Western Animation / Green Lantern: The Animated Series

The CGI animated series based on the DC Comics superhero Green Lantern, created by a team headed by Jim Krieg, Bruce Timm, and Giancarlo Volpe. Made to cash in on the movie released in June 2011, it's the first CGI series Bruce Timm has ever worked on. The 44 minute pilot premiered on Cartoon Network on November 11, 2011, and the show made its official premiere as part of CN's DC Nation block on March 3, 2012. The second part of the first season began on September 29, 2012.

The plot follows the adventures of the Green Lanterns Hal Jordan (Josh Keaton) and Kilowog (Kevin Michael Richardson), reformed Red Lantern Razer (Jason Spisak), and their A.I. starship Aya (Grey DeLisle). The series is a single season split into two 13-episode arcs.

The first arc deals with the mysterious deaths of the Frontier Lanterns; scattered, minimally-trained Lanterns who guard the very edges of Guardian territory. Veteran Lanterns Hal and Kilowog set out to investigate their deaths, coming into conflict with the Red Lanterns, who seek to destroy the Guardians in retribution for the destruction of their sector by the Manhunters. The second arc introduces the Anti-Monitor, who revives the Manhunters as his servants and plans to convert the entire universe to anti-matter.

Saint Walker (a Blue Lantern) and the Star Sapphires make guest appearances in the first arc. In addition, Sinestro was unable to make an appearance until the second half of the season due to his role in the movie, and Larfleeze, the sole member of the Orange Lantern Corps, also appeared later in the season.

Years after the series was cancelled, Young Justice (2010) would bring back elements of this series, with at least some of its events being canon in that show.

Has a recap page.

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Tropes:

• Adaptation Distillation: Aims to be this for the Green Lantern mythos, especially as defined by Geoff Johns.
• Adaptational Badass: While they seem to prefer simple energy blasts, most of the Red Lantern Corps are able to use constructs in this adaptation (although they're generally simple blades or whips). In the comics, most Red Lanterns are mindless with rage, with only four being coherent enough to form constructs.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: The Red Lantern Corps, the Blue Lantern Corps, the Star Sapphire Corps and the Orange Lantern Corps all appear in this continuity while Sinestro is still affiliated with the Green Lantern Corps, when the comics had the Sinestro Corps as the first Lantern Corps besides the Green Lantern Corps to be confirmed to exist.
• Adaptational Late Appearance: Sinestro doesn't appear in the series until every other Lantern Corps besides the Orange Lantern Corps had been introduced and is depicted as a Green Lantern who has yet to go down the path that leads to him being kicked out of the Green Lantern Corps and obtaining a yellow power ring. In the comics, Sinestro's own Corps was the first of the other Lantern Corps of the emotional spectrum to appear besides the Green Lantern Corps and he had been a villain bearing a yellow ring long before he founded his own Corps.
• Adaptational Villainy: Surprisingly, Atrocitus. The comic version is a ruthless Anti-Hero who still displays compassion for innocents. The cartoon version is a full-fledged villain, especially once it's revealed he murdered Razer's wife to push him over the edge into becoming a Red Lantern. This after starting the war on Razer's planet in hopes to inspire enough rage to make some more Reds. "Twist your minds to pain and hate," indeed. He even has some Evil Scars to prove how much worse he is than the original Atrocitus.
• Adaptational Wimp: Oh make no mistake. The Anti-monitor is still powerful enough to destroy super weapons like nobody's business. However, when you start as a destroyer of worlds that took top tier heroes like the Spectre, Superman, and the like working together to destroy you in comics, the only way to go is down.
• Adapted Out:
  • Due to the show only running for a single season, the Sinestro Corps, the Indigo Tribe and the Black Lantern Corps were never established.
  • The only human Green Lanterns besides Hal Jordan who are indicated to exist in this continuity are Alan Scott (who is alluded to by the Steam Lantern), Guy Gardner (who shows up halfway through the series) and John Stewart (who is mentioned by Guy). No acklowedgment whatsoever is made of Kyle Rayner and Simon Baz, who were the only other human Lanterns who existed at the time the show originally aired, and it is unknown if either of them were planned to appear later down the line.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Hal tousles Amaya's head (she has no hair) when telling her it's okay to miss her father, who died in a Heroic Sacrifice against the Red Lanterns.
  • A jellyfish alien does this to a little pig girl after taking away the yellow crystals which were making her violent.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
  • The Manhunters, who came before the Green Lantern Corps, were flawed because they couldn't see the subtleties of right and wrong, only the absolutes. To this end, they concluded that emotion was the root cause, and sought to eliminate all beings that feel it. They destroyed an entire sector, where Atrocitus' homeworld resided. The Guardians named the entire area "the Forgotten Zone" in response, and suppressed all knowledge of the Manhunters.
  • Averted by Aya. She is consistently a welcome and loyal, if inexperienced, member of the team. Even when she's taken over by the Red Lanterns and forced to help them infiltrate Oa, it's made quite clear that she is doing so against her will. Too bad the Guardians don't hold the same opinion.
    • Sadly played straight in "Cold Fury". Emotionless Aya performs a Face–Heel Turn in record time.
  • In this series, the Anti-Monitor was created by Krona as an AI. When it was activated it instantly recognized its superiority and went nuts until Krona sealed it into another dimension.
• Aliens Speaking English: Justified, as the Power Rings each carry a universal translator. This becomes a plot point in "Babel", since the rings are all drained the translators are off and none of the main characters can understand each other.
• All Animals Are Dogs: Razer lampshades the absurdity of this when Saint Walker plays fetch with a giant worm.
• Almost Kiss:
  • Hal tries to kiss Carol in the pilot, but is interrupted by a call from Oa. They get to make it up in "In Love and War".
  • Aya and Razer share a similar moment in "Loss". Thanks a lot, Hal.
• Amplifier Artifact: The Blue Light of Hope supercharges Green Lantern rings while shutting down the Red Lantern rings (a welcome side effect). This is pretty similar to the Blue Lantern Corps' abilities in the comics ^note  It's actually a 180: Green willpower energy super-charges Blue hope rings in the comics . This distance over which this works varies. Blue Lantern rings are implied to work over a short range (enough that close proximity is needed), but Ganthet's prototype battery worked over many miles, enough to reach orbit, and the Blue Lantern Central Battery covers the entire planet and well out into space. Unfortunately, the reactivated Manhunters are boosted in the same manner.
• Anchored Teleportation: The Star Sapphire rings run on The Power of Love. One of their unique abilities is creating a portal between their location and that of the wearer's true love. This is how Carol Ferris is twice able to reach Hal while he is in space.
• And I Must Scream: The prisoners of Spider Guild's prison are forced to relive their worst memories before being eaten by them.
• Anti-Villain: Razer, pre-Heel–Face Turn.
• Apocalypse How: Ysmalt, homeworld of Atrocitus, clearly suffered a Total Extinction event, since a major chunk of the planet has been blown off and it appears to be little more than a dead rock in space. Technology is probably the only reason it has an atmosphere at all.
  • Razer's homeworld is implied to have suffered a Species Extinction, possibly with Razer as the only survivor. In a later episode, however, he does mention something about his uncle's ranch in the present tense, a good indication that there are other survivors.
• Applied Phlebotinum: The Steam Lantern in the eponymous episode, with the help of his girlfriend, managed to crudely replicate a Green Lantern's powers through the use of a homemade nuclear reactor.
  The Phlebotinum in question? The aptly named "hardtofindium."
• Armor-Piercing Question: Given to Razer:
  Kilowog: We know what you're fighting against, kid, but what're you fighting for?
  • Hal gives him another one in "Reckoning":
  Hal: I know you’d willingly die today, but do you have the strength to live for a cause?! Because we could sure could use you right now!
• Artificial Stupidity: The Manhunters, when introduced after the Red Lantern arc, are shown to be almost inexcusably poor tacticians. When facing two Green Lanterns (who have demonstrated themselves to be dangerous even if the Manhunters don't know of them), a helicopter with civilians, and a nearby town with even more civilians, they prioritize the town, completely ignoring their very dangerous opponents. Indeed, they lost because Hal and Guy were free to isolate and destroy all three individually while they were focused on the biggest group of targets. If they possessed any kind of rational threat assessment, Hal and Guy may not have won.
  • They fail again in "Blue Hope". Though they demonstrate good use of cover fire when securing the Blue Lantern battery, they immediately prioritize its recovery after it is taken from them, leaving themselves open to counterattack by Hal and Kilowog.
• Artistic License – Space: In "Larfleeze" the stars in the sky start to disappear one by one after Aya destroys them. The stars would have been lightyears away and should have been burning for years after their destruction. But hey, it makes for a cool scene.
• As the Good Book Says...: When challenged by Aya to define love, Carol hurriedly goes through the 1 Corinthians 13 definitions ("Love is patient, love is kind," etc.).
• As You Know: Used by the Guardians to introduce the basic concept of the Green Lantern Corps (space cops, 3600 sectors, etc.) before introducing the previously-unknown concept of Frontier Lanterns to Hal and Kilowog. The first bit is lampshaded by Hal.
• Asteroid Thicket: The Interceptor chases the Red Lantern probe through one. The Maelstrom is a much larger one that acts as a barrier between the Forgotten Zone and the rest of Guardian-controlled space.
• Attack Reflector: Aya demonstrates one of these with the Anti-Monitor's body in "Ranx", absorbing the full force of several BFGs created by Guy Gardner's Green Lantern army and sending it back to disable them.
• Ax-Crazy: The perpetually-angry Red Lanterns lean towards this, but Zilius Zox and Bleez take the cake.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Razer and Aya in "In Love and War".
• Badass Adorable: Ch'p is a squirrel (or the alien equivalent of one) and is Kilowog's star pupil.
• Badass Boast:
  • Atrocitus delivers one while fighting Hal in the pilot.
    Atrocitus: I am Atrocitus, lord and master of the Red Lantern Corps. I am the one who will destroy the Guardians and all they stand for. I am wrath; I am hate; I am righteous vengeance.
  • Razer made one not even one minute into the premier.
    Razer: I am not a friend. I am rage. I am vengeance. I am death!
  • Saint Walker is one of the few people that can pull off a Badass Boast like:
    All will be well.
• Badass Creed:
  • The show's version of the Red Lantern Oath:
    "With blood and rage of crimson red,
    We fill men's souls with darkest dread,
    And twist your minds to pain and hate,
    We'll burn you all — that is your fate!"

    Compare to the original

    "With blood and rage of crimson red,
    Ripped from a corpse so freshly dead,
    Together with our hellish hate...,
    We'll burn you all — that is your fate!"
  • The Blue Lantern Oath is spoken in "Blue Hope":
    "In fearful day, in raging night,
    With strong hearts full our souls ignite,
    When all seems lost in the War of Light,
    Look to the stars — for hope burns bright!"
  • Of course, the Green Lantern Oath:
    "In brightest day, in blackest night,
    No evil shall escape my sight,
    Let those who worship evil's might,
    Beware my power, Green Lantern's LIGHT!"
  • "No man escapes the Manhunters!"
• Badass Normal:
  • Saint Walker goes toe-to-toe with Razer and Razer can't land a hit. Then he hits a single pressure point on Razer's neck and instantly paralyzes him. He doesn't have a ring at this point.
  • In "Homecoming", a ringless Carol singlehandedly cures Hal of his Laser-Guided Amnesia (see below) using only a deduction gained from remembering something Green Lantern told her well before she ever found out he was Hal.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Thanagarians can breathe in space.
• Batman Gambit: Hal plays the Thanagarian leader in "Flight Club" perfectly, because he knows the guy is going to betray them whenever it'll benefit him.
• Battle Aura: All Lanterns have one, which is usually a glow emanating from them. It serves as a forcefield and life support system in space. The Manhunters get one when amplified by the Blue Light. Aya gets one when supercharged by draining the Interceptor's entire power supply, then gets a different one after absorbing the Anti-Monitor's power.
• Beam-O-War:
  • Hal tries this against Atrocitus in the pilot, but his green energy isn't strong enough to resist the attack.
  • Happens between a Manhunter and Razer in "Blue Hope". As Razer was in Unstoppable Rage mode at the time, it was rather one-sided in his favor.
• Beard of Evil: Krona has a soul patch in a flashback.
• Bell-Bottom-Limbed Bots:
  • The episode "Steam Lantern" has Duke Nigel's mechanoids which are designed with this style in mind.
  • Downplayed examples include the Anti-monitor and Aya, whose limbs are only slightly larger at the ends.
  • The Manhunters avert this, having more normal proportions.
• Beehive Barrier
  • Shard has one. It tanks Mogo's Wave-Motion Gun undamaged, but wasn't so effective against the Anti-Monitor.
  • The planet Ranx is surrounded by one as well.
• BFG:
  • Kilowog manifests a pair of them to use against the Red Lantern fleet. Didn't work, but it was a nice effort. His second, even bigger version works a lot better, since Saint Walker's hope energy was amplifying it.
  • Under the direction of Guy Gardner, a massive force of Green Lanterns creates several of these, each fueled by the combined might of numerous Lanterns. They weren't terribly effective against the forcefield protecting Ranx, and Aya just sent the energy right back at them when they tried it on her.
• Big Bad: The first season is divided into two story arcs, each with their own main villain. The first arc has Atrocitus and the Red Lanterns, and the second arc has the Anti-Monitor. Halfway through the arc, Aya destroys the Anti-Monitor and takes the role for herself.
• Big Damn Gunship: The Interceptor and its superior firepower has saved the day on more than one occasion.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Razer rescues Hal and Kilowog (who can't use their rings) in the third episode.
  • Heroes don't get much damn bigger than Mogo, who aids Saint Walker in backing up Kilowog in "Homecoming".
  • Razer saving Aya from having her emotions/"higher functions" being deleted by Drusa in "Homecoming".
  • Aya saves Razer from a group of Manhunters in "Loss".
• Bittersweet Ending: Sentient life is saved and Aya comes back around, but she shuts herself off in order to disable the Manhunters. Razer holds onto the hope that she is alive somewhere and parts from Hal and Kilowog on the best terms they'd ever been. So much hope attracts a blue lantern ring so Razer can stop using The Power of Hate that he dislikes so much for a power source that he prefers.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Razer can go without food for months at a time.
• Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: The goblin-like aliens in "Babel" refer to a feral, 40 feet high version of themselves as 'mother'.
• Book Ends:
  • The first story arc began with Hal being called into duty as Green Lantern interrupting the planning of a dinner date with Carol in her office. It ends with him returning to Earth with the intention of finishing such a date whilst she notices his arrival when in her office.
  • Similarly, the second story arc began with the Anti-Monitor reactivating the Manhunters to be his personal drones. Seven episodes later, an emotionless Aya declares herself the Queen of the Manhunters.
  • The first and last scenes of the series involve Razer, during wildly different stages of his character journey.
• Bottle Episode: "Prisoner of Sinestro" only takes place in the Interceptor.
• Bowel-Breaking Bricks: Gaagan, a squid-like alien, releases a bluish ink cloud whenever frightened.
• Brain Bleach: Kilowog's reaction when Agapo mentions that her race, the Zamarons, used to be one people with the Oans.
  Kilowog: You and the Guardians?! Thanks for putting that in my head.
• Brainwashed and Crazy:
  • This happens to Kilowog's Love Interest, Galaea, after being inducted into the Star Sapphire Corps. It's not clear how widespread this is in the Corps; the Queen and her niece, at least, are clearly of sound mind (relatively speaking). In the same episode, it's done in a slightly different way with Carol Ferris. The portal which transfers her to Zamaron messes with her mind, resulting in Carol seeming relatively normal but quickly and easily going into an insane rage that she had no memory of afterwards. Her brainwashing then wears off very quickly, unlike the other Star Sapphires.
  • Aya gets hit with this in "Invasion". Drusa, the convict who shut her down in "Lost Planet", uses a similar device to hijack her motor functions. Aya's still in there somewhere, but her body is under Drusa's control. Drusa even plans to take it a step further, completely erasing Aya's higher functions so she'll be just a nav computer, but Razer stepped in to put a stop to that.
• Breakout Character: Razer and Aya are by far the most popular characters within the fandom, marked both by their compelling character development and romance.
• Breath Weapon: The Red Lanterns fall back on their rings more in this adaptation, but they still have this ability. It can be pretty deadly, too, considering Razer knocked Atrocitus out with a particularly intense blast and Atrocitus later killed Ghia'ta with a direct hit.
• Breather Episode: After the intensity of the Mid-Season Twist (both of em), the next episode after the both of them is mainly a hijinks episode about being lost on a planet with fear crystals and having the translator function of the power rings break down, respectively.
• Broad Strokes: Apparently, some version of this series took place in Young Justice (2010), though with some changes in order to fit into the timeline.
• Brought Down to Badass: Even with their power rings nullified by yellow crystals, Hal and Kilowog manage to defeat numerous prison guards in "Razer's Edge".
  Hal: I was kicking butt long before I ever got this ring!
• Butt-Monkey: Zox seemed to take the brunt of the damage in the premiere.
• Canon Foreigner: The Red Lantern Razer was created for this series.
• Canon Immigrant:
  • Aya's ship debuted in the comic before the series aired - flying backwards compared to its animated counterpart.
  • Aya appeared in the Smallville: Season 11 comics, as a Green Lantern with her own sector.
  • An A.I. heavily implied to be Aya appeared towards the end of Justice League Action.
  • Razer shows up in a season four episode of Young Justice (2010), tying a bow on his character arc.
• Captain Obvious: Razer has a moment of this in "Larfleeze" when pointing out Hal's uncharacteristic attachment to the Orange Lantern battery.
  Razer: Something's not right.
  Kilowog: Ya think?
• Casting Gag: Geoff Johns has said that he imagined Daffy Duck's voice coming out of Larfleeze; Dee Bradley Baker, who played Daffy in Space Jam, voices Larfleeze.
• Cardboard Prison: In "Prisoner of Sinestro", Sinestro is able to escape from the holding cell on the Interceptor using nothing but a pocket knife to pop a panel off the wall (his ring had been confiscated after the mindjumper manipulated him into attacking the crew). Even if he is a senior Green Lantern, one would expect a holding cell to require heavier tools to escape from.
• Caused the Big Bang: The Big Bang is completely natural, But Aya tries to mess with it to create a universe she considers better.
• The Cavalry: Zox calls in Shard to help deal with the Anti-Monitor in "Cold Fury". It provided a distraction before the Anti-Monitor ate it.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Not that the series was all that light to begin with, but most of the second half of the series just has the characters (namely Razer) go through all sorts of emotional hell.
• Chair Reveal
  • Ragnar does this in "Regime Change" to show that he is in charge and not his sister.
  • Scar, the rogue Science Director of Oa, does this in "Scarred."
• Character Development: Aya and Razer being the most prominent recipients; see their character sheets for details.
• Charm Person: Star Sapphire rings can do this, though it appears to be more effective on animals than people.
• Chew-Out Fake-Out: After the Red Lantern invasion, Hal gets called in so the Guardians can inform him that Sector 2814 is now under Guy Gardner's jurisdiction. Hal assumes he's being punished, but then they add that his performance during the crisis has convinced them to promote him to the Green Lantern Honor Guard.
• Colony Drop: "Lost Planet" has the crew Race Against the Clock to find the Lantern on a planet about to be hit by a massive asteroid. Once they discover the planet is actually Mogo, the living planet, Mogo destroys it immediately with his new Lantern powers.
• Color-Coded Emotions: All the emotions have corresponding colors, so when Aya and Razer both glow violet (from a Manhunter's point of view), it's pretty obvious what that means.
• Combined Energy Attack: In "Homecoming", when Shard proves resistant to Mogo's Wave-Motion Gun, Kilowog puts Saint Walker into the path of the beam, allowing him to channel the power through his ring, which amplifies Green Lantern energy.
• Composite Character:
  • "Heir Apparent" is loosely adapted from the first three issues of the 2006 Green Lantern Corps comic, with Kilowog taking Soranik Natu's place as a Green Lantern who fakes his death to expose Ragnar as the one responsible for killing his sector's Green Lantern.
  • The Anti-Monitor becomes the sentience controlling the Sentient City of Ranx.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Whenever the heroes have to battle the Manhunters, they have trouble damaging let alone stopping a single Manhunter, but when there's an army of them, the good guys cut through them like cheese.
• Conveniently Precise Translation: Zigzagged with the various Lantern Corps oaths. It can be difficult to swallow that these alien poems also rhyme in English. At the same time, it's shown in "Babel" that the Green Lantern oath doesn't rhyme in Kilowog's language.
• Cool Starship: The Interceptor, a ship faster than anything in the known universe and powered by a giant Lantern battery. Then there's Aya, its AI nav system who can inhabit a robot body.
• Could Say It, But...: Ganthet is certainly not advocating that Hal and Kilowog steal the new ship and use it to rescue the Frontier Lanterns, he is simply taking them on the "scenic route." Unfortunately, it's still enough (along with his use of the blue light) to get him the banhammer from the other Guardians in "Regime Change".
• Crack in the Sky: In "Steam Lantern", a steampunk scientist creates a giant ray to open a rift to another (our) universe in order to save his world from the Anti-Monitor; this remains visible in the planet's sky as a tear in the sky.
• Crazy Enough to Work:
  • Hal charges his ring off the Interceptor's engine, even though this is kind of like trying to directly jump-start a cell phone with a car battery. Kilowog later chastises him for doing something that could well have blown his arm off if it didn't work.
  • Upon learning that Saint Walker's Blue Lantern ring can't amplify Mogo's power, since Mogo's ring is many miles underground, Kilowog gets an idea: toss Saint Walker into the path of Mogo's Wave-Motion Gun and hope it works. It does.
• Creepy Blue Eyes/Icy Blue Eyes: Aya, depending on the situation. Then Black Eyes of Evil following her Face–Heel Turn.
• Cruel Mercy: Hal refuses to kill Razer, despite the latter's insistence, and instead captures and depowers him to force him to face responsibility for destroying an inhabited world.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • In "Scarred," there is a point where our heroes disagree with the Science Director's brutal methods. Things come to blows, and the Director shows Hal and Kilowog, the heroes who have at this point taken so many powerful threats to the galaxy, the folly in getting into a fight with an unrestrained Guardian. If not for the interruption of a very pissed off Aya-Monitor, they would have been killed easily.
  • Hal's very brief fight with Ch'p.
  • Razer's equally brief fight with the Manhunter that attacked Aya.
• Curse Cut Short: Hal has one of these in "In Love and War".
• Darkest Hour:
  • Just before Ganthet activates the Blue Lantern battery in "Regime Change", all the heroes are shown overcome one by one.
  • The end of "Invasion" has Atrocitus and some of his men brainwash Aya and steal the Interceptor, which they're taking to Oa. Atrocitus also used his planet-killers to blow a passage through the Maelstrom for his fleet. The look on Hal's face says it all.
• Dark Secret: The Manhunters are this to the Guardians. Such is the scope of their utter failure as protectors.
• Deal with the Devil: Nigel Fortenberry in "Steam Lantern" manages to save his planet from the Anti-Monitor by opening a rift to another universe, where the Anti-Monitor would have have plenty to feed on.
• Defiant to the End: When Razer and Aya are subdued by Aga'po and her guards, Razer still demands that she surrender Kilowog as if nothing has changed.
• Demoted to Extra: Bleez. In the Red Lantern comics, she is the second-in-command to Atrocitus, and the first to regain her sentience. She is intelligent, arrogant, spiteful, vicious, and absolutely marvelous — in the show, however, she has been reduced to a throwaway character, with her previous role filled by Zilius Zox. She ends up his dragon in the second arc, getting a slightly bigger role as a result.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Aya in Razer's arms — twice.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: In "Into the Abyss", Kilowog is stuck trying to explain to Aya why she can't be a Green Lantern, utterly failing to produce an argument that she cannot either question or literally interpret.
• Disney Death: Kilowog, albeit very briefly, in "Heir Apparent".
• Dissonant Serenity: Lanos, Aya's temporary replacement, never loses his cheerful tone of voice, even when body-swapped with Aya while her body is about to be dissected. His last line before sacrificing himself is said in a completely serious voice.
• Distinction Without a Difference:
  • When called to Oa to answer for punching a diplomat in the face, Hal immediately denies it. He punched the diplomat in the stomach, then headbutted him in the face. Said diplomat was involved in slave-trafficking.
  • When the crew travels through a small pathway in a heavily dense asteroid field, Kilowog gets nervous and we get this gem:
    Razer: What's wrong Bolovaxian, claustrophobic?
    Kilowog: No, I just don't like small, closed spaces, okay?
• Distress Call: The Lanterns receive one from a space freighter at the beginning of "Into the Abyss."
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • In "Regime Change", when Razer's ring malfunctions, he falls out of the sky and Aya catches him. His line after he is saved doesn't help much since it makes it sound like an impotence joke.
  "That's... never happened before."
  • Earlier, in "Fear Itself", Razer was alone in his room, recharging his ring. Aya walks in on him, provoking him to hold it against his chest as if to hide it. Almost as if he were trying to hide a Porn Stash.
  • Takes a darker turn in "Prisoner of Sinestro", where a mind-controlled Razer goes as far towards sexually harassing Aya as the censors would allow. Not helped by Hal's reaction to Aya saying Razer was "friendly" toward her.
    Hal: Well, carbon-based lifeforms, some of them have these things called hormones...
  • Larfleeze's reaction when Hal Jordan grabs a bunch of Orange Lantern Rings.
    Larfleeze: He is touching my stuff. I can feel it. He is touching, touching, touching my stuff. STOP TOUCHING MY STUFF!
• Dramatic Drop: In his torture-induced flashback, Razer drops his shield and weapon when he returns home from war to find his home destroyed and his wife killed.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Played straight and subverted. When infiltrating Shard, Hal and Kilowog ambush two guards for their uniforms. It fits Hal just fine, but the burly Kilowog can't even put the helmet on.
• Dying Declaration of Love: Razer To Aya in "Loss" and again in the finale.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom:
  • The Red Lanterns threaten to destroy Rev's homeworld if the Green Lanterns don't surrender within the hour. They make good on their word, but Rev makes a Heroic Sacrifice to delay the actual destruction long enough for Kilowog to save most of the colonists.
  • Iolande's planet nearly shares the same fate, but luckily they managed to chuck the bomb into space.
  • Though Ysmalt has not been outright destroyed, the Manhunters did quite a number on it. A continent-sized chunk of the planet has been blasted off, creating a debris field around the planet, and the planet would likely be incapable of supporting life if not for the technology of the Red Lanterns.
• Emotion Eater: The Star Sapphires gain strength from the love of those they trap on their homeworld. Green Lanterns provide a bigger boost than normal people in this regard thanks to their rings.
• Empowered Badass Normal: In the same episode that he shows Razer that he's more than a match for him, Saint Walker debuts as the first ever Blue Lantern, and his badassery increases exponentially.
• Environmental Symbolism: In "Blue Hope", Razer's Unstoppable Rage overcoming the Blue Lantern rings coincides with dawn on that world, making all the clouds look red.
• "Eureka!" Moment: In the season 2 finale, when Tomar-Re tells Hal that one of the star systems destroyed by Aya in his home sector was uninhabited.
• Evil Plan: Atrocitus has one of revenge against the Green Lanterns for the slaughter of his homeworld.
• Extended Disarming: We find out in "Babel" that Razer keeps a... surprising number of weapons on his person.
• Face–Heel Turn: After sacrificing her emotions to stop the Anti-Monitor, Aya fuses with his corpse and turns on the crew. She didn't kill them when she could have, though, which is at least a step up from him.
• Face Palm: In "Into the Abyss", this is Kilowog's reaction to Aya literally interpreting his assertion that she needs to have a real body to be a Green Lantern.
• Face Stealer: Aya's face is modeled on that of Razer's dead wife, the last humanoid female she had an image of. Though the viewer might note the resemblance, this doesn't become a plot point until the queen of the Star Sapphires points it out to Razer. He is quite upset at first, even though she insists she meant no harm by it. He seems to get over it quickly, though it becomes a plot point in "Cold Fury" when he uses it to explain why he can't love her.
• Fantastically Indifferent: In "Razer's Edge", Razer is shown as being this when being held in captivity by Hal and Kilowog. He takes Kilowog's abuse in stride, and is doesn't even seem to care when Kilowog yells in his face, picks him up off the ground and shakes him, slams him against the wall, or even when he is tossed on the ground by the aforementioned character.
• Fantastic Light Source: Power rings make good flashlights.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Razer's homeworld Volkreg has a strong Middle-Eastern influence. In the storyboarding stage, Volkreg was referred to as Beirut (like the capital city of Lebanon).
• Forced Prize Fight: In "Love is a Battlefield", Carol Ferris and Atrocitus are forced to fight to the death by Aya, who wants to see if love can overcome hate.
• Forced to Watch: The Anti-Monitor restrains Hal then tries to absorb the Interceptor.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The yellow crystals that emit fear and cancel out Green Lantern rings were probably building up to the creation of the Sinestro Corps in a hypothetical second season. In a similar vein, an Easter Egg featuring a black tome bearing a certain emblem hints at an adaptation of Blackest Night.
  • Razer's wife has a blue color motif, foreshadowing Razer's induction into the Blue Lantern Corps at the end of the series.
  • Though it wasn’t a full fledged turn and he was brandishing a gun instead of a ring, the image of an unhinged Sinestro wielding yellow energy was certainly ominous.
• Four-Fingered Hands: Depends on the character.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Razer does more than scowl perpetually, but you have to pause to catch it (when it's not a flashback, anyway). To name one, he smiles very briefly after rescuing Aya in "Homecoming".
• Freudian Trio: Razer is the superego, Hal is the ego, Kilowog is the id.
• Fully Absorbed Finale: The Justice League Action episode "Barehanded" has Space Cabbie come into possesion of an AI that is implied to be Aya without her memories, meaning that she survived the finale.
• Gatling Good: Kilowog busts out quadruple Gatling gun constructs whenever he needs to take out a lot of targets.
• Genius Loci: Mogo, more so after obtaining a ring because he can communicate.
• God Save Us from the Queen!:
  • The Queen of the Star Sapphires, who's hellbent on kidnapping men and imprisoning them on her home planet out of a twisted desire to preserve the love in their hearts. Ghia'ta shows her the error of her ways, and the next time we see her she's perfectly content with helping the Green Lanterns.
  • Aya declares herself Queen of the Manhunters after she shuts down her emotions and takes control of the Anti-Monitor's body.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: Hal attempts a variation of this when interrogating Goggan:
  Hal Jordan: Okay, squid, start talking. Kilowog here loves seafood and has a big appetite.
  Kilowog: What?
  Hal: It's an old interrogation method from Earth: Good cop, hungry cop.
• Good News, Bad News:
  • In "Lost Planet": Good news, they found a new GL. Bad news, the GL's home planet is about to be annihilated by a massive asteroid in 5.2 minutes.
  • In "Loss". Good news, we stopped the loose Manhunter. Bad news, we kidnapped the Prime Magistrate of the Red Lanterns when he caught us doing it.
  • Invoked by Hal and Kilowog in "Scarred", referring to the events in "Cold Fury." Good news, Aya destroyed the Anti-Monitor. Bad news, she did it right after shutting down her emotions. Worse news, she then took over the Anti-Monitor's body and decided to eat the universe.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Atrocitus, the Science Director.
• Grand Theft Me: In "Prisoner of Sinestro", the mindjumper can take over the bodies of others at will, but only one at a time. This episode takes it much further than most children"s shows, as there are none of the usual visible signals to indicate someone is being controlled; such as glowing eyes, change of voice, etc., and the person being posessed doesn't remember afterwards. This means that the viewer, like the characters, has no way of telling who is being controlled
• Gravity Sucks: The pinhole in "Into the Abyss" sucks down spaceships, as well as Hal's ring constructs.
• Green Rocks:
  • Yellow rocks that pop up in several episodes, and not only counter Green Lantern energy but induce paranoia through prolonged contact... possibly foreshadowing the Sinestro Corps.
  • Literal green rocks power the Steam Lantern's suit.
• Handshake Substitute: Apparently humans are the only one of the 10,000 species in Guardian Space that fist bump. In the mid-season premiere, Hal and Guy complain about how hard it is to get one on duty. See also Literal-Minded—presumably most aliens have some cultural equivalent to hand-shaking, but the phrase itself means nothing but the obvious to them.
• Happily Married: Razer and Ilana were this until she died while he was away fighting in the war on his home planet.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Razer starts out as an enemy but soon joins the Interceptor's crew.
  • Ghia'ta, followed by the entire Star Sapphire corps.
• He Knows Too Much: After Hal and Kilowog discover the true nature of the Spider Guild prison, Myglom captures (and tries to eat) them to prevent them from exposing his ruse.
• Heel Realization: Nigel Fortenberry in "Steam Lantern", combined with My God, What Have I Done?. Deal with the Devil aside, he didn't realize his walking TV sets had in fact become a mechanized army.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Shyir Rev in the pilot.
  • Hal Jordan in "Reboot", holding off the Anti-Monitor's attack long enough for the others to get out of the blast radius. He got lucky and just ended up in another universe, which he escaped not long after.
  • Aya in "Loss", pushing Razer out of the path of the Anti-Monitor's attack, though she managed to survive. And again to a lesser extent in "Cold Fury", though it's more a spiritual sacrifice than a physical one.
  • Ghia'ta does this for Hal in "Love is a Battlefield", jumping in front of a fatal Breath Weapon attack by Atrocitus. This one sticks.
  • LANOS in "Scarred" to ultrawarp Aya away from the crew. He even uses the same last words as Shyir Rev.
• Hero Killer: How do you establish the Anti-Monitor is a step up from the last Big Bad? Having him blast Hal into apparent oblivion will do the trick.
• He's Dead, Jim: One unique to the corps. When you see a ring traveling through space under its own power, you know the Lantern wearing it is no more.
• He Who Fights Monsters: The Red Lanterns claim to be fighting against the tyranny of the Guardians, who have destroyed worlds and killed millions, but they do so by destroying worlds and killing millions.
• Hey, That's My Line!: Hal steals Kilowog's "Let's blow this mungtar stand" line in "Regime Change", prompting the trope response.
• His Name Is...: Razer comes close to telling Aya that she was given life by a piece of Ion, the embodiment of willpower, but is interrupted by the Science Director firing a missile at her.
• Hoist Hero over Head: In "Regime Change", Ragnar does this to Iolande while standing on top of a "liberator".
• Hope Springs Eternal: The power source of the Blue Lanterns. If it's mixed with Heroic Willpower they will own you six ways from Sunday.
• Hulk Speak: Hal playfully does this for Carol Ferris, when she chides him for whooping with joy while test piloting a prototype plane.
• Humanity Ensues: Aya constructs herself a humanoid body, if only so that she can be a "real" Green Lantern, at the end of "Into the Abyss".
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Razer carries an improbably large number of weapons on him, as shown with his Extended Disarming in "Babel".
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • Aya ignores Hal's orders to save the day, which he complains about. Kilowog immediately calls him on the Double Standard.
  • In "Prisoner of Sinestro", Sinestro expresses disappointment in the seemingly casual atmosphere aboard the Interceptor, which is topped off by Aya bringing in some sort of elaborate drink. Kilowog insists that they're all professionals as he scarfs said drink down.
• I Always Wanted to Say That: Hal concerning the phrase "We come in peace." Kilowog doesn't understand why.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight:
  • Hal has to do this with Kilowog in "Fear Itself", since the yellow crystal soup he's been eating has driven him mad. Kilowog comes just short of killing Hal before regaining his mind.
  • He has to do this again with Carol during "In Love And War" when she becomes a Star Sapphire. He manages to get through to her, and she gives up her power.
  • Kilowog gets to return the favor in "Larfleeze", talking down Hal after the Orange Lantern battery has corrupted him.
  • And Razer gets his chance in "Scarred" with Aya, but that one doesn't go so well. Aya refuses to turn her emotions back on, and the Science Director's attempt to kill her during Razer's plea only further drives a wedge between the two.
• Imagination-Based Superpower: The obvious normal version of the trope, but also subverted when Aya needs repairs. Hal asks if a ring construct would suffice until they could get back to Oa for proper repairs. Aya replies that the construct would have to be an exact duplicate of the coil and its 56 moving parts to within a 0.8162 micron tolerance, which none of the Lanterns have the skill to replicate.
• Impairment Shot: The eye-shaped one as Hal regains consciousness after being knocked out in "Beware My Power".
• I'm Standing Right Here: When Kilowog is trying to convince Hal in private to side with him against Aya considering herself a Green Lantern, he forgets about Aya's transceiver mounted on the console. She helpfully reminds him that she can hear every noise on the ship.
• Informed Ability: Kilowog. He's portrayed as the veteran Big Guy yet every villain/threat in the show gives him a challenge.
• Instant Expert: Anyone who gets a power ring is able to use its basic powers immediately. Justified as Green Lantern rings are outright said to provide a basic tutorial for the recipient, thus making them competent in their use if not up to par with a formally-trained Lantern. The rings of the other Corps may provide similar instruction.
• Insult Friendly Fire:
  • While discussing the single-minded Manhunters, Razer remarks that they're just machines, can't go beyond their faulty programming, and have no emotions or souls. When Aya asks if that's what he really believes, he tries to backpedal concerning her a little too late.
  • Guy mocks Hal for wearing his mask when he doesn't need to, unintentionally insulting Chaselon and Larvox, who wear similar masks (let it be pointed out that Guy never wears a mask even on Earth, but this version at least also states he avoids forming personal relationships).
• Interrupted Cooldown Hug: In "Scarred", Razer is trying to get through to Aya and distract her from the yellow crystal missile that is supposed to disable her. The Science Director fires it early, and it turns out that she meant it to destroy Aya, not disable her. Aya thus assumes that Razer was trying to kill her and is naturally quite upset.
• It Has Been an Honor:
  • Kilowog to Rev in the pilot.
  • Razer does a variation in "Babel", when he's not sure his Red Lantern battery will successfully power the crashing Interceptor.
    Razer: If we do explode… you two are acceptable souls to be vaporized with.
• Jet Pack: Kilowog creates one with his ring in an attempt to escape the pinhole.
• Just a Machine: Razer has this opinion of the Manhunters, though he foolishly says it when Aya's next to him. He makes up for it after they've had some time to think. Then he goes and does it again in "Cold Fury", using it as part of the reason he can't be in love with her. It goes so much worse.
• Kamehame Hadoken: Saint Walker uses one against a Manhunter. It put the Manhunter a fair distance underground, but it got back up unharmed.
• Kick the Dog: In "Reckoning", Atrocitusthrows Aya's dismembered body to Razer just to distract him.
  • In "Love is a Battlefield", Atrocitus kills Ghia'ta in front of Hal, and then tells him "Your mate is next", in reference to Carol. Hal goes absolutely berserk.
• Kryptonite Factor: The weakness of a Green Lantern's ring to the color yellow is brought back in this show...kind of. Specifically, the energy given off by a type of yellow crystal can nullify a Green Lantern's ring if they get too close to it.
• Lady Land: Zamaron which is ruled by the Star Sapphires, who imprison men by putting them in stasis in crystal prisons.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: When the Star Sapphires transport Hal to Earth, his memory of being a Green Lantern is blocked out until Carol makes him charge his ring.
• Levitating Lotus Position: Saint Walker and Brother Warth do this; the latter even uses it in lieu of walking.
• Lighter and Softer:
  • The Red Lantern power rings. In the comics, the ring essentially takes over the user's heart, replacing their blood with rage energy. This has the effect of making removing the ring a fatal prospect in most cases. Red rings also drive their users into a berserker rage, with most except Atrocitus being incapable of basic reasoning (though, to be fair, Atrocitus made them do that intentionally). Finally, the red light itself burns like napalm, and looks a lot like blood. In the cartoon, the ring is merely a more powerful, slightly more unstable version of the Green Lantern ring, and the personality effects are minimal by comparison. Most of the Lanterns shown are in possession of their faculties, albeit perpetually angry.
  • Saint Walker's origin as a Blue Lantern is an interesting zigzag. Unlike in the comics, his family does not climb up the mountain with him, and as such doesn't die one by one along the way. Instead, Walker's entire species died out offscreen beforehand—in the comics, Walker was able to save his planet after gaining his blue power ring.
• Like Cannot Cut Like:
  • Things powered by Green Lantern energy seem to work this way. The Interceptor's prison cells allow Green Lanterns to walk through with no trouble, but block everything else. When trying to catch a squid-like alien, Kilowog traps it in a box construct when it latches onto Hal's arm. Hal then pulls his arm out with no difficulty. Finally, when Hal attacks Aya's robotic drones (not knowing what they were at the time), his constructs can't even touch them. This appears to be selective, though, since numerous examples of power ring users successfully attacking other users of their own color come up later.
  • This is implied to be why Green Lanterns have trouble taking out Manhunters, which run on green energy. To contrast, Red Lanterns have a fairly easy time with them.
• Lip Lock: A sudden example of this trope in "Reckoning" would imply that a line was rewritten and re-dubbed after the animation was already completed.
• Literal-Minded: Hal orders Kilowog and Razer to shake hands, an Earth custom to show there's no hard feelings. They shake their fists at each other.
• Loophole Abuse: Razer takes advantage of a minor contradiction in Hal's orders and leaves the Interceptor in "Heir Apparent". After all, he was told to stay with Aya, and that's exactly what he did.
• The Lost Lenore: Razer's wife, Ilana. Her death was the reason he joined the Red Lanterns. Invoked by Atrocitus, who not only started the war on Razer's planet in hopes of creating some Red Lantern material, but murdered his wife to achieve precisely this effect, pushing him over the edge.
• Love Hurts: Between Razer and Aya. To the point where Aya associates love with pain after Razer rejects her in "Cold Fury" and shuts down her emotions. Everything goes to hell after that.
• Love Makes You Crazy: The Star Sapphire rings cause this in the uninitiated, which happened to Carol. To a lesser extent, the Star Sapphires appear to have been indoctrinated into believing men are the source of all evil, and are doing them a service by putting them in stasis to be eternally happy.
  • This is later explained in "Homecoming". Due to the extreme distance between Earth and Zamaron, Carol's mind was temporarily messed up by the transport. When Hal does the same in reverse, he ends up with Laser-Guided Amnesia.
• Macross Missile Massacre: Yet another of the weapons Kilowog manifests in "Homecoming".
• Madness Mantra: Razer, after finding his wife's body:
  Razer: But... I came back for you. I came back for you. I came back... I CAME BACK FOR YOU!!
  • Played with a bit with "Gaagan" the escaped squid creature from the Spider Guild Prison. "Gaagan will not go back. Cannot go back! Destroy me but do not take me back to the Grim Rock!"
• Magic A Is Magic A: The Red Lantern battery only charges a ring when the correct oath is used, a source of much frustration for Razer. Aya tried devising an alternative oath that followed the same pattern, but Razer just humored her without admitting that it was useless.
• Magical Security Cam: In "Regime Change", Appa uses scenes from the pilot episode to show the Guardian council how Ganthet encouraged Hal to steal the Interceptor, neither of which could be plausibly recorded from the displayed angles.
• Male Gaze: The Zamarons. The first time we see them walk it's from the back, and with lots of hip sway.
• Man Hug: Occurs twice; both are of the one-hugs-and-the-other-pats variety. First between Guy and Hal in "The New Guy" (which leads to some awkward news footage), then with Kilowog and Razer in the series finale.
  • The first one being completely out of the blue with no emotional set up whatsoever. It seems like Guy Gardner thinks a lot more of Hal Jordan than vice versa.
• The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: Poor Hal has this trope happen to him and it's inversion. At first Carol doesn't like how he disappears without a word and then when she finds out the truth, she can't handle the constant worry that is inherent with dating a superhero and breaks up with him.
  • Guy seems to be heavily aware of this trope and avoids romantic relationships for this reason.
• Meaningful Name: Agapo the Star Sapphire probably comes from Agape, one of the three types of love according to the Greeks, the others being Eros and Philia. She doesn't really demonstrate it (thoughtful and self-sacrificing), though. Razer gets two meanings, being both a homophone for razor (a cutting implement) and the active form of the verb to raze, as in "tear to the ground". Then there's Atrocitus...
• Mecha-Mooks: The Manhunters in flashbacks. Then to the Anti-Monitor in the second half of the season.
• Mercy Kill:
  • The leader of the Star Sapphire Corps attempts this on Razer, claiming that he is dead inside and would be useless anyway. Luckily, Hal comes in at the last minute and blasts her away, saving Razer from being stabbed.
  • Razer offered this to Larfleeze after he complained of having nothing left following Hal's theft of his Orange Lantern battery. Kilowog instead worked out a deal to have Larfleeze help separate Hal from it.
• Meteor Move: Hal and Kilowog are fond of this. Often, one of them will sent an enemy flying, and the other will smash them into the ground.
• Mid-Season Twist:
  • Episode seven is where we find out just how high the stakes are against the Red Lanterns. And by "high" we mean the potential annihilation of all life in Oan space.
  • Also the twentieth episode, which is the seventh of the second half of the season. Ooohh boy... First, the Anti-Monitor blasts the Science Director and destroys Shard. Then Aya turns out to be alive, but Razer suddenly goes back on his earlier declaration of love and says she's Just a Machine. Heartbroken, Aya rids herself of all emotion, absorbs all the energy from the Interceptor, and single-handedly kills the Anti-Monitor. Except it doesn't end there. Aya steals his powers, takes control of the Manhunters, and flies off with her own plans.
• Moment Killer:
  • So far two have happened between Hal and Carol. In the first episode, he is called off to Green Lantern duties just as they're in the middle of a kiss. Unfortunately, his business offworld proves to be so important that it takes nine more episodes before they see each other again. During that time, Hal is declared missing, and much to the upset of Carol, thought dead. So when the Zamarons make her a Star Sapphire and transport her to see Hal (who she discovers is a Green Lantern for the first time), they have a rather overjoyed reunion... until Carol notices Ghia'ta bringing back drinks and, thanks in part to the power of the Sapphire affecting her mind, assumes that all the time she had thought Hal was dead, he had been fooling around and cheating on her. Fortunately they end up parting on much better terms after that one.
  • Aya and Razer nearly kiss in "Loss", but then Hal interrupts with urgent business.
• Motorcycle Jousting: Hal does this (on a flying motorbike) as part of a tournament in "Heir Apparent".
• Moving the Goalposts: Aya demands a fight between 'Love and Hate' (a Red Lantern vs a Star Sapphire) to prove that the former is stronger and thus positive and helpful, which would be a good reason not to destroy their planet. Love wins, but Ghia'ta sacrifices herself to save Hal during the fight, which Aya takes as proof that she was right to begin with and thus their battle only proves that all emotion is evil.
• Ms. Fanservice:
  • For an navigational computer, Aya designs herself an oddly hot humanoid form. This is because she modeled her form after Razer's wife, who was fairly attractive herself.
  • The Star Sapphire Corps is a whole group of Ms. Fanservice.
• Mugged for Disguise: Hal and Kilowog do this to two Red Lantern guards. Works fine for Hal, not so much for Kilowog.
• Music Soothes the Savage Beast: Saint Walker's giant pet worm is calmed by his harp-like music and it can also be made to attack with louder, guitar-like strumming.
• My Kung-Fu Is Stronger Than Yours: Hal is able to beat Atrocitus because the former's willpower is stronger than the latter's rage.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In full force with the origin of the Red Lantern Corps and Atrocitus, when it was revealed that the Manhunters destroyed Atrocitus' homeworld.
  • There's a lesser example in the episode "Lost Planet": Saint Walker running around on a world that's doomed to total destruction via natural disaster — now where have we seen that before?
  • Kilowog's comment in "Love and War" is a good one.
    Kilowog: How many lantern colors are there?
  • Upon first becoming a Star Sapphire, issues with the teleportation to Zamaron temporarily send Carol into an insane, love-fueled rage - in which she attempts to kill Hal - and of which she has little memory of afterwards. This is all reference to Carol's original Superpowered Evil Side identity as Star Sapphire, before the multi-color Corps were implemented.
  • Saint Walker climbs a mountain in search of a savior, only to find nothing on the top. Then he sees his reflection. Only this time, his entire family doesn't die on the way up with him, and the reflection is in the Blue Lantern battery.
  • The hot wings place where Hal and Guy hang out is named "McDuffie's"
  • The Steam Lantern in the episode of the same name was inspired to heroism by a Green Lantern. One wearing a red shirt and a cape. His real name, Gil Broome, is a shout out to Gil Kane and John Broome, the artist and writer on Hal's earliest adventures.
  • When Hal is possessed by the Orange Light, he puts Orange Lantern rings on every finger, recalling a similar image of Hal wearing numerous stolen Green Lantern rings in Green Lantern: Emerald Twilight #2◊.
  • In "Scarred", the Science Director has a book with the Black Lantern symbol sitting on a shelf in her quarters. According to Word of God, the half-built robot Kilowog sees in a tank in her lab is an Alpha Lantern prototype.
    • She herself is a reference to the Guardian known as Scar who was injured by the Anti-Monitor and reads from the Book of Black.
  • Razer takes a page from Blackest Night in the series finale, having himself fired like a bullet at the Anti-Monitor's body so he can get past the Manhunters guarding it.
• Named Like My Name: When Hal hears that John Stewart replaced the newly promoted Guy Gardner on Earth, he asked if it was the fake news guy.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast:
  • The Red Lanterns' leader is named "Atrocitus".
  • "Sinestro"...He may not be a yellow lantern but he's an Anti-Hero.
• Negative Space Wedgie: The Anti-Monitor arrives through one. When he seemingly kills Hal, the blast conspicuously leaves one behind. "Steam Lantern" reveals it was created in that universe by Nigel Fortenberry as a gateway for the Anti-Monitor in exchange for sparing his world. Hal Jordan was sent through it when the Anti-Monitor attacked him.
• Never Found the Body: In "Steam Lantern", Kilowog vehemently denies Hal Jordan's death on the basis that his ring would have flown back to Oa were he actually dead. Though Tomar-Re is more pessimistic about the situation, Kilowog turns out to be right.
• Never Say "Die": Averted. The words "death" and "die" are said quite often in the first episode alone. The Red Lantern oath was changed, but that's likely because the whole heart-ripping thing was probably pushing it. In addition, some characters are explicitly killed, if not onscreen.
• New Content Countdown Clock: The countdown to the premiere ran during Generator Rex and Young Justice (2010).
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Hal insisting on fighting a drone in episode 2 results in damage to the Interceptor's engines that leaves both Kilowog and himself stranded without backup outside Guardian-controlled space for the estimated nine months repairs will take.
  • In "Invasion", Mogo could have stopped the entire Red Lantern invasion cold if he felt like it. Instead, he lets Atrocitus land on his surface and pick up the computer expert who later reprograms Aya, only making a really half-assed attempt to stop him after Atrocitus has already made it into orbit. We've seen Mogo blow up a planet-killing asteroid, so one scout ship, even of Red Lantern design, should have been nothing by comparison. Especially notable because he proves to be exactly this powerful in "Homecoming", only having trouble shooting down Shard.
  • Razer, perhaps you should have waited until after the climactic battle to break Aya's heart then accidentally advise her to shut off her emotions. Granted, they likely would never have survived otherwise, but still, bad timing.
  • Razer was just about to get through to Aya when the Science Director got impatient and fired a missile, ruining his efforts.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Zox expresses concern about Atrocitus using his personal Lantern battery as a power source for Razer's torture. Guess what Razer steals by the end of the episode.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Hal delivers one to Razer after Rev's homeworld is destroyed by the Red Lanterns, thanks to Razer. Hal stops just short of killing him, letting him live with what he's done. Razer basically let him do it, though, since he wanted to die.
  • Atrocitus doesn't hold back on Hal in "Homecoming". It's telling that in a CGI series, where basically no one ever suffers visible harm from most any attack, Hal is visibly bruised by this beating.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: Razer proves immune to the charms of the Star Sapphire queen.
• "Not So Different" Remark: The Manhunter in "Blue Hope" claims that Aya and the Manhunters are the same because they are both artificially intelligent. Aya holds the same opinion at first, but in the opposite direction; while the Manhunter assumes her to be a slave to her programming, she believes it can evolve as she has. In the end, Aya fervently denies any likeness between them.
  Manhunter: We are the same.
• Not What It Looks Like:
  • Hal and Carol's happy reunion on Zamaron is cut short when Carol notices Ghia'ta bringing back drinks for them, leading her to assume that whilst she thought Hal was dead back on Earth, that he'd been cheating on her out in space. Hal attempts to explain, but unfortunately Carol is under the influence that comes with being a Star Sapphire, leading her to attack them.
  • This is Hal's response when Zox catches his team trying to hide a defeated Manhunter in "Loss".
  • Hal makes this excuse yet again when Sayd catches his team sneaking around the Science Director's secret laboratory. She then describes the situation, and he's forced to admit that's exactly what he's doing.
• Not Worth Killing: In "Ranx", when Hal asks if Aya is going to kill them, she responds that doing so would be pointless when she's about to erase existence anyway.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • When the team finds out that the Red Lanterns have a fleet of warships.
  • In "Loss", everyone on the Interceptor has this reaction when the Anti-Monitor sees them and changes course.
  • This is Guy's reaction in "Ranx" when Aya appears to join the already massive Manhunter army surrounding Ranx, but to his credit he composes himself quickly.
• Only the Chosen May Wield:
  • In "Heir Apparent", Hal Jordan explains how the rings work to Ragnar. Ragnar proceeds to kill the local Green Lantern, clearly not understanding that cold-blooded murder invalidates the whole point of being worthy. He tried again with Hal (which failed) and later Kilowog, but by that point they were on to him and faked Kilowog's death so he'd implicate himself.
  • Even though Razer's turned his back on the Red Lanterns, the ring hasn't abandoned him, meaning the rage that initially drew it to him hasn't subsided. It's not a fact he's proud of. Having learned of the truth behind his wife's death explains why.
  • This works as a way to spot the mindjumper in "Prisoner of Sinestro". While it can inhabit the bodies of Lanterns, it cannot use their rings, and thus any Lantern that can use their powers cannot be under its control.
• Outrun the Fireball:
  • The Interceptor has to outrun the explosion of a Spider Guild space station in "Prisoner of Sinestro".
  • In the finale, Hal, Razer, and Aya have to outrun the Big Bang. Lucky for them, there was a nearby portal to use.
• Pietà Plagiarism: Razer does this with Aya, while she is temporarily incapacitated by a device designed to shut down her artificial intelligence. She gets up as soon as Razer crushes it. Then again in "Reckoning".
• Pintsized Powerhouse: The alien squirrel Ch'p tosses Hal around like a ragdoll.
• Post-Kiss Catatonia: Near-kiss, but the effect is the same. While possessed by the mindjumper, "Razer" flirts with Aya very suggestively and is about to kiss her, only to suddenly stop when he finds what he originally came for, that being the weapon she was putting in storage. Aya is left dumbstruck while trying to process the meaning of his actions.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: When Carol gets a Star Sapphire ring, she not only gets a kinky purple outfit but also an extra three feet of hair. The hair even vanishes with the outfit.
• Power Nullifier:
  • The yellow crystals in the Spider Guild's prison prevent Green Lantern rings from working. They exist on other worlds, too, and in greater concentrations cause humanoid species to become violently paranoid.
  • The light of hope shuts down the rage-based Red Lantern rings. Unless, like Razer, their anger steams from a source other than revenge.
• The Power of Hate: Essentially the power source of the Red Lanterns, though rage is a more accurate description. Atrocitus pretty much states this outright when fighting Hal in episode 2.
• The Power of Love:
  • The power source of the Star Sapphire Corps, though their ideas on the subject are somewhat skewed until they're educated on the subject by Carol.
  • More conventionally, Hal manages to get through to Carol, who's been driven insane by her Star Sapphire ring, by demonstrating his love for her, allowing her to regain control and reject the ring.
  • When Aya is attacked by a Manhunter, Razer is able to ignite his ring despite being in the proximity of Blue Lantern rings, and becomes the first person ever to curbstomp a Manhunter. In this case, it's a mix of hatred and love.
  • Invoked by Hal in the finale. When his attempt to talk Aya down himself fails, he calls in Razer. The others assume he needs Razer to kill Aya, but Hal seems to have been counting on Razer getting through to her at the last moment.
• Pressure Point: Used by Saint Walker on Razer.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: In "Ranx".
  Aya: I have a counter-proposal. *riiiiip*
• Properly Paranoid: A minor case. Hal mentions that the Spider Guild prison "gives him the creeps" and is initially uncomfortable leaving Razer there, but Kilowog convinces him to let it go. Turns out that the Spider Guild prison is a facade to lure in hapless prisoners, who are then tortured and eaten.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: The mindjumper in "Prisoner of Sinestro" forces a member of the Spider Guild to self-destruct his own space station, since he was about to reveal the mindjumper's abilities to Hal.
• Psycho Serum: Kilowog is fed a soup that contains a powder version of the Power Nullifier yellow crystals. A few bowls send him into a murderous fury.
• Put on a Bus: Razer is revealed to be on "sabbatical", as Hal put it, in "Reboot". He returns in "Blue Hope", two episodes later.
• Putting the Band Back Together: Hal has to do this in the second half of the season, since the team splits following the defeat of the Red Lanterns. Kilowog and Aya are easy to find, but Razer takes a bit longer since he was on another planet.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: Bleez, Skallox, and Veon form one for the Red Lanterns.
• Ragnarök Proofing: The Manhunters have been offline for centuries, yet the ones that aren't recently constructed have only suffered slight rusting and are still tough enough to shrug off everything but the most powerful Green Lantern attacks. One buried on Ysmault was slightly worse off, but not by much.
• Reconstruction: One episode reconstructs the typical action cartoon premise of a bodyswitcher being loose among the main cast. Unlike in most depictions, there is no obvious audio-visual cue to indicate that someone is possessed, i.e. glowing eyes, changed voice, etc., which the audience can see but for some reason the characters can't. Also, the possessing villain can switch bodies instantly, again with no visible cue, and with the former victim unaware that they were previously possessed. Therefore, often the audience is as much in the dark as the cast, making for a very tense episode that is essentially a kid-friendly version of The Thing (1982).
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: The Red Lanterns. Averted with Razer after his Heel–Face Turn.
• Reincarnation Romance: The series seems to hint at this. The queen of the Star Sapphires states outright that Aya's physical form is a reincarnation of Ilana, Razer's lost love. Aya offers the much more mundane explanation that she just used his wife's form as a base for her own, it being the last image of a female that she possessed in her memory.
• Replacement Scrappy: invoked When Hal finds that Aya has been removed from the Interceptor and replaced by a new AI that is annoyingly cheerful, flies like a madman, and apparently has no idea how to use the inertial dampers, he wastes no time getting Aya back.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: In-universe, LANOS. He returns for two episodes, and at the end of the second sacrifices himself to save the crew.

  Hal: Goodbye, LANOS.

• Ride the Lightning: Aya transmits her intelligence from the Interceptor to the Spider Guild prison via green bolts of lightning.
• Room 101: The torture devices in "Razer's Edge" force the victim to relive their worst memories. Subverted in that Razer enjoys it, since he gets to see his dead wife again.
• Robotic Undead: Aya manages to survive being killed by the Anti-Monitor by downloading her consciousness into the mangled corpse of a destroyed Manhunter. While in this form, she walks around with a hunchback and a Zombie Gait.
• Rousing Speech: Hal does this in "Babel" when the team are unable to use their ring. Parodied later when both Razer and Kilowog reveal that they did not understand a word of it, since the ring translators had gone offline.
• Sandworm: A friendly one in "Blue Hope".
• Sarcasm Mode: Razer enters this constantly, mostly in response to the other crew members.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Aya in the episode "Blue Hope".
  Aya: Sigh.
• Scenery Porn: Hal moving Steam Lantern's planet from their universe to his is accompanied by an absolutely gorgeous visual of their gray, foreboding sky being replaced by the bright, star-filled sky of his universe.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Particularly during the first arc, when the characters can't seem to decide if they're trying to protect a galaxy or a universe. In case their name didn't make it obvious, the Guardians of the Universe watch over the entire universe, not just one galaxy. In the second arc, the Anti-Monitor is a universal threat and is treated as such, avoiding the problem.
• Scissors Cuts Rock: A literal example. When Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner get into a fight, Guy creates a construct shaped like a rock. Hal creates scissors and cut the rock in half.
• Secret Identity: Played with and mocked a few times in the series. Notably, Hal Jordan is the only one who keeps his secret, and only among non-Lantern Earthlings.
  • In "Beware My Power, Part 2", Green Lantern Rev doesn't understand the concept of a secret identity, so Kilowog explains it as hilariously as he can.
    Kilowog: That's Hal's hangup. That thing on his face, it's a mask. He wears it in case some Earthling climbs aboard the Interceptor, while we're in space mind you, and says "AHA! THE GREEN LANTERN ON MY PLANET IS HAL JORDAN! I'M TELLIN' EVERYONE!"
    Hal: Talk to me when your planet invents paparazzi and the 24-hour news cycle.
  • It gets brought up again in "Ranx" by Guy Gardner, an Earthling who doesn't bother with this trope.
    Guy: By the way, good thing you got your tiny mask on, in case someone from this uninhabited alien planet recognizes you!
    (Chaselon and Larvox touch their own masks.)
• Secret Test of Character: Implied with Mogo towards Saint Walker. After asking Mogo where the promised savior of the galaxy is, Mogo instructs Saint Walker to climb a mountain, seemingly implying that the savior is there. When Saint Walker fails to find the supposed savior on the mountain top, he thinks that Mogo is telling him that there is no hope and that the galaxy is doomed. Saint Walker refuses to believe this and reaffirms his hope by insisting that he himself will fight the Red Lanterns if necessary. After this, Mogo deems Saint Walker worthy of becoming the first Blue Lantern, indicating that he is the savior Mogo was talking about.
• Series Continuity Error: Possibly. Aya can hear every noise made on the ship, which would make Razer's attempt to spare her feelings in "Fear Itself" completely pointless. Either Razer forgot this or Aya can't hear him, but the latter can't be true since she heard him speak the first half of his oath with the door closed.
• Ship Tease: Between Razer and Aya. Try to ignore the pun in that.
• Shoot the Dog: Hal and Kilowog discuss the possible need to do this with Aya. Kilowog's somewhat pragmatic about it, especially after she starts wiping out solar systems en masse, while Hal believes it might not have to come to that. Razer is initially vehemently opposed to it, but comes to accept that they'll need to after Aya reveals her plan to Ret-Gone all of existence. However, he ultimately can't do it.
• Shout-Out:
  • The priest of the rage temple has what looks to be Sauron's eye on his staff. It's evidently how he sees.
  • The same priest recites can also be heard reciting "It is by rage alone that I set my mind in motion." This is an altered version of the Mentat mantra in Dune, the original using "will".
    • Which is a Continuity Nod in itself, considering in the show, as in the comics, Red Lanterns are powered by rage and Green Lanterns are powered by will.
  • The HUD of the Red Lantern soldiers look exactly like Iron Man's in the films.
  • Razer says "Must go faster!" as the Interceptor races toward an ever-narrowing exit.
  • "Meet the New Boss, same as the old boss." Spoken by Hal in "Homecoming", referring to Zillius Zox replacing Atrocitus as leader of the Red Lanterns.
  • Ghia'ta refers to the Star Sapphires' teleportation method as a "Jaunt", a term made popular by "The Stars My Destination". More darkly, given its detrimental effects on the one using it, it could be a reference to Stephen King's short story "The Jaunt".
  • Ghia'ta's hairstyle is identical to Suki's. May be a nod to the fact that Giancarlo Volpe, one of the producers, was a writer and director on the show.
  • Aya's control panels make the same sounds as the ones from Star Trek: The Original Series.
  • Duke Nigel Fortenberry.
  • Steam Lantern's blimp looks a lot like General Grievous' flagship. It even crashes onto a city. Also a shout out to producer Giancarlo Volpe's last CGI sci-fi project.
  • The alien prisoner in "Prisoner of Sinestro" looks like an Utrom.
  • Sinestro justifies the death of the alien prisoner with "I didn't kill him, I simply didn't save him".
  • Larfleeze is basically Gollum with fangs, to the point you expect him to scream "Looooost!" when Hal Jordan steals his battery.
  • In "Invasion", after Kilowog says he's never seen a computer fly like that, Razer comments "maybe there is more to her than meets the eye."
  • What does this exchange remind you of?
    Manhunter: No man escapes the Manhunters.
    Aga'Po: I am no man.
  • Hal's escape of the collapsing asteroid field tunnel in "Invasion" is very similar to Steven Hiller' s escape from the mothership in Independence Day.
  • Hal's battle against Atrocitus in "Love is a Battlefield" bears quite a few similarities to Superman's final battle with Darkseid. Namely Ghia'ta rushing to aid Hal and getting tossed aside, Hal's words to Atrocitus afterwards, and ending with Hal hammering Atrocitus to the ground (Although using an actual hammer rather than a hammerfist. The camera angle during that last part even matches the original perfectly, although unfortunately Ghia'ta doesn't get to walk away like Batman did.
  • At one point Zox tells Hal "Well, don't think it hasn't been a little slice of heaven, because it hasn't." A line from the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Hair-Raising Hare".
• Single Tear: While being forced to help the Red Lanterns infiltrate Oa, Aya does this.
  • Also Tears from a Stone, because no matter how cute and engaging she is, a collection of parts that wouldn't look out of place in an Apple Store, held together by metal tentacles and Green Lantern energy, really shouldn't be able to cry.
• Skeleton Key Card: Hal tries to open the door to Scar's quarters with a credit card light construct in the "Scarred" episode. Kilowog just breaks the door down.
• Skyward Scream: Razer does this in his flashback, turning his Madness Mantra into a heartbroken scream.
• Small Role, Big Impact: The Frontier Space Green Lantern M'Ten only appears in the opening scene of the first episode, only to be killed by Zilius Zox. His ring's return to Oa being witnessed by Hal, however, ultimately kicks off the plot of the entire series.
• Spaceship Slingshot Stunt: When threatened by a black hole, Hal suggests this.
• Space Whale: Or Space Turtles, rather. In "Scarred", the Interceptor is attacked by giant, space-dwelling turtles that use asteroids for shells.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • Iolande's brother Ragnar. In the comics he is sentenced for execution after murdering his brother, a Green Lantern, and other warriors in his quest to be a Lantern. In the show, he is jailed for murdering one Lantern and attempted murder of two others and his sister. He even gets recruited by the Red Lanterns, which in hindsight means Iolande kinda dropped the ball there.
  • Given the show's short run, and assuming there weren't any plans to kill him off later on, this also applies to the Green Lantern Ch'p, who in the comics was run over by a yellow truck in the second issue of the Green Lantern: Mosaic series.
• Spell My Name With An S: Is it Alana, Ilana, or Elana?
• Spiteful Spit: Razer does this to Zox. Hilarity Ensues as he tries (and fails) to reach it with his tiny arms.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Kilowog's construct of choice is a hammer. He even lampshades it.

  (After Aya just described an incredibly complicated construct needed to fix the warp drive)

  Hal Jordan: Uh, can either of you make that?

  Kilowog: ...I make hammers.

• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Aya and Razor became this in much of the second season. Their romantic subplot pretty much became the biggest focus for the rest of the series, in addition to Aya upstaging and eventually killing the Anti-Monitor, who's considered the biggest multi-versal threat in DC. Gradually, it even felt like even Hal Jordan was turning into a background character in what was supposed to be his show as Aya and Razor took center stage.
• The Stars Are Going Out:
  • The "Steam Lantern" universe had this problem thanks to the Anti-Monitor. Nigel Fortenberry managed to negotiate a deal with the Anti-Monitor to send him to another universe, but the Anti-Monitor screwed him by draining most of the Sun's nuclear fuel before leaving, meaning it too went out not long after. Lucky for them, Hal was there to shift them into his universe, where there's plenty of light.
  • Aya starts doing the same in "Larfleeze", only a lot faster than the Anti-Monitor's "one planet at a time" strategy.
• Stealthy Colossus: In "Steam Lantern", several giant robots manage to sneak up on Hal and his companions in a fairly open area.
• Steampunk: The episode "Steam Lantern". There is justification for the setting, though. Gil explains that society is where it is because the resources of humanity were dedicated to aiding Nigel Fortenberry in stopping the Anti-Monitor, even though they didn't know how. The world is steampunk because progress gave way to necessity.
• Stiff Upper Lip: In "Steam Lantern", Nigel, Lady Catherine and Gil were all pretty collected for their planet being about to die, originally intending to enjoy a cup of tea in the time left for the world to end. Hal even tells them to knock off the "stiff-upper-lippery" when he plans to save the day.
• Stood Up:
  • Carol Ferris. Hal makes a dinner date with her, and then promptly has an emergency in space that requires him to miss his date. She apparently spent a long time searching for him after he went AWOL, eventually discovering the truth about his absence AND his being a Green Lantern after she herself is turned into a Star Sapphire. After regaining her sanity, she forgives him.
  • Come "The New Guy", she can't take it anymore, and tells Hal it'd be smarter to just call it quits.
• Story-Breaker Power: The supercharging power of the Blue Lanterns would make the Green Lanterns essentially invincible in battle, which is why it's only used twice during the first arc. In the second, the Manhunters also benefit from the power boost, forcing them to abandon that strategy.
• Strapped to an Operating Table: Aya in "Reboot". Then Lanos, her annoying replacement, after Hal has their brains swapped. Hal cites this as his reason for no longer trusting the Guardians in "Blue Hope".
• Stripperific: The Star Sapphire Corps, to varying degrees. The queen and her guards take the cake.
• Suicide by Cop: Razer tries this against Hal. He fails.
• Summon Bigger Fish: When the supercharged Manhunters are about to steal the Blue Lantern Central Battery in "Blue Hope", Razer gets Saint Walker to call the giant worm he had made friends with earlier in the episode. It eats the battery and one of the Manhunters.
• Superdickery: Used very successfully with Sinestro in his introductory episode. Mainly due to him using a yellow gun to attack, and his status as a villain in the comics.
• Swirly Energy Thingy: The "pinhole" from "Into the Abyss".
• Team Member in the Adaptation: Ragnar becomes a Red Lantern when his comics counterpart was executed long before the Red Lantern Corps was confirmed to exist (the only Lantern Corps besides the Green Lantern Corps that was established at the time was the Sinestro Corps, which was introduced a few months before Ragnar appeared in the comics).
• Technology Porn: When Aya is first shown putting herself together into a human form there are detailed shots of all the different pieces.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Hal boasts about being an ace test pilot just before trying to fly one of Iolande's hovercraft. Guess what happens.
  • In "Loss", while observing the Anti-Monitor from afar, Aya informs the crew that he's detected their long-range scans. Hal tries to reassure everyone that it doesn't necessarily mean he can see them, at which point the Anti-Monitor (shown as a zoomed-in visual) turns right toward them.
• They Were Holding You Back: Atrocitus killed Razer's fiance to give him the final nudge into becoming the perfect Red Lantern.
• This Is a Drill: Hal seems to have a knack for these. He creates large conical drills in the first and fifth episodes, as well as a power drill in the second.
• The Thunderdome: The jousting arena on Betrassus.
• Timm Style: A 3D CGI version of it. This is emphasized by the 2D artwork they show in some of the segments during commercial breaks, which make them look like something from the original DC Animated Universe.
• Title Drop: In "Love is a Battlefield", Carol Ferris drops the title when she explains to Aya what love is.
• Too Kinky to Torture: Razer is dropped off at a prison and forced to relive his darkest memories as a form of torture. Razer is merely grateful for the chance to see his dead wife again.
• Tractor Beam: The Interceptor is equipped with one. The Anti-Monitor has one, too, which he uses to restrain Hal while he absorbs the Interceptor (that failed, fortunately).
• Trailers Always Spoil: You can very clearly see Razer working alongside Hal and Kilowog in the early previews. This doesn't happen until the fourth episode.
  • A trailer for the second half of season 1 clearly showed Hal Jordan with the Orange Lantern, pretty much negating the impact of his Heroic Sacrifice. For that matter, Aya (now evil) can be glimpsed behind Atrocitus in another preview, negating that sacrifice and giving away another plot twist, even if it is without context.
• Translation Convention: Averted in "Babel".
  Kilowog: That doesn't even rhyme.
  Hal: It does in my language.
• Translator Microbes: It is noted that the Green Lantern ring has a built-in universal translator function, thereby allowing Hal Jordan (and the viewers) to understand what the different alien races are saying. This function is lost when their rings are drained in "Babel", resulting in an episode of The Team yelling gibberish at one another.
• Trench Run: In "Prisoner of Sinestro", complete with gun towers, which turns into Outrun the Fireball on the way back out.
• Trojan Prisoner: Hal uses this gambit on the fly in "Reckoning" after Kilowog gets caught trying to unsuccessfully stuff himself into a stolen set of Red Lantern guard armor. Hal had already managed to put his set on.
• Understatement: In "Loss", Hal, Kilowog, and Razer try to retreat to the Interceptor. Hal and Kilowog make it through, but Razer is cut off by a group of Manhunters. His response? "Inopportune." Then he turns around to outmaneuver them, finding another group of Manhunters has flanked him. "Very inopportune."
• Universal Driver's License: Subverted for laughs. When presented with an alien hovering motorcycle, Hal claims that his experience as a test pilot will make him a natural. It throws him off in three seconds. Later, in "Babel", he insists on driving an alien transport simply because he's the pilot. This one is pretty much a futuristic truck, so he does alright.
• Unobtainium: Hardtofindium in "Steam Lantern". So named because it's hard to find.
  • Word of God says that scriptwriter Ernie Altbacker fought hard for that line. He had to fight hard for the whole episode.
• Virtual-Reality Interrogation: In the 11th episode, the heroes need to get a code for an ancient Cool Gate from a prisoner. First, he gives them a code. Then, the bad guys capture them, and he gives them another code. Then, he is released, flies away, gets to the gate, and uses a third code (that one works). Then, the Properly Paranoid heroes remove his VR helmet.
• Wagon Train to the Stars: The first arc is about the main characters travelling back to Oa, as well as stalking the Red Lanterns, and the many planets they visit along the way.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Mogo, being a living planet, is capable of firing one. In "Homecoming", Saint Walker's Blue Lantern ring is used as an amplifier, and together they wipe out the entire Red Lantern armada in one shot.
• Waxing Lyrical: Combined with a Title Drop in "Love is a Battlefield".
• Weird World, Weird Food:
  • Kilowog is shown dining on a bowl of worm-like creatures. Later he begins eating a crab-like creature, shell and all. Inverted in the same scene, where he expresses such revulsion over the concept of cheese (Aya explains it is curdled cow milk, which is entirely accurate) he asks Hal to eat in a storage closet.
  • In a less extreme example, Razer is shown to be eating a grey steak at one point.
• Wham Episode:
  • "Invasion". The Ultra-Warp drive is repaired, just in time for Aya to get brain-jacked by the Red Lanterns and take Atrocitus to Oa, while Atrocitus detonates a series of bombs to create a path through the Asteroid Thicket separating the Forgotten Zone from the rest of the universe. Now his fleet can move through unimpeded, while Hal, Kilowog and Razer are trapped in space with just one Green Lantern battery to their name. On the bright side, Saint Walker is a Blue Lantern now.
  • "Loss". Razer seems to finally be getting over his wife's death and ready to start a relationship with Aya, only for her to sacrifice herself pushing him out of the way of the Anti-Monitor's Wave-Motion Gun. Furthermore she "dies" in his arms with him begging her not to die and proclaiming his love for her before being pulled away from her "remains' as he screams in anguish.
  • "Cold Fury". Aya comes Back from the Dead, gets rejected by Razer and fuses with the Anti-Monitor. ^note "Loss" and "Cold Fury" were conceived as a two-part movie event.
• Wham Line:
  Hal: Show sectors destroyed by Aya. Show all uninhabited sectors. Overlay.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In "Steam Lantern" Hal transports the Steampunk Earth to his home universe, bringing "a couple billion new friends" with. It and Steam Lantern are never mentioned again. It was most likely caused by the show being cancelled after one season.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The Guardians don't appreciate emergent behavior in their AIs, since they try to dissect Aya in the second half of the season. Goes for the heroes, too, because Hal is more than willing to swap her considerably less intelligent (and competent) replacement Lanos into her body so he can save Aya without arousing suspicion.
  • The creators responded to fans' commentary on what happened with Lanos, stating that he was designed to play off more like a badly programed Nav Com with no actual higher sentience than a fully sentient being like Aya, hence his Dissonant Serenity noted above.
  • An odd example in "Lost Planet". The three Obviously Evil castaways all try to betray/kill the heroes. The two humanoid ones are stopped at the end, yet the non-human one, Grood, is implicitly killed barely halfway through the episode. It's somewhat ambiguous, but he's never seen again. Since Mogo is responsible for all three, humanoid characteristics were probably not taken into account, which begs the question of why he felt that Grood deserved such a harsh punishment while the other two got off light.
  • Discussed once more in "Blue Hope". Razer questions whether Aya can even feel emotions, Aya tries to teach a Manhunter to grow beyond its programming, and Saint Walker compares all living beings to machines (just of a different sort). Aya eventually states there's a difference between an artificial lifeform and 'just a machine'; the former is willing to evolve beyond its programming while the latter are content to be slaves to their programming.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Hal and Kilowog don't hesitate to call the Guardians on seemingly ignoring the deaths of dozens of Frontier Lanterns, a fact which they didn't even bother to advertise to the Corps proper (for that matter, the mere existence of these Lanterns was kept from them).
  • Hal calls Razer out on trying to assassinate Atrocitus, forcing the others to rescue him, as his actions alerted the Red Lanterns to their survival.
• The Worf Effect: Just to demonstrate that the Red Lanterns are dangerous, they kill one Lantern and nearly beat three more (including Hal and Kilowog) when outnumbered three to two. This is consistent with the comics; the other lights of the Emotional Spectrum are usually depicted as more powerful, but at the cost of stability.
  • Kilowog himself is worfed consistently. This is particularly bad in "Lost Planet", where he is somehow on even ground with a staff-wielding Badass Normal. Unless his ring was outright dead, instead of merely low on power due to earlier events, that fight should have lasted two seconds.
  • The Anti-Monitor shrugs off a full-power blast from the Interceptor, just to stress that he won't be going down so easy.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit:
  • A favored trap of the Reds, used by Razer and Zox twice in the pilot to lure in Green Lanterns. Gets mentioned again when the crew is responding to a distress call in episode 4. Razer, now an ally, assures them that this one is legit since the traps aren't set in this area of space.
  • Drusa uses this on Aya to con her way onto the Interceptor in "Lost Planet".
  • In "Invasion", Hal, Razer, and Kilowog investigate Atrocitus' damaged ship, allowing him to covertly hijack theirs (and Aya along with it).
• Wreathed in Flames: The Battle Aura of Red Lanterns looks like this, particularly when they're angry. Green Lanterns give off a similar effect while amplified by a Blue Lantern ring, as do Manhunters.
• Written by the Winners: Ganthet points out this trope when one of the Guardians asks if information about the Red Lanterns would be in the "Book of Oa".
• You Shall Not Pass!: While Hal and Razer rush to save the Guardians from Atrocitus, Kilowog stays behind to hold back the Red Lantern aramada. He's fully aware it's a suicide mission but believes Hal will need every minute he can get. Lucky for him, Saint Walker and Mogo show up.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Hal uses this to get through to Carol Ferris, who's currently unstable after being recruited as a Star Sapphire.
• Zeppelins from Another World: In the episode "Steam Lantern", unsurprisingly, but there's only the one and if anything it's somewhat primitive, as Nigel Fortenberry has a working steam helicopter.

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