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I meant to have this ready for the last issue, but had a few
interruptions at critical points along the way and couldn't get the
artwork finished until too late. This time around, I take my
inspiration from the revival of the Green Lantern Corps and the return
of Hal Jordan. I have no insight on Hal's return, I've got my fingers
crossed. With any luck, they'll do a good job with the story.
With Hal returning, he'll need opposition, and while I'd love
to see new enemies for Green Lantern, there will, no doubt, be a few
old "friends" showing back up. And, if I have anything to say about
it, they'll have new looks!
I suppose the place to start is with Hal's old flame and
long-time adversary, Star Sapphire. Star Sapphire is the super-powered
alter-ego of Carol Ferris, head of Ferris Aircraft, Hal's on-and-off
employer. Carol was chosen to be the queen of the Zamarons, the female
counterparts to the Guardians of the Universe, of Oa and was given a
star sapphire possessing magical properties. She resisted the
Zamarons' desire for her to join them and lead them, so they
hypnotized her into developing a sort of split-personality. As Star
Sapphire, she fought Green Lantern, while, as Carol Ferris, she was in
love with Green Lantern. Carol retained no memory of her activities as
Star Sapphire, until Hal confronted her with the knowledge that she
and Star Sapphire were one and the same.
As far as her costume goes, Star Sapphire was very lucky. This
is almost certainly a Gil Kane design, drawing directly from the space
opera costumes of Flash Gordon, as with many of the costumes designed
in the Silver Age. It is interesting that her color scheme is almost a
direct opposite of Green Lantern's, as is the violet energy she
wields.
Starting from this basic model, I chose to keep the mask and
tiara, with only minor modifications. From there, I scrapped the other
costume elements or reworked them in my own way. The belt, I made
"metallic", the boots and gloves are a bit more "aggressive" in style
and also plausible for such a dominating character. While I love bare
legs, they make no sense in this context, so I gave the costume pant
legs. Too much naked flesh is undignified in a monarch. But I couldn't
resist the open top.
Another of Hal's recurring nemeses is the Magneto-wannabe Dr.
Polaris. This poor schmuck has had the worst luck in costumes of
almost any DC villain, and that's saying something. The more recent
departures from the earlier Gil Kane designs worked well enough, but
by abandoning any hint of the old design or color scheme, they made
him unrecognizable.
His colors, blue and purple work better together than you'd
think, but the designs tend toward the bizzare, with the strange
Kirby-esque "antlers" on the headgear. Dr. Polaris originally relied
on weapons to produce magnetic energy, but later the power seems to
have been internalized. Personally, I like the idea that his powers
work both ways, that his suit and weapons act as external foci for his
own less-refined magnetic powers. On this basis, I designed an armored
suit, borrowing the color scheme from his blue and purple costume. The
helmet is designed to be a more plausible protective helmet, rather
than the traditional comic-style headgear that would be about as
protective to the cranium as any other mask.
One other repeat villain in the Green Lantern series I thought
I'd take a crack at is Sonar. Bito Wladon was a clockmaker's
apprentice in the tiny Balkan country of Modora, when he developed the
science of "nucleo-sonics". He invented several novel devices capable
of converting and amplifying sonic energy into useable energy,
enabling him to nullify gravity and project beams of sonic force, or
even sound waves capable of disorienting an opponent by inducing
hallucinations. Due to its small size and tiny population, Modora was
continually ignored in international affairs, which frustrated bito
Wladen to the point where he decided to put Modora on the map, but
building and detonating a Nucleo-Sonic Bomb. Requiring materials and
equipment unavailable in Modora, Wladon created a flashy costume and
headed to the United States to steal the things he needed. Using his
sonic super-weapons in a high-tech crime spree, the press dubbed him
"Sonar" and he soon came into conflict with Hal Jordan, Green Lantern.
Hal had a little trouble with Sonar, at first, but rarely for
very long. More recently, Sonar's powers were "upgraded" and
internalized, basically cybernetically implanting his nucleo-sonic
devices. I never cared much for the look he had, when he fought Kyle
Rayner, no shirt and all that. I do like some of the feel of his
original costume, so I opted to go back toward that aesthetic, a bit,
returning to the flashy red riding pants and hussar boots. The top is
just a simple design, to break up the monotony of the blue jacket in
the original, without the frippery and buttons. And this time, no
cape. More business, less show.
And last, but certainly not least, Sinestro. Try as I might, I
can't come up with a more perfect Adversary for the greatest Green
Lantern the Corps ever produced. Once a Green Lantern, himself,
Sinestro trained Hal Jordan, when Jordan was introduced to the
Guardians and Green Lantern Corps. Now, as improbable as it sounds,
his parents apparently thought "Sinestro" was a good name for thie
son, since that's the only name he seems ever to have had. I just
imagine him in kindergarten, little Sinestro has the children
goose-stepping all over the play yard or something like that. In all
the stories of Sinestro's history, he comes across as an absolute
authoritarian, choosing to enforce "the law", whatever that may be, to
the letter. "Power tends to corrupt", Lord Acton said, "and absolute
power tends to corrupt absolutely." So it was with Sinestro. The power
of the Green Lantern corrupted Sinestro and he made himself absolute
ruler of his homeworld, Korugar.
At that point, the not-so-omniscient Guardians intervened,
stripped him of his power ring and banished him to the anti-matter
universe, on the planet Qward. His exile was meant to teach him a
lesson, instead Sinestro found a new home, among people who thought
more like him than the Guardians could imagine. The Weaponers of Qward
had long been dedicated to armed oppression of those weaker than
themselves. Sinestro chose to use Qward and it's technology as a power
base, wielding a ring of power created by the Weaponers. Sinestro's
ring draws power from the Green Lanterns' own green energy, converting
it to a yellow energy beam capable of matching the green energy of the
Guardians, and being yellow in color, leaving Green Lanterns
defenseless against it.
Sinestro fought the Green Lantern Corps many times, over the
years, always being defeated or, at least, forced to flee. When he
began a campaign of atomizing whole civlizations, Sinestro was
captured and the GL Corps took a vote to decide Sinestro's fate. By a
majority vote, Sinestro was executed by the Green Lanterns, but
Sinestro enjoyed the last laugh, since those executing him did not
know that the Guardians had programmed the Central Power Battery to
self-destruct, should a Korugarian be killed by its green energy.
After Sinestro died, the Power Battery crumbled, and with it, the
Green Lantern Corps was destroyed. Sinestro's life force was trapped
in the Power Battery at the time of his execution and his body was
vaporized by the Green Lanterns who executed him, but I couldn't
resist the image of Sinestro rising out of the ground.
Of course, I know that Sinestro's ring belongs to Kyle Rayner's
adversary, Nero, but that's not important, this column is called
ARTISTIC LICENSE, after all.
Sinestro's punishment by the Guardians gave me an idea. It's
something I've been kicking around for some time, and it fits nicely
with Sinestro's possible return. It goes like this:
Some time in the past, many thousands of years ago, a Guardian
of the Universe chose to break ranks with what he considered his
too-lenient brothers. His idea was not to enforce the law, but to
impose the law among the stars, presaging the Controllers' Darkstars.
The Controllers are also an offshoot of the Guardians root stock, just
as the Zamarons are the female counterparts of the Guardians.
The rogue Guardian attempted to recruit other Guardians to his
cause, but was succesful only in bringing the Guardian Council down on
him for his rebellious attitudes. When the Council was unable to
convince him to rededicate himself to the Guardians' cause, the rogue
Guardian was stripped of his own power and exiled to wander the
universe. Calling himself "Malus", the Rogue Guardian attempted to
recruit among the fledgeling Green Lantern Corps to incite a
revolution against the Guardians.
This time, the Guardians exiled Malus to the anti-matter
universe, immortal, but powerless. Small and weak as he was, Malus's
knowledge was vast and he was able to build a power base that
eventually became the Weaponers of Qward. Satisfied, for a time, with
ruling "behind the throne", as it were, Malus eventually became
restless, unwilling to compromise, he was driven away from Qward to
wander the anti-matter universe.
When Sinestro was executed and the Central Power Battery was
destroyed, vast amounts of the Guardians' energy was released into the
universe. Long ago, when Oa was established as the base of operations
of the Guardians and eventually, the Green Lantern Corps, the
Guardians poured most of their own personal power into the Central
Power Battery. At that time, Malus did likewise. With the destruction
of the Power Battery, Malus's own power was released, and returned to
him in a rush, in the anti-matter universe. In the transition between
the universes, his power was altered, inverted. changed form the rich,
living green to a malignant violet flame. Malus's blue skin had faded,
over the millenia, to almost white, with the return of his power,
nothing could prevent him from returning to his home universe. But,
before that, he had a few scores to settle in the anti-matter
universe.
After a few years spent setting things right, Malus decides to
return to the universe of his birth, to confront his brothers and
begin his crusade. Upon his return, he seeks out the fragments of
Sinestro's life force and raises him from the dead, drawn from the
soil of Oa. Granting Sinestro access to his own power, through a power
ring of his own creation, Malus sets him against his old nemesis, Hal
Jordan. Before beginning, Sinestro tracks down Nero and takes back his
old ring, probably killing Nero, in the process.
The costume is really an afterthought. The idea is to give him
a bit more of a militaristic look and less of the court jester look of
his old costume. His new ring requires no recharging and is the equal
of Kyle Rayner's ring, which had no special weakness. His old ring's
only weakness is the need to recharge it through conflict with Green
Lanterns.
So, that's what I've come up with.
See you next month.
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