since friendzoned her.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: When Guy Gardener trains Jessica in Issue #23, he is such a Drill Sergeant Nasty that she eventually snaps and punches him, followed by an Oh, Crap! moment.
  • Beyond the Impossible: A textbook example in Issue #3, where Simon manages to severe Bleez's connection with her Red Lantern Power Ring and heal her not only of the Ring's emotional, psychological and physical effects, but even to heal her body so thoroughly that her wings - previously destroyed before she was even a Red Lantern - wind up completely intact. He does this entirely on his own, despite the fact that all previously-established in-universe rules for this kind of thing would require the presence of a Blue Lantern. Who would have to do the part that Simon actually did. By himself. With a Green Lantern Power Ring, and only a Green Lantern Power Ring. Did we mention that part? There is no explanation in the book given for how this was possible, leaving the reader only with the implication that his Heroic Willpower is just that strong.
    • In fact, at this point, Simon is just a walking textbook case of this trope. First, there was his being chosen by a Ring that was a combination of Sinestro's Yellow Power Ring and Hal's Green Power Ring (seemingly impossible). Which coincidentally plucked him straight out of his wrongful imprisonment in the (seemingly inescapable) Guantanamo Bay facility and yes, we mean that facility. And then there's the fact that in one of his previous books, he had used this same power ring to heal someone supposedly "beyond" the abilities of a Green Lantern Ring's healing capabilities. In fact, that last incident is why he even thought to try the above Third Option in the first place, which makes one wonder exactly how far this is going to keep escalating.
      • In "Green Lantern: New Guardians", Kyle had Simon try to use to his White Lantern Ring to resurrect Sinestro's obliterated planet, with Kyle knowing of Simon's miraculous feats with a Green Ring. Simon attempts it and seems to actually make headway in bringing back the planet, but unfortunately, couldn't pull the feat off this time. Still, even back then, he was known for his Beyond the Impossible feats as a Power Ring wielder.
    • Among Simon's unprecedented abilities is his gift of "Emerald Sight", which allows him to foresee possible events before they occur. This has served to forewarn both him and Jessica, and has spurred him to take action in situations where he had been in a slump. For example, in Issue #29, it lights the fire under his and the collective first Green Lanterns' butts to go after the Volthoom of the past and stop him before he completely destroys the homeworld of the soon-to-be Guardians. That particular instance is made more noteworthy because he channeled this power through a few remaining shards embedded in his arm that was once his Ring, which had been functionally useless up to that point.
    • While wearing multiple Power Rings isn't unprecedented in this Franchise, Issue 30 still has a seeming impossible feat undergone by Simon once again. After starting the "Out of Time" arc off having his Power Ring destroyed, with only a few tiny shards embedded in his arm remaining of it, he and Jessica are thrown back in time and Simon has to spend the majority of the arc feeling helpless and relying on Jessica for pretty much everything. Come the climax of the arc, the first Green Lantern fledglings take the battle to the Volthoom of the past, who curbstomps them all, completely killing 3 of them. Volthoom has Jessica in his sights next, and a Ringless and scared Simon goes to fisticuffs Volthoom. He manages to get a few clean hits in, catching Volthoom off guard, which is feat-worthy in itself, but the moment really happens right after. Volthoom goes after Simon instead of Jessica, but the courage and Willpower he showed standing up to Volthoom attracts 4 of the first 7 Green Lantern Power Rings to his fingertips!note  To place this in perspective, Simon ends the 30th issue having gone from helpless and Ringless to successfully attracting and wielding not 1, but 4 of the first and most powerful Green Lantern Rings ever created. Rings that do not have a limiter to their Willpower accumulation (which is dangerous due to a serious risk of internal burnout and external explosion from unskilled bearers). And he now has 4 of them!
  • Big Bad:
    • The Red Lantern Corps, and most especially their leader Atrocitus, are responsible for the threats of the series' first arc.
    • The Phantom Ring arc has Frank Laminski, though he's being manipulated by Volthoom
    • A past version of Volthoom headlines as the antagonist of the "Out of Time" arc.
  • Both Sides Have a Point: Simon and Batman's conflict over the former carrying a gun. Simon is right in that, personal trauma aside, it's arbitrary and hypocritical to disdain carrying a gun when Batman has lethal armaments much more dangerous like missiles and bombs at his disposal. Batman is right in that Simon doesn't need a gun for the purported purpose of backup if the ring isn't enough; firstly, because anything that can take the ring will be invulnerable to a gun, secondly the ring runs on his confidence so having a crutch like that makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy that it'll fail.
  • Brick Joke: The teddy bear Simon essentially steals from a store somewhere during the first arc? He holds on to it for the remainder of the story arc, it nonchalantly appearing in scenes and everything, until the end and the aftermath where the Lanterns return to the store it was "stolen" from and he says he's going to find a clerk whom he can pay for the bear.
  • Call-Back: Many times through Green Lantern, the rings are shown to have a limited charge, and warn wielders that they're pushing the rings too far. In issue 28, we finally get a good example of what happens without those safeguards - one of the first seven Green Lanterns has too much willpower, and promptly combusts.
  • The Call Knows Where You Live: Played very, very straight. Not only did previous series show this happened to both Simon and Jessica despite their extreme physical isolation (the Call found Jessica hiding in her basement and failed to be fended off even with a shotgun, while Simon was plucked right out of Guantanamo Bay), they also both get nagged by their Rings to respond whenever there's an emergency, making it a Call that not only knows where they live but won't stop calling, and refuses to leave a message.
  • Car Fu: Simon in Issue 2 uses a construct of an armored truck to break through a wall and a large crowd in order to save Jessica. Because it's a construct, this overlaps with the Hard Light trope, too.
  • Casual Danger Dialogue: A few cases, and on top of that, lampshaded on occasion:
    • When Simon and Jessica first meet in the "one-shot", there's a crashed and potentially dangerous "unknown spacecraft" that they've both been called to investigate, but their initial conversation consists entirely of Simon wondering who died to make her a Green Lantern too ("Please tell me it was Guy Gardner"), and Jessica being just plain confused as to what the hell he's talking about.
    • In Issue 1, Jessica manages to spout a reasonably authoritative-sounding Green Lantern-specific version of "come out with your hands up", Simon smirks and says "Hey, that actually sounded decent. You been practicing?"
    • Lampshaded in Issue 3, when Jessica notes, while in the middle of a quip, that she "keeps talking" to keep herself distracted from her anxiety, she stops to ponder... "wait, is that why the Flash never shuts up?"
  • Catchphrase: When he's in trouble, Simon often refers to himself as the "impossible lantern" or notes that he's "done the impossible before".
  • Celeb Crush: Jessica has one on Nightwing, hoping to get matched up with him on the Caper dating app.
  • Chekhov's Boomerang: That healing ability Simon discovered back in his initial run in Green Lantern sure has come in handy, hasn't it? Twice, in fact, within the first 6 issues of the run. Subverted in the final issue of the "Rage Planet" arc, though, as the ability fails to work on Atrocitus, who shrugs it right off and scoffs at him even trying it
  • Chekhov's Gun: Several times, but most notably:
    • The "one-shot" - Hal Jordan fusing their Power Batteries together to force them to charge their Rings at the same time. Meant as a team-building exercise, but of course, this is a Green Lantern story, so several chapters later, one of them needs to charge theirs and the other is... let's just say, definitely unavailable at the time.
    • The mention of "Rings" and a "Tower" and a "Blue Lady" by the angry redneck in issue #1, considering he was infected with rage energy, makes a lot more sense when we see Atrocitus monologuing about the Red Lanterns' plans. The "Tower" is a key component in the plan, the Blue Lady is one of the Red Lanterns, and the Red Lanterns use Power Rings.
    • An ironic subversion towards the end of the first arc: It's mentioned fairly early in the series that Simon carries a loaded handgun as a "backup" in case the Ring runs out on him, and Jessica calls him out on this, saying he's a hypocrite and calling him insecure for relying on it instead of his Ring. You would think, therefore, that when Simon's Ring begins to run out of charge, that he'd wind up using it... he doesn't, though, because the person he'd have to use it on is his own partner and he's unwilling to do it.
  • Comic-Book Time: Unsurprising for a DC Comics series, as the DCU pretty much runs on this, but it's pretty jarring when, in the prologue one-shot, Simon Baz - who has been a character in the Green Lantern books since 2012 in Real Life publication time - is referred to as having been a Green Lantern for only "a few weeks longer" than Jessica Cruz (which was likely done as a Hand Wave for why Simon and Jessica are now peers and partners instead of Simon being Jessica's mentor, which would make more sense and is what was originally foreshadowed). Speaking of which, subtler but still notable is that Jessica Cruz also only "recently" became a Green Lantern, as of the Green Lanterns books published in 2016. For some perspective, Jessica Cruz herself was introduced to the Justice League comics in late 2014 (by publication date)... yet it's implied that significantly less than a year has gone by since she was working with them. What happened to most of 2015 (this was likely "justified" on the fact that Jessica wasn't an "official" Green Lantern until the end of the Justice League arc she was introduced in, though it still discounts her time as Power Ring in doing so)?
    • This follows the same protagonists outside this one book, too: Comic-Book Time applies as much or more - and becomes especially confusing - when you consider that the characters also appear together in the Rebirth-era Justice League, which was published concurrently with Green Lanterns but has a completely different world-threatening story. Both the early chapters of Green Lanterns and the first chapter of Justice League feature Jessica struggling to create her first proper Hard Light construct, which makes them seem like they're taking place at the same time, but the Justice League isn't involved in fighting the Red Lantern invasion, and Simon and Jessica aren't dealing with a tsunami from the JL comics' plot in the middle of the Red Dawn, either. It's unclear which book is supposed to actually be set before the other, as both stories take place over a relatively short In-Universe period of time, too.
  • Continuity Nod: During issue #9, Frank's flashbacks show John Stewart's first appearance as a Lantern, followed by Guy with the New 52 version of the Justice League International, then Kyle.
    • During the Superhuman Trafficking arc, The Lanterns apprehend a member of the Omega Men, who leads them to Garnet AKA Hellhole. Direct attention is called to how Hellhole has no authority at all, let alone Corps presence. It did have a Lantern, Jack T. Chance, but he died during the Sinestro Corps War, with the Guardians apparently writing the whole damn sector off afterwards.
  • Continuity Overlap: Humphries' tenure runs parallel to Robert Venditti's Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps. With Hal going after Sinestro in that book, Green Lanterns is initially isolated and doesn't sync up until late in the run after the GLC has returned and been re-established.
  • Covers Always Lie:
    • More than one example, actually, though the most blatant one is definitely the fact that the Green Lanterns: Rebirth issue, which was described by the publisher as a "one-shot", actually includes a normal "issue numbering" circle up top with a "1" in it... as does the issue of the series that takes place after it. Yes, really. Given that fans walked into the Rebirth event full well knowing there would be a Variant Cover for each issue of each series, including the "Rebirth one-shots"? This probably caused more than a few people to accidentally skip the second issue in the series and go straight to the third one (which was, after all, labeled as "Issue 2"). If you're wondering, the surefire way to tell the difference between the "one-shot" and the "real Issue 1" is this: the "one-shot" book that kicked the series off features a small Green Lanterns logo placed above a sizable Rebirth logo, while the issue that continues the story from that one's end has a small DC Universe Rebirth logo on top, and a much larger Green Lanterns logo underneath that. Yes, really.
    • One of '"Issue 2"'s covers (the one by Emanuela Lupacchino) doesn't illustrate the issue at all. Leaving aside that there is at no point a random green explosion of power coming from Jessica Cruz's chest within the issue itself, the part that makes it truly Blatant Lies is that the other, male Green Lantern on the cover is very definitely not Simon Baz, as he not only lacks Baz's extremely distinctive uniform, but also looks nothing like him (even the haircut is different!). If one had to guess based on appearances, he's probably supposed to be Hal Jordan... who has not appeared in the series since the end of the Green Lanterns: Rebirth one-shot.
  • Deuteragonist: As to be expected from a series launched with two protagonists, the most important character isn't consistent for every issue. In the opening "Rage Planet" arc, there's slightly more focus on Simon's half to of the story, but Jessica's story is still as important - to the point of impacting the climax of the arc - thus making her the second most important character in the comic.
    • On the whole, the two tend to swap by arc, if not occasionally by issue. You can usually tell who's what by who is doing the narrating in the current issue (though a few issues have both alternate).
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: The "Out of Time" has Jessica and Simon go back in time by 10 billion years to meet the first 7 Green Lanterns formed to defeat Volthoom. The 7 Lanterns have power rings with no safeguards, have only just started using them, and are only given basic preliminary training on how to use them by Simon and Jessica, while Volthoom has had years of experience using his and full access to the emotion spectrum. The end result? One of the Green Lanterns dies when her power ring overloads in her first attempt to use it, and the remainder are quickly slaughtered almost to a man in their first encounter with Volthoom.
  • Ditzy Genius: Kaja Dox, one of the first seven Green Lanterns. She's a third-level intelligence (which isn't actually that great by DC genius standards), making her the smartest person on her planet, but she's largely directionless and getting by on odd jobs until one of Rami's rings comes to find her.
  • Divided We Fall: The Red Lantern Corps purposefully triggers this trope as they take advantage of the existing Teeth-Clenched Teamwork dynamic between the two heroes; by Issue #4 one of the main duo is infected with the Red Light of Rage.
  • The Dragon: Bleez, the right-hand girl of the Red Lantern Corps, entrusted with Atrocitus' devious plan, functions as this (with Atrocitus as the connected bigger bad behind it all, naturally) in the "Rage Planet" arc. True to the trope, Simon and Jessica must face her before either of them gets anywhere close to Atrocitus, though the fight goes... differently than you might expect.
  • Emotion Bomb: Thanks to the Red Lantern Corps, Emotion Bombs that instill rage occur in spots all over the Earth in the appropriately-named "Rage Planet" arc, causing an immediate crisis as people start to go full-on berserker and cause violent riots. It's also indicated via one of Simon's psychic visions during that same arc that something like this will at some future point also be used against the Justice League, turning them also into angry berserkers that the titular heroes of the book will have to face; given that the rage-infected people in that vision included Superman and Wonder Woman, and given the arc's ending issue showing a baby Butcher Entity - aka a universal Embodiment of Rage - growing in the Earth's core, it is implied this is still going to occur (which would provide a second example of the trope)...and also that it's going to be really, really nasty when it does occur.
  • Ensign Newbie: Played straight on two counts, as both the main characters are rookies (or at least treated as such by the story), but they're immediately assigned by Hal Jordan to protect the entire planet Earth. Acknowledged and lampshaded in the first issue, when Simon, already annoyed at Jessica's cluelessness when an apparent emergency came up, insists that he should get more say or be in charge over her, because "I have seniority," only for Hal to point out that it's only by "a few weeks". Jessica is a particularly extreme example though, as she never even got to train on Oa like most other Green Lanterns, being immediately put in the field instead. Justified as literally only Simon, Jessica and Hal seem to be left out of the Corps, and Hal is explicitly stated to be going off into space to look for the rest of the Corps. Earth is a trouble magnet, so it needs careful watching, and Hal can't stay to do it.
  • Exact Words: Having been originally programmed by the Guardians, the Rings are very literal. Played for Laughs - repeatedly - when Jessica first tries to show off her abilities to her sister, tries flying, and then asks her Ring to "put me back on the ground" a moment later. It does so, but not gracefully. She blurts out that she's "dying", and the Ring then informs her that she isn't, because it detects "no internal injuries". When she clarifies she means "of embarrassment", the Ring announces: "Scanning for Embarrassment...".
  • Extreme Omnivore: Singularity Jain's Establishing Character Moment has her swallow a starship. She also eats Lantern constructs, and almost eats Jessica.
  • Five-Second Foreshadowing: In issue #3, Jessica tells Simon she "doesn't feel well" literally only a page before the Wham Shot of her attacking him, having been infected by the Rage herself.
  • Foreshadowing: Several examples; there's the outright prophecies given by or visualized by both sides in the opening three chapters, there's the reference to the "Tower" and a "Blue Lady" in issue #1 (who is in fact later revealed to have been Bleez)...
    • ...and then the "Rage Planet" arc ends with a Wham Shot indicating it was a PyrrhicVictory because there's a new Butcher entity growing in the center of the Earth, which implies the scariest of Simon's "Emerald Sight" psychic visions is going to come true at some point.
    • And from later in the series, the Grand Theft Me example further down the page was also foreshadowed a few pages before the reveal of it to the reader, though as a reader, one might not pick up on it having been that until the last page of the issue, as the book makes it initially look plausible that Rami could have beaten Volthoom...only to reveal in the last page of the book that he didn't, and is trapped in a Soul Jar.
  • Forgot About His Powers: As a result of New Powersasthe Plot Demands, Simon does not always use his non-standard GL powers when it would make sense to. Also, even when they're trying to train him, none of the other Green Lanterns take time to investigate these powers or help him figure out how to use them. For example: his ability to see the future would be useful in a lot of situations where he doesn't seem to even consider it.
  • From Bad to Worse: Though only loosely-referenced (and referenced more so in the other GL book, Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps), most of the original Green Lantern Corps members have recently and suddenly vanished and the Central Precinct on Oa has apparently been destroyed, leaving pretty much just Hal, Jessica and Simon. While Hal deals with/investigates that off in his own book, he leaves Earth with the two rookies, both of whom already barely get along with each other...only for there to be an almost immediate invasion by the Red Lantern Corps, who want to turn the Earth into their new base/power source.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Frank Liminski becomes this when he succeeds in stealing and begins wearing the Phantom Power Ring.
  • The Fundamentalist: Jan-Al, one of the first seven Green Lanterns. Near every sentence out of her mouth has the word "Rao" in there somewhere, and she truly believes he is speaking to her at all times. As she's dying, she's still screaming for Rao to step in and help her rather than actually trying to do something herself.
  • Grand Theft Me: At the end of the Phantom Ring arc, Volthroom pulls this on Rami, taking over his body and putting his soul in an energy container. No one is aware of this.
  • Great Big Book of Everything: A weird example that is arguably Playing With the trope. The Book of Oa is a staple of Green Lantern books and is a dead-on example of the trope, down to being a literal giant book with turn-able pages that show the information; yet in execution it's somehow combined with a normal Omniscient Database, in that the Green Lantern Corps Power Rings happen to be connected to it long-distance and able to reference most of its information from anywhere in the universe. Again, it's literally shown to be a giant book, which you can in-person read and turn the pages of... yet the Rings can access it like it was a networked computer database, too. You don't immediately see it in the Green Lanterns book, it should be noted, particularly since the planet originally housing it got vanished at the end of the preceding comics to this series, however, there hasn't been any apparent interruption in Simon and Jessica's Power Rings' ability to access all the intergalactic laws and Corps history and whatnot listed in it, so it's implied to still exist off-panel, especially considering the previous Green Lantern title ended on a Flash Forward that utilized the Book, with an in-person historian reading from it used as a framing device (they even referred to a particular question being unanswerable because "those pages have been burned out of" the Book! As in, yes, the physical pages literally store that information). With the recent return of the rest of the Corps over in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps, we'll presumably find out at some point where the heck the actual physical Book has gone.
  • Green-Skinned Space Babe: Bleez is this, as though she's not literally green, it's still definitely not a color humans would come in. Then again, humans don't come with skeletal wings, either.
  • Hard Light: One of the famous functions of the Green Lantern Rings is giving them the ability to make "constructs" out of this... though Jessica has trouble with making these for a number of issues due to "insufficient Willpower".
  • Heel–Face Door-Slam: The character mentioned first in the Heel Realization examples below, from issue #3, had genuinely decided to do good and was already trying to help the heroes... and then that Interrupted Cooldown Hug happened, and caused the Rage to re-infect them into a Red Lantern all over again. Given how Red Lanterns work, this means the character's newly-healed heart (the physical one, mind) literally just got destroyed, and the character's blood instantly replaced with something that they can only survive with the Red Lantern Corps Ring on, forcing them to work once again with Atrocitus. It took a massive, downright miraculous effort to heal them in the first place, and now that maddening "sound" is back in their head, their cardiac system is wrecked again, and they're once again unable to completely control their Rage and dependent on the Ring for survival. All because Jessica rejected them. The character out and out says that they feel most angry at the fact that a whole new "world" (read: of not being influenced by the Red Lantern Ring) was shown to them and then "taken away". This Door Slam might not be permanent though, as the Red Lantern in question definitely still wants to be free of Atrocitus. Only time will tell.
  • Heel Realization: More than one case actually;
    • Bleez the Red Lantern has one of these in issue #3, when cured of the Rage — even going so far as to say "I thought I was fighting injustice... but I was perpetuating it!". The realization is so horrifying to the character in question, that said character tries to kill herself before being stopped by one of the heroes, who encourages her to move forward and seek redemption by trying to be a good person in the future, instead. A shame it doesn't last for long...
    • Surprisingly, Frank Laminski of all people, in issue #14. Being made to feel Compassion by the Indigo Light convinces him to change his ways completely. Ultimately subverted in that case, though, because he decides he is not worthy when it comes to the Phantom Ring, and takes it off. And as soon as the Ring comes off... the Indigo Light of Compassion stops influencing him, and he immediately becomes the same jerk he always was and is baffled why he'd take it off.
  • Hero of Another Story: Hal Jordan shows up in the opening "one-shot"... for a few pages. His entire role is to tell the rookies how badly they just screwed up and why, order them to suck it up and learn to work together, fuse their power batteries together to force them to charge their Rings at the same time and place as each other to reinforce that order, and then promptly go off into space. Justified Trope, as he's going to off to investigate where all the other several thousand Green Lanterns have literally vanished to, which is covered in a separate book, Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps. He leaves Earth in their care because he has to.
  • Hope Spot:
    • Simon nearly succeeds towards the end of "Rage Planet", when he tries to heal Atrocitus with the same power that let him cure both Jessica and Bleez of their Rage infections, and realizes that he can only go Beyond the Impossible so many times before he meets something actually Impossible - because it turns out Atrocitus' eons-old Rage is incurable by that method.
    • Poor Jessica gets a few of these throughout the "Rage Planet" arc, while trying to make her first proper Hard Light construct; most notable? When she tried to make a net to restrain someone she cared about who was infected with Rage energy and about to succeed, and felt really happy and proud... right up until that same loved one made an emotionally brutal statement that triggered Jessica's feelings of guilt and anxiety. The construct then evaporated before it could fully form. Meaning, she also couldn't safely restrain said loved one...
  • How Do I Shot Web?:
    • And how. Jessica has never been properly trained in her new powers before being forced to protect the Earth alongside Simon and it shows. Not only does she struggle to make constructs in the early chapters, she actually notes at one point in her Internal Monologue that she had asked her Ring to tell her everything about itself, where she learned little tidbits like the "morphology" type and serial number of her Ring and how many other people had it before her. But not how to make constructs, which she apparently needs to learn for herself. Funnily enough, averted with Simon, who is the one who keeps gaining New Powers as the Plot Demands and getting confused by them. The reason being Jessica is the cautious planning type who tries to learn as much as possible before she acts, while Simon just hasn't thought to ask the Ring these things because he's more impulsive.
    • Played for Laughs when we see Jessica showing off her new abilities to her sister. She asks the Ring to make her fly, which it does. She then asks it to put her back on the ground, which it also does... if you count "ramming her into the ground hard enough to make a small crater" as "putting her back on the ground" (which apparently the Ring does).
    • Eventually, Jessica does manage to learn how to generate constructs, starting with issue 9.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: Frank Laminski is desperately driven by his desire to be somebody, anybody, having focused his attention on becoming a Green Lantern ever since he was saved by Hal Jordan years ago, to the neglect and detriment of his career and everyone else in his personal life.
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: In issue #4, between Simon and Jessica, with Jessica being the one infected with Rage energy and Simon trying desperately to talk her down because he refuses to hurt his partner.
  • Improvised Weapon: More than one example.
    • Issue #2 - Simon uses a construct of an armored truck as a battering ram to get into the store where Jessica is trapped. It worked for that purpose, because, well... armored truck.
    • Issue #3 - Jessica can't quite manage to manifest Hard Light constructs yet, so at one point in the issue, she just uses her Ring to lift a copy machine and ram it into the enemy. The good news is, it worked! The bad news is... it worked.
  • Imagination-Based Superpower: The only real requirement to be able to use a Green Lantern Corps Power Ring is being able to generate massive levels of Heroic Willpower, but the actual way the Ring is used is "shaped by your imagination", especially when it comes to the Hard Light construct abilities, which because they can be "anything you can imagine", can rapidly turn into a Swiss-Army Superpower. In fact, both the Swiss-Army Superpower and Imagination-Based Superpower articles on this Wiki can now be found listed on a disambiguation page that is named after the Green Lantern Corps Power Rings, because the Green Lantern franchise is the iconic former Trope Namer for at least one of them. That said, Simon isn't always creative about his imagined-up constructs, with one issue (#15) featuring him just making a giant boxing glove to hit the bad guy with... twice. In one scene. Issue #24 has Kyle point this out to Simon during their training session. He encourages Simon to be less blunt and more creative with how he uses his powers, and Simon begins to catch on by the end of it.
    • When Jessica finally begins to be able to make constructs, they tend to be animals or larger than life versions of people she admires.
  • Informed Attribute: Early in the series, Jessica's anxiety is debilitating and requires constant management. The book goes out of its way to showcase that the struggle is constant and affects every area of her life. Later on, although Jessica often mentions her anxiety and discomfort in large crowds, it stops affecting her actions and she stops using coping mechanisms.
    • It's hinted that a lot of her anxiety was caused by her refusal to deal with her friends' deaths and her connection to the power ring. After both are dealt with her struggle is dropped almost entirely. One issue has her gleefully dancing in a nightclub with no discomfort.
  • Internal Monologue: Frequently, and for several different characters; the page quote is one (or rather, two), and you can see "Multiple Narrative Modes", below for more specifics on the way it's used throughout the series.
  • Interrupted Cooldown Hug: In Issue #3, when Simon attempts and succeeds at triggering a Heel–Face Turn in one of the Red Lanterns... until Jessica shows back up to "defend" him against the "enemy", and ticks said Red Lantern off all over again. Particularly notable in that the roles of who would normally try to talk down an enemy vs impulsively attack without knowing what's going on would seem to be reversed from what you'd expect... and particularly ironic, since Simon gets frustrated with Jessica for doing exactly what he probably would have done had their situations been reversed.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Simon is a short-tempered, impulsive, acts arrogant to the point of being downright abrasive from the moment he and Jessica meet, and even steals a teddy bear from a wrecked store in the middle of a crisis. But he also shows signs of empathy for others at multiple points, including internally thinking that Jessica's reaction to her sister being infected with Rage energy in issue #2 is not unreasonable even if it's ill-timed. In fact, the whole section in issue #3 where he heals Bleez of her Rage came about in the first place because, when faced with his own pain from her trying to infect him with the Rage too, it instead caused him to empathize with her and decide to try and help her. And then he outright prevents her from committing suicide after her Heel Realization, choosing instead to encourage her to move forward with her life, like he once did. Oh, and the reason he stole the teddy bear was because he wanted to give it to Farid, his young nephew, for his birthday. And he does make sure to pay for it during the aftermath, too.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Several, especially in the narration from both protagonists, but within the first few issues alone we have...
    • "My name is Simon Baz. I'm like the seventeenth guy from Earth that was recruited by the Green Lantern Corps." Especially notable for the fact that by the time the series was first coming out, a common point of fan kvetching online was the addition of Simon and/or Jessica to the Corps because there were already four existing Green Lanterns from Earth alone, and how ridiculous the numbers seemed to be getting.
    • Jessica Cruz, when discussing in the narration why she was "shopping for towels", helpfully explains that "superheroes need to shower, too," because "these suits don't breathe."
    • Jessica's internal narration regarding her own dialogue at various points, including such gems as Issue #3's "Ugh. I give my quip a four out of ten" and the one-shot's "That sounded cool, right? Like I know what I'm doing? Because I have no idea what I'm doing."
    • Jessica even comments on her apparent role as The Millstone at one point, stating "omg I am the worst Green Lantern" in her own Internal Monologue.
    • And then issue #4 has Simon thinking he is The Millstone like Jessica did in the issue before, after realizing his arrogance has screwed them both over by ensuring that Jessica became susceptible to infection from the Rage energy right as his Ring was running out of battery life.
  • The Mentor: Rami decides to take this role for Simon and Jessica, as the rest of the Green Lantern Corps is too busy to do so. However, unbeknownst to anyone, this is actually Volthoom in Rami's body.
  • The Millstone:
    • Unfortunately, Jessica's lack of experience, lack of formal training, and insecurities lead to her being this fairly often in the opening issues. Issue #3 sports a particularly egregious case though, as she's responsible for causing Bleez's Heel Face Turn to reverse itself, by attacking her after Simon has healed her... causing Bleez to get ticked off all over again and become consumed by the Red Power Ring-induced rage energy worse than ever. Considering that Bleez was already giving Simon valuable intel on how to stop Atrocitus' evil master plan for the Earth, this was a monumental screw-up on her part, and the fact that she was completely certain she was "protecting" her partner didn't help much, when their first real ally in the crisis was flying off vowing revenge for the perceived Heel–Face Door-Slam
    • Since they're both rookies, it shouldn't be surprising that Simon realizes he has unwittingly become this in issue #4, though, balancing out poor Jessica's screw-ups, somewhat.
  • More than Mind Control: The rage-inducing Emotion Bombs the Red Lanterns seed the Earth with in the "Red Dawn" arc seem at first to make people into mindless berserkers, but are gradually implied to just be adding Rage to the "infected" person, while not necessarily changing their underlying personality/memories; in issue #2 Sara makes reference to her past rocky history with Jessica while attacking her while in issue #3 Jessica herself, after a buildup of about oh, the entire series so far, gets infected with the Rage, after presumably getting just that irritated with Simon not wanting to listen to her or take her seriously. In the latter case, she outright states "This rookie's about to kick your ass!", indicating that she's still somewhat aware of her own identity.
  • Multiple Narrative Modes: Both of the main characters get Internal Monologues at several points in any given issue; they're rendered as boxes with green backgrounds, with slight differentiation based on say, text color, and sometimes the shade of green, to separate the two narrative voices. In some issues - notably Issue #3 - Bleez and Atrocitus get the same, with the exception of their narration boxes' backgrounds being red.
    • Frank Laminski/The Phantom Lantern and Volthoom both carry on this tradition of the villains narrating their scenes, as does Neal Emerson/Dr. Polaris during his arc.
  • Mundane Utility: Issue #7 features Simon and Jessica using their Power Rings to help speed up the process of making ma'amoul for Halloween.
  • My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Rami was once a Guardian, but he, like Ganthet, decided rejecting all emotions ever was a stupid idea, and remains solidly very emotional.
  • Mythology Gag: After taking the Phantom Ring for himself, Frank Laminski's (fake) Green Lantern outfit looks like Hal Jordan's, but with a few elements of Hal's Parallax outfit (like the shoulder-pads and the large cape).
  • New Powers as the Plot Demands: With Simon, first when he gains the prophetic "Emerald Sight" ability out of nowhere, and then when he takes the already Beyond the Impossible level healing abilities he showed in another book and takes them up a notch by healing a Red Lantern of her Rage by himself for no other reason than he really wanted to help her. The repeated use of this trope with Simon (and especially, all that happening within the first three or four issues of the run) garnered some negative criticism from reviewers of the book.
  • Platonic Life-Partners: Simon and Jessica seems to be heading this way, as they've become incredibly close, with any chance of romance being shut down.
  • Powered by a Forsaken Child: During the opening arc, "Red Dawn", the Red Lantern Corps is revealed to be trying to initiate and stoke humanity's rage to create a new power source for their Rings.
  • Power Incontinence: Red Lanterns' rage-based power tends to spew from their mouths in the form of corrosive blood the more they get worked up. Particularly notable with Bleez during her attempt to infect Simon with the rage in issue #3, as it's spewing forth as she yells in his face.
    • In the "Phantom Ring" arc, a prototype Power Ring is revealed to exist that can tap into any part of the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum, meaning any of the various colors of Lantern Corps' abilities are available to it. The problem? Since it's a prototype, there's absolutely no safety features like there would be on the Green Lantern Corps Rings, and the user shifting emotion even slightly while using it leads to them switching powers unexpectedly... including, yes, to a Red Lantern's, complete with corrosive blood spewing from the mouth.

  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Jessica's personality is cautious, and somewhat insecure, to the point of "overthinking" things (understandable, if you know her previous arc in the Justice League comics), while Simon is portrayed as an impulsive, cranky hothead who doesn't always know when to look before he leaps.
  • Retcon: Issue #9 reveals that Simon wasn't the first choice for Sinestro/Hal's merged ring. It had actually gone to Frank Laminski first... only to change its mind at the last minute.
  • Ship Tease: Between Jessica and Simon in a few different issues, although it's downplayed overall (mostly relegated to a few Sheis Not My Girlfriend moments).
  • Space Police: Hal, Simon and Jessica all are members of the Green Lantern Corps, one of the Trope Codifiers. The series isn't so heavy in its early chapters on the "space" part since it's centered on Earth, but both aspects get some play, with things like the Rings giving alerts and announcements in the form of "Codes" ("Code Red-12" is a spike of red-light-based Rage energy for instance), and often defining those Codes for their users in lawyer-speak (such as "Code Six Zero Three: Unlawful Execution" for a murder). The "Space" part comes into play more when they realize the Earth is being invaded, though, and Simon drags Jessica out to space to see the massive number of Rage Spikes producing the Red Lantern Corps emblem across the face of the Earth, as well as in the opening "one-shot" where Simon and Jessica are simultaneously called to see to a crashed alien ship which turns out to be carrying a Manhunter robot. And also turns out to be a secret test, which they flunked by not figuring out how to work together. Oops.
    • The "Space" part eventually gets played up when Simon and Jessica are summoned before John Steward. The two spend a couple issues training, before the get shunted off to a falsely pretensed mission with Rami (who's still possessed by Volthoom).
  • Spicy Latina: Subverted. Jessica herself is as opposite the trope as you could get, being somewhat introverted, extremely cautious, insecure and shy. Even her more confident sister, Sara, is simply calmer and more self-assured, rather than a hot-blooded stereotype. The fact that they're both Latina is obvious from the fact that they have the last name "Cruz" and have slightly darker skin tones, but is otherwise ignored, at least within the first few issues.
  • Spin-Off: Simon Baz originated from Green Lantern before getting his own story in this comic, with Jessica additionally being spun off from her tenure as a different hero in Justice League.
  • Spoiler Cover: The cover to Issue #34 outright warns the reader to "Beware Liseth!" At that point, though, she hadn't been shown to be anything other than a sweet young idealist. It's not until four issues later that she reveals herself to a murderous Absolute Xenophobe.
  • The Starscream: Thanks to the events in Issue #3, Bleez becomes this once again for Atrocitus, because she now realizes she has an "out" from the Red Lantern Corps, but needs to hide the fact that she knows it lest he kill her. Given that factor and her history, it's inevitable she'll try to betray or work at cross-purposes with Atrocitus again in the future
  • Superhero Packing Heat: This trope is deconstructed in issues 16 and 17 as, when Simon and Jessica arrive in Gotham to help Batman, Batman throws a fit over Simon using a gun. Simon calls it his "Plan B" for when the ring fails. In fact, there have been times where the he didn't have the ring and he fell back onto the gun. However, when he's hit with the Scarecrow's fear gas, we come to find out that he uses the gun because he's afraid the ring will fail him and the people he loves will get hurt. He finally comes to realize that the ring failing him is because of his reliance of the "Plan B" and he decides to surrender the gun so he can overcome his fear.
    • In a bit of irony, Simon has his Ring destroyed by Volthoom at the beginning of the "Out of Time" arc, and is shunted to the ancient past along with Jessica. There he spends the majority of the arc Ringless and helpless, almost completely reversing The Millstone role Jessica primarily had at the beginning of the series. Early on, he curses Batman for convincing him to give up his gun, near right before he really could have used it.
  • Superman Stays Out of Gotham:
    • Played straight... and addressed in an interesting way in issue #3, where at that point, the only people investigating or handling the invasion of Earth by the Red Lantern Corps have been Simon, Jessica, and a handful of woefully outmatched, mundane police and FBI agents. The fact that there are other superheroes that aren't being put on this case is lampshaded when Jessica outright mentions on the first page that they "should contact the Justice League, get a plan together, right?" Simon completely ignores the comment, though. This is only one of several instances in a row where Simon barely listens, if at all, to Jessica, and blows off her instinctive urge to actually think things through and plan ahead. This tendency is something that's been causing tension between them... and which arguably leads to her getting infected with Rage at the end of the issue, seeing as her first post-infection words to him included: "This rookie is about to kick your ass!"
    • The series really likes bringing this factor up, actually; issue #4 has Simon's family members half-joking that when a mysterious alien shows up at their house looking for "Green Lantern" and they're unable to reach either Simon or Jessica, they should "call the Justice League" or pull out a "Bat-signal" or something. In this case, it's basically a Justified Trope in the sense that they would very much like to call the Justice League in to deal with the weird unsettling alien in their house, but don't know how.
    • The literal trope name is subverted, ironically enough. Batman actually asks Simon and Jessica to come to Gotham to help deal with a mysterious spate of fear-based infections. Every Gothamite they meet is hostile towards them, with Jim Gordon asking Simon if he has a permit to carry his gun and the issue ending with them getting told to get out of the city.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome
    • During the crossover with Batman, Jim Gordon takes the time to ask Simon if he has a permit for his gun. At the end of the arc, Simon decides to symbolically give the gun to Batman. Batman won't take it, and Simon has no clue what to do with it until Gordon offers to make sure it's properly disposed of.
    • Simon and Jessica are both asked by their families to get jobs. Simon's past as a falsely accused terrorist makes getting a job impossible for him, while Jessica disclosing that she has anxiety and agoraphobia mean that she doesn't get trusted with the front-of-the-house job she wanted. Slightly subverted, while Simon solves the problem of having to pay rent by squatting in the local Green Lantern prison, there's no mention of how he gets enough food to eat.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Between Simon and Jessica in the first arc, "Rage Planet", due to their completely conflicting personalities and ways of tackling problems; mostly resolved by the end of that arc, as though they still have their differences, they can at least get along.
    • True Companions: It not long after "Rage Planet" before Simon and Jessica become this to each other. They even become close enough to care about the other's emotional well-being. Two of the best exemplifications of this is when Jessica helps Simon cook the ma'amoul for Halloween as a means of helping Simon out before having to face his mother, and also when Simon returns the favor later by cooking Jessica pancakes that they share together after Jessica has an anxiety attack.
  • Token Minority: Played straight twice, in the sense that Simon Baz is the first Muslim member of the Green Lantern Corps and only the second non-white one (after John Stewart, who is black), while Jessica is both the first official female member from Earth and the first Hispanic or Latina one. Gradually averted in the series as a whole, however, as we're introduced to members of both of their families, some of whom, such as Jessica's sister (Sara) and the Amar family (Nazir, Sira,and Farid), are recurring characters.
  • Unusual Chapter Numbers: The "Rebirth one-shot" has a number 1 in the upper right corner of the cover... and yet the following issue does too, because it's considered the actual "Issue #1" in the series. See the "Covers Always Lie" examples, above.
  • Variant Cover: Every individual biweekly "floppy" format issue of the series for the first year and a half (and counting) has one Variant Cover released alongside the "main" cover, and this is including on the so-called "one-shot" issue; the knowledge that the series would be released with Variant Covers probably only exacerbated the Unusual Chapter Numbers-triggered issues noted above.
  • Wham Shot:
    • The sight of the red light from the "rage spikes" as seen from space... which recognizably form the Red Lantern Corps emblem. Which, again, was visible from space. This is accompanied by Jessica and Simon's Rings giving them a steadily increasing count of how many humans are "infected with rage"...
    • The final page of Issue #3 where Jessica is revealed to have just attacked Simon, having been infected with the Rage from the Red Lanterns' Emotion Bomb.
    • The final page of the "Rage Planet" arc which shows that the Red Lanterns are succeeding in their plan after all, with the "Rage Seed" hatching, and presumably becoming a baby Butcher entity... which is developing inside the Earth's core.
    • The last page of the Phantom Ring arc shows that Volthoom has pulled a Grand Theft Me on the Guardian Rami... with no one the wiser.
  • What Happenedtothe Mouse: After Simon moves out of his sister's house, his family pretty much disappears from the book. This is despite a large part of his previous character arc revolving around learning how to balance being a Green Lantern with being a member of their family. It doesn't help that a major conflict between Simon and his best friend/brother-in-law Nazir gets resolved in a single issue with basically no follow-up.
    • It's never revealed if Jessica lost her job after a villain showed up to wreck the place. Although she does specify that she probably isn't going to get the promotion she was asking her boss for, the plotline is otherwise completely dropped. There also isn't any follow-up on the fact that her boss saw her become Green Lantern.
    • Bleez doesn't appear after the Sequel Hook reveal that she's become The Starscream to Atrocitus.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: In issue #16, the Lanterns drop in on Batman to help out with a case, but when Bats catches sight of Simon's gun, he throws a fit - Simon's insistent that his gun is his "Plan B", but Batman knows that one stray bullet will change someone's life. Seeing as a possessed Alfred is able to take control of the gun and aim it at him at the end, Batman has a valid point.
  • We Will Meet Again: Frank Laminski promises to return and reclaim the Phantom Ring at the end of his arc and the final arc also has Cyborg Superman escape with the Phantom Ring while promising to get even with the Green Lanterns. To date, neither of them made good on their threats.
  • You Are in Command Now: Hal Jordan puts Simon and Jessica in charge of protecting Earth for the Corps, due to the fact he has to go off (in his own book) and find the rest of the Corps, who have recently vanished.

Top