Oh My God! They Killed Green Lantern!

I remember seeing the cover of the first issue of the new GREEN LANTERN series – the one showing Teen Lantern facing off against the Guardians of the Universe – and thinking this looks like it could be fun!

Four issues in, and there’s not much fun to be had. Instead, with the Central Power Battery destroyed and Lanterns throughout the universe left without their power rings, bounty hunters and other killers have been taking their toll, giving us this heavy double spread where Lanterns are named among the dead or missing:

Having been a long-time Green Lantern fan, there’s plenty of names there that I recognised (including NautKeLoi, one of the earliest alien Lanterns to appear in Hal Jordan’s original series back in the 1960s) but one name caught me by surprise:

Arisia Rrabb, teen Lantern who used her ring to age herself so she could date Hal Jordan

and who forged a new career after the events of Emerald Twilight (and made some weird fashion choices)

and who was killed by Major Force before reviving and rejoining the Corps, as a kick ass Lantern

and who has been a fan favourite for many years . . . has apparently been killed off screen.

That sucks.

She’s been dead before and has managed to come back, so who knows? But for now, it’s farewell to one of the longest serving Lanterns.

7 thoughts on “Oh My God! They Killed Green Lantern!”

  1. Yeah it sucks they gotta’ pull stunts like this in “increase the dramatic tension” of the story being told, so nothing groundbreaking here. It does suck that its her though. She was written for so long as Hal’s jailbait-looking gf and then left to flounder around to establish her own identity after that ended, only to be killed off & then thankfully brought back only to kick the proverbial bucket yet again. Poor woman just can’t catch a break can see? And an off-screen death at that! She deserved better. Maybe an on- panel death wouldn’t be as bad or graphic as the one your imagination envisions happened…

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    1. I think it was the off-screen “the Central Power Battery blew up so her ring stopped working” casualness that annoyed me the most. People die in boring, mundane, senseless ways all the time in real life (years ago when I was a kid, one of my great-uncles was using an electric strimmer to trim the hedge and cut through the cable – electric shock and instantly dead) but this is comics – Arisia was a hero and deserved to go out in some more meaningful, spectacular way if they were going to get rid of her.

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      2. Yeah, not the best way to go, although I later learned that his brother, my great-uncle Pete, also died in a slightly noteworthy fashion: had a heart attack while sat on the toilet. My great-aunt had the neighbour break the door down after he’d been in there a while with no sound and no answer to her questions of whether he was okay and, sure enough, dead on the toilet.

        Not a great deal of luck, that side of my family.

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      3. Jesus…no kidding. Had that been my family with that kind of history, I’d be SUPER nervous around toilets & electrical outlets.

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  2. What a shame. I used to be a Green Lantern fan also, but I am afraid I gave up on following it regularly a long time ago. I will check in on it once in a while. At least Guy and Kyle are just “missing.” I don’t even want to ask about Hal; honestly I don’t want to even know. Of course, Guy was killed in Injustice, Hal has been killed multiple times, and turned into a villain multiple times. And at least 100 Green Lanterns have been killed (there is a fandom wiki “Green Lantern Corps: The List of Fallen Lanterns and How They Died”). The original Green Lantern Alan Moore was sent to limbo at one point, and also made into a killer at one point. Green Lantern is a tough series to consistently be a fan in the long run.

    During Batman series of Bane breaking Bruce Wayne’s back, I just stopped reading Batman series, and ditto with Tom King’s writing on Batman when he brought back Thomas Wayne as a villain on Earth 1. I really have stopped reading the latest stuff with Batman in the sewers because he can’t access Wayne Manor or the batcave too. I hope other people enjoy that stuff. Not me. I just don’t need that stuff for entertainment. Seriously. There are too many other comics out there, other interesting story lines both present and in the past. I have recently been reading Star Spangled Comics and old Robin stories. They often had a really positive message to young people on courage, perserverence, dignity, and honesty. I just don’t need perverted characters into killers, Batman in sewers, and Green Lanterns dead.

    Hope it changes for you.

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    1. Hal’s still around – he’s shown on the last page at the Hall of Justice listening to Jo Mullein’s message so we’ll probably hear from him soon.

      “The original Green Lantern Alan Moore was sent to limbo at one point” I think you mean Alan Scott – although the idea of Alan Moore as a Green Lantern made me smile! 🙂

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