Green Lantern Corps Quarterly #1

History

The series was shepherded editorially by Kevin Dooley and written — in this debut issue — by a roster headlined by Gerard Jones (the then-current Green Lantern writer), with John Ostrander, Roger Stern, Scott Lobdell, and Will Jacobs each contributing short stories. Artists on the issue include M.D. Bright, Flint Henry, Dusty Abell, Joe Staton, Tim Hamilton, and Paul Gulacy — an unusually deep creative bench for an anthology format. The quarterly schedule was a deliberate choice to accommodate an ever-expanding cast that could not be served by a monthly alone: DC had just launched Green Lantern: Mosaic and was about to follow with Guy Gardner and Darkstars, making 1992 the apex of the Green Lantern line's expansion. The overarching framing device — Hal Jordan bringing the Corps to witness the Book of Oa, from which the individual stories unfold — gave the anthology structural coherence rather than the looseness that often plagued DC's try-out anthology titles.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance of Jack T. Chance, created by writer John Ostrander and artist Flint Henry in the story 'Layin' Down the Law'; Chance is a blue-skinned humanoid from the crime world Garnet (also called Hellhole) who supplements his power ring with a conventional firearm to circumvent the ring's failsafe against lethal force.
• First appearance of Shilandra Thane, a woman who inherits a dying Green Lantern's ring on her war-torn planet; she ultimately becomes the last survivor of her world after a massive missile strike, and vows to prevent the same tragedy elsewhere.
• Jack T. Chance is loosely based on Grimjack, another John Ostrander creation — a morally gray gunfighter operating in a lawless environment — making the character a conceptual import from Ostrander's earlier First Comics work into the DC universe.
• The anthology's framing device has Hal Jordan lead the Corps to Oa to witness the Book of Oa, with each member's story presented as a tale drawn from that record — a narrative wrapper that appears in multiple stories across the issue.
• The Alan Scott segment ('And I Shall Shed My Light') establishes post-Crisis continuity for the Golden Age Green Lantern: his origin is unknown to the general public (unlike Hal Jordan's), and the JSA's battle against Ian Karkull is confirmed as canonical in the post-Crisis DCU, anchoring All-Star Squadron Annual #3 to the new timeline.
• The G'nort story introduces 'Sax Girl,' a street musician G'nort recruits as a sidekick, as well as the trio of yellow-armored would-be JLA applicants she and G'nort defeat.
• The issue features an unusually large creative roster: writers include Gerard Jones, John Ostrander, Roger Stern, Scott Lobdell, and Will Jacobs; artists include M.D. Bright, Flint Henry, Dusty Abell, Joe Staton, Tim Hamilton, and Paul Gulacy.
• Green Lantern Corps Quarterly ran 8 issues total (Summer 1992–Spring 1994) as a companion to the expanding Green Lantern family of titles that also included Green Lantern: Mosaic, Guy Gardner, and Darkstars — all launched within the same editorial window.

Cast · 40 characters

Full credits

Key issues in Green Lantern Corps Quarterly

Variants (1)