Green Lantern #43
Green Lantern #43 is the debut appearance of Major Disaster — Paul Booker — one of the more durable Silver Age rogues ever to graduate from one-off villainy to Justice League membership, Suicide Squad service, and an eventual redemptive arc that stretched across four decades of DC continuity. The issue also stands as a showcase for the defining friendship of the Silver Age: every Barry Allen–Hal Jordan team-up reinforced the idea that DC's two science-fiction-flavored, Julie Schwartz-edited flagships occupied a shared, intimate universe, a dynamic that writers from Mark Waid to Geoff Johns returned to repeatedly. The power-swap gimmick at the story's center — Hal's ring energy temporarily transferring to Barry, giving the Flash constructs while Green Lantern gains speed — gave the creators a genuinely fresh in-universe puzzle to solve and offered readers a glimpse of just how conceptually elastic both heroes' power sets could be. As a 1966 snapshot, the issue also captures the moment when inter-title team-ups at DC were still a novelty worth centering an entire story around rather than a routine scheduling device.
In "Catastrophic Crimes of Major Disaster!", Hal Jordan and Barry Allen are stunned when their girlfriends, Carol Harris and Iris West, unexpectedly reveal they know their secret identities as Green Lantern and The Flash—thanks to a mysterious letter. Lured into a trap, the heroes suddenly lose their powers, only to discover their foe is the cunning Major Disaster, who's rigged a device to swap their abilities and plans to destroy them with a deadly weapon. But when the device backfires, it's Major Disaster who meets his end—leaving Carol and Iris with amnesia, and the heroes' identities safely intact.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
The story, titled 'Catastrophic Crimes of Major Disaster!', was written by Gardner Fox and drawn by penciler Gil Kane with inks by Sid Greene — all three of whom received cover-page credits, which the 50 Year Old Comic Books blog noted was an unusually transparent gesture for the era. Lettering was provided by Gaspar Saladino, and the book was edited by Julius Schwartz, who shepherded both the Green Lantern and Flash titles and was the primary architect of the Barry Allen–Hal Jordan friendship across dozens of issues. The issue carries a cover date of March 1966, with an on-sale date in early January of that year. By this point in the mid-1960s, Fox and Kane had been collaborating on the Green Lantern series for years, and DC's own retrospective coverage identifies this issue as a high-water mark for Kane's linework on the title.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Major Disaster (real name Paul Booker), created by writer Gardner Fox and penciler Gil Kane; the character debuted in the story 'Catastrophic Crimes of Major Disaster!' (cover date: March 1966).
- Major Disaster's origin hinges on Thomas Kalmaku's Green Lantern casebook: Booker, a petty crook hiding from police in Kalmaku's apartment, accidentally discovers the secret identities of both Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) and the Flash (Barry Allen).
- The story features a power-swap subplot in which Green Lantern's ring energy is accidentally transferred to the Flash, temporarily giving Barry Allen ring-based constructs while Hal Jordan loses his standard abilities.
- Both Carol Ferris and Iris West learn their boyfriends' secret identities at the story's outset — one of the few Silver Age issues to treat that premise as the story's inciting crisis rather than its twist ending — though their memories are erased by issue's end.
- Full creative credits: Gardner Fox (writer), Gil Kane (pencils), Sid Greene (inks), Gaspar Saladino (letters), Julius Schwartz (editor).
- The issue has been reprinted multiple times: in DC Special #18 (October–November 1975), The Green Lantern Archives Vol. 6, and Showcase Presents: Green Lantern Vol. 4 (in black and white); the Grand Comics Database also records an early reprint in a Spanish-language Batman title published by Editorial Novaro in February 1967.
- Major Disaster went on to become a recurring DC villain with affiliations including the Injustice League, Justice League Antarctica, the Suicide Squad, and the Justice League Elite, before dying in Infinite Crisis #7 (June 2006) — giving the character a 40-year publication lifespan rooted in this issue.
- The Flash and Green Lantern had previously teamed up in Green Lantern's title (beginning with Green Lantern #13 in 1962) and in Flash's own book, but this issue — the sixth solo team-up between the two — is cited by DC's own editorial coverage as one of Gil Kane's artistic peaks on the series.
Cast · 7 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Batman #361 (1967), DC Special #18 (1975), Superman Presents World's Finest Comic Monthly #127 (1975), Green Lantern #12 (1976), Green Lantern Archives #6 (2007), Showcase Presents: Green Lantern #3 (2008), The Green Lantern Omnibus #2 (2012), Green Lantern: The Silver Age Omnibus #2 (2018), Green Lantern: The Silver Age #4 (2019), Rymdmannen #3/1968
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