| Green Lantern | |
|---|---|
Promotional art for Green Lantern #156, by Ariel Olivetti. |
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Green Lantern vol. 2, #87 (Dec. 1971/Jan. 1972) |
| Created by | Dennis O’Neil (writer) Neal Adams (artist) |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | John Stewart |
| Species | Human |
| Place of origin | Earth |
| Team affiliations | Green Lantern Corps Justice League Darkstars U.S. Marine Corps Indigo Tribe |
| Notable aliases | The Master Builder |
| Abilities | Wields Oan power ring |
John Stewart is a fictional character, a comic book superhero published by DC Comics. He first appeared in Green Lantern vol. 2, #87 (December 1971/January 1972), and was created by Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams.
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John Stewart has become a major recurring character in the Green Lantern mythos within the DC Universe. He starred in the short-lived spin-off comic Green Lantern: Mosaic, of which DC published 18 issues between June 1992 and November 1993. Additionally, he was the primary character in Green Lantern vol. 2 from issues #182 through #200, when Jordan relinquished his place in the Corps (1984–1986). He is one of DC's first black costumed superheroes.
He was featured as one of the lead characters on the television cartoon Justice League from 2001 until 2004. He continued to appear on the show's 2004–2006 sequel, Justice League Unlimited. As of 2011, John Stewart is prominently featured in DC's monthly comic books Green Lantern (vol. 4) and Green Lantern Corps as part of the War of the Green Lanterns story arc.
John Stewart and Guy Gardner will be the focus for the upcoming relaunch of Green Lantern Corps starting in September 2011.
John Stewart is an architect and veteran U.S. Marine from Detroit Michigan, who was selected by the Guardians as Hal Jordan’s backup after Guy Gardner was seriously injured in a disaster. Although Jordan objected after seeing that Stewart had a belligerent attitude to authority figures, the Guardians stood by their selection, and chided Jordan for his supposed bigoted outlook on the issue. Jordan explained that he just felt that even though Stewart might have the integrity for the task, he "obviously would have a chip on his shoulder bigger than the rock of Gibraltar."
To Jordan, Stewart’s first mission began badly with the assignment of protecting a racist politician and Stewart took advantage of averting an accident to embarrass him in the process. However, Stewart soon proved his worth when an assassin shot at the politician, but Stewart refused to intervene with Jordan to move in response to the attack. Stewart had good reasons for this apparent dereliction of duty when he stopped a gunman from killing a police officer in the outside parking lot at the event while Jordan was pursuing a decoy. When Jordan confronted Stewart about his actions, Stewart explained that the politician had staged it for political advantage. With that adventure, Jordan concluded that Stewart was an excellent recruit after all.
For some time, Stewart occasionally filled in for him as Green Lantern when Jordan was unavailable, including some missions of the Justice League.[1]
After Jordan gave up being Green Lantern in the 1980s, the Guardians selected Stewart for full time duty. Stewart filled that role for some years, during which time he married Katma Tui, the Green Lantern of the planet Korugar who was initially assigned to train John in the use of his ring. Kat and John served together within the Green Lantern Corps of Earth alongside Hal Jordan, Arisia, Kilowog, Salaak, and other alien Green Lanterns.
After John’s ring was rendered powerless through the schemes of Sinestro, and Katma Tui was murdered at the hands of the insane Star Sapphire, Stewart’s life began to unravel.[1] First, he was falsely accused of killing Carol Ferris, Star Sapphire’s alter ego, and then falsely accused of theft by South Nambia (a fictional DCU nation similar to Apartheid-era South Africa). Jailed and tortured in South Nambia for weeks, John freed himself with his old ring, now re-powered thanks to the efforts of Hal Jordan. As a result, John inadvertently freed both a serial killer and a terrorist. When Jordan confronted John over his actions, the two friends came to blows until John realized the “revolutionaries” he had been aiding intended to murder innocent civilians.
Afterwards, John left Earth for space, where he participated in the Cosmic Odyssey miniseries event, and failed to prevent the destruction of the planet Xanshi by an avatar of the Anti-Life Equation.[1] The incident earned him the ire of J’onn J’onzz the Martian Manhunter, who was with him at the time. This series of tragedies left John a shattered man on the brink of suicide and created the villainess known as Fatality. J'onn J'onzz has since, at least civilly, forgiven him.
John finally forgave himself for his past mistakes and grew into a stronger, more complex hero when he became the caretaker of the "Mosaic World", a patchwork of communities from multiple planets that had been brought to Oa by an insane Guardian who had invaded John’s mind.[1] Although bitter and sullen at his assignment at first, he overcame this and, using his formidable intellect and talent for unconventional thinking, Stewart forged the Mosaic into a new society and eventually became the first mortal Guardian of the Universe, known as the Master Builder. As his reward for this new level of awareness, John was reunited with his late wife, Katma Tui. However, tragedy struck once again and Hal Jordan, possessed by Parallax, destroyed both the Guardians and the Central Power Battery, robbing John of his newfound powers and his resurrected wife.
Following "Emerald Twilight" and the collapse of the Green Lantern Corps, Stewart was recruited by the Controllers to command the Darkstars, another interstellar peacekeeping force.[1] Using the new resources at his command, Stewart evacuated the Mosaic cities from Oa prior to its destruction and served the Darkstars with distinction until he was crippled in battle with Grayven on the planet Rann. Stewart eventually regained the use of his legs as a parting gift from Jordan before Jordan sacrificed himself to destroy the Sun-Eater during the 1996 "The Final Night" storyline. As a result of Jordan healing him, he began to exhibit random bursts of energy from his hands that he was able to discharge on three different occasions. Though he had initially refused a new Green Lantern ring months prior, he eventually accepted a new one entrusted to Kyle Rayner by a time-lost Hal Jordan, and joined the Justice League to fill in for Rayner as he took an extended leave of absence from Earth.(Green Lantern vol. 3 155-156)
With the return of Hal Jordan and the Guardians, the Corps has been reorganized. Each sector of space now has two Green Lanterns assigned to it, and Stewart and Jordan now share regular duty for Earth’s sector, 2814. After the dissolution of the Justice League in the aftermath of the events depicted in the 2004 miniseries Identity Crisis, and the destruction of their Watchtower headquarters on the moon, Stewart has begun playing a larger role in metahuman affairs, working with many former Justice Leaguers.[1]
During the “52” storyline, John Stewart alongside Hal Jordan are involved in one of the first post-Freedom of Power Treaty confrontations. After a battle with the Great Ten and Black Adam, John and Hal are escorted to Russian airspace by the Rocket Red Brigade.[2]
During the opening One Year Later storyline of Green Lantern, Hal Jordan tells Green Arrow that John Stewart is on an off-world undercover mission. The details John Stewart disguised himself as the bounty hunter "Hunger Dog" to undercover in Europe. When John hears that Hal Jordan is being held captive by Amon Sur and Loragg, he goes off to rescue him. This leads to a confrontation with Amon Sur, who turns out to be the son of their predecessor, Abin Sur. During the fight, Amon receives a ring from the Sinestro Corps and vanishes.[3]
In Justice League of America vol. 2, #7, he and Wonder Woman designed one of the League’s new headquarters, The Hall. John later resumes his role as the League's resident Green Lantern upon Hal Jordan's request.
In the Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special, the Green Lantern Corps are attacked by Bedovian, the sniper of the Sinestro Corps, who is capable of taking out a target from three sectors away, all from the inside of a red Sun-Eater. After Bedovian takes out several Green Lanterns, John Stewart uses his power ring as a scoped sniper rifle to track the nearby sectors. He eventually discovers Bedovian's hiding spot and shoots him. As Green Lantern Corps member were forbidden from killing sentient beings at that time, Bedovian survived the attack, as recently seen in the Blackest Night crossover. John and Guy Gardner are captured by Lyssa Drak and taken back to Qward, where the two Lanterns are held captive.[4][5] Hal manages to defeat Lyssa and free John and Guy from their nightmares, while the Lost Lanterns recover Ion. The earth-based Lanterns then return home, only to find that New Earth, as the center of the Multiverse, is the Sinestro Corps' next target.[6]
The Sinestro Corps and the Manhunters invade Earth. The Cyborg Superman and Superboy-Prime attack Superman, while Hal confronts Parallax, who has possessed Kyle Rayner, just before the latter is about to kill Hal's family. John orders Guy to retrieve a painting by Kyle Rayner's mother. When Parallax absorbs Hal inside himself, John looks on with sudden shock. Guy returns and shoves the painting into Parallax's eyesight, allowing Hal to use it to help Kyle overcome his fears and expel Parallax. Now in its original form, Parallax is then contained by Ganthet and Sayd within the Power Batteries of Hal, John, Guy, and Kyle. Ganthet and Sayd then reveal that they are no longer Guardians. Ganthet gives Kyle a new power ring and asks Kyle to become a Green Lantern again, to which he agrees. The four then race off to finish the fight.[7] At Guy Gardner's suggestion, John and the other Lanterns use Warworld as a gigantic grenade, badly wounding the Anti-Monitor, who is then thrown into space by Superboy-Prime.
John Stewart witnessed Guy being infected by the Sinestro Corps member who is a living virus, named Despotellis, and asked Soranik Natu to help Guy. Soranik used the Green Lantern Corps smallpox virus named Leezle Pon, who stops Despotellis.[8] John Stewart was later approached by the Guardians to become one of the Alpha Lanterns, a new division of the Corps devoted to the internal affairs of the Corps. Stewart, desiring more information about the secrecy of the forbidden prophecies, declined the offer, to the extreme disappointment of the Guardians.[9]
It has also been revealed that John served in the Marine Corps as a sniper prior to becoming an architect.[10] While the idea of John being a former Marine was taken from the Justice League cartoon, the sniper angle is a new addition to the character's background. During his time in the Marines, John met the then young Hal Jordan when he was in the Air Force before they both join the Green Lantern Corps.[11]
During the Rage of the Red Lanterns story arc, John Stewart is one of the guards assigned to escort Sinestro to Korugar to face execution. However, the Green Lanterns are ambushed by the Sinestro Corps and then the Red Lantern Corps under Atrocitus. The Green Lanterns are left to die in space after Atrocitus captures Sinestro, but they are saved by Saint Walker of the Blue Lantern Corps.[12] John, however, is infected with the Red Lanterns rage. Saint Walker conjures up a blue energy construct of Katma Tui, who heals John and calms him by showing him a vision of flying with Katma. John later tells Kilowog that he is going to see Katma again, saying that "the universe said so". In that same issue, Fatality is converted into a Star Sapphire, and orders her ring to locate John Stewart.[13] When she tracks down John, she tells him she forgives him, and kisses him. Before departing, she encourages John to forgive himself for what happened to Xanshi.[14]
Stewart appears in the Trinity series. He is the one to first attack the alien creature Konvikt, but when he's on the verge of defeating him, his concentration suddenly snaps, and starts muttering incoherently in binary code. A moment later, he spontaneously generates complex weapons from his body, by means unrelated to his ring. Later, he attempts to overexert himself to know how he generated those weapons by running a brutal training session against holographic Qwardian Thunderers, which does not work. He later shows Firestorm the machinery used to monitor the Cosmic Egg imprisoning Krona, but as he leaves again, he suffers from a relapse and start generating knives from his uniform, and it is revealed the entire system is broken.
Later, on board the Antimatter Earth Crime Syndicate satellite, he again loses control and nearly brings down the satellite with his blasts. It is revealed these discharges are brought about due to John's absorption of a Qwardian superweapon, the Void Hound, which has been trying to escape its containment, or at least seize control of Stewart. After the sweeping, devastating effects of the spell engineered by Morgaine le Fey and Enigma, he is seen in an Earth under the control of a totalitarian Justice Society, where all Green Lanterns are forbidden to be. He eventually starts breaking down, and with the Void Hound gaining enough hold on him to force him to create a black hole which forces him back to Earth, he has no choice but to comply. The Void Hound is later revealed to be a servant of Krona, and it's hold over John is broken when Krona is defeated.
After a massive battle between the JLA and the Shadow Cabinet, John chooses to stay with the League despite many of its members choosing to leave.[15] After Kimiyo Hoshi goes missing while tracking down Shadow Thief, John blackmails the armored vigilante Hardware into helping the team track her down. The League arrives in the Himalayas, discovering Kimiyo and Superman's friend Icon engaged in a fierce battle with the cosmic vampire known as Starbreaker.[16] The JLA defeats Starbreaker, and John takes a leave of absence to go to Xanshi.[17]
When John visits the grave of planet Xanshi, thousands of black rings fly into the planetary debris, and reconstitute the entire planet.[18][19] Xanshi itself then speaks to John, telling him "I can help you save them." Against his better judgment, John descends to the planet's surface.[20] Once reaching the surface, John finds himself confronted by Katma Tui and the entire population of Xanshi as Black Lanterns. While battling them all, Katma tries to weaken John by claiming that he caused the planet's destruction. However, John, spurred on by Fatality's words, says that he wasn't the cause of it all and successfully fights off the Black Lanterns.[21] After escaping Xanshi's atmosphere, John realises that the planet is headed for Earth, along with every Black Lantern in the universe, and contacts Hal, warning him of the impending threat.[22] Later, John is saved by combined efforts of the various Lanterns corps, who had just arrived to battle the Black Lanterns.[23]
In the events of Brightest Day, John is seen on Oa, supervising the demolition of the buildings left in ruins after the Black Lanterns attack, and planning the reconstruction. Suddenly, he is called to the Guardians' chamber, where they order him to join Alpha Lantern Boodikka in a mission to robot planet Grenda, Stel's homeworld, where the communications ceased abruptly without explanation, and Lantern Stel and the population are missing. John agrees and departs with Boodikka.[24]
After arriving on the planet, the two confirmed the Guardians report: the entire population has mysteriously disappeared. John asks Boodikka if something of her older self remains despite being turned into an Alpha Lantern, after she asks him why he refused to join the Alpha Lanterns. Boodikka responds that her changes are only physical, and she still has her former personality; John doubts this affirmation. The two discover what seems to be a Green Lantern House Sector, that, according to Boodikka, is not registered. After entering inside, they discovered Green Lanterns Horoq Nnot and Stel; the last one tells John he must flee from the planet immediately. Suddenly, Boodikka turns against John and attacks him; John fights back, but he's surrounded by more rogue Alpha Lanterns and is defeated. It's revealed that the Alpha Lanterns have begun a revolt against the rest of the Corps, and have allied themselves with the Cyborg Superman (now with an Alpha Lantern battery), taking control of Grenda to use the planet as their hidden base to turn Green Lanterns into Alpha Lanterns. John Stewart is last seen wounded and bleeding, being taken to Henshaw by Boodikka. Cyborg Superman then begins the cosmetic surgery to turn John into another Alpha Lantern.[25]
Before starting the operation, however, Henshaw connects Stewart's brain to his memories in order to see why he was turned into a cyborg. He also reveals to John, that, after being resurrected by the Manhunters after the Sinestro Corps War, he returned to Earth in the middle of the Blackest Night, and pled to the Black Lanterns (among them are the former crew of his space shuttle) and Nekron to kill him, only to discover that because he did not have a physical heart, he was invisible to them. Angered for being ignored by death itself, the Cyborg Superman encountered the mysterious hooded stranger who abducted the entities of the Emotional Spectrum. He convinced him that Ganthet has the power and knowledge to turn Alpha Lanterns into normal beings again. John realizes that Henshaw organized the revolt of the Alpha Lanterns with the sole purpose to attract Ganthet to the planet Grenda and forced him to turn Henshaw into a mortal being again. Kyle and Soranik burst into the lab and manage to rescue John, but Ganthet is captured.[26] They hide in a cave, where John informs them about the Cyborg Superman's true plan. They also discover the missing robot inhabitants of the planet, trapped in the depths of the cave by Henshaw.[27] Mounting a defense, they battle against Henshaw and his forces, destroying the cyborg's body. Henshaw leaps into Boodikka's body, but her consciousness manages to defeat his, seemingly destroying him.[28] John later joins Kyle Rayner and Ganthet in a mission to the anti-matter universe, in order to save Soranik Natu.
On their return to the matter universe, John and the others are affected by the return of Parallax to the Central Power Battery by Krona. Their previous experience with Parallax allows John, Kyle and Ganthet to escape its control, but they are forced to fight their fellow Green Lanterns. Affected by Parallax's fear powers, John and Kyle are forced to remove their rings and escape through Oa's underground.[29] They then meet up with Guy and Hal, who has the rings of the other corps' leaders. John initially chooses Larfleeze's orange ring, but is convinced by Hal to use Indigo-1's ring instead due to the debilitating effects of the orange ring on the wearer's psyche.[30] When the corrupted Green Lanterns attack, John has difficulty channeling the various corps powers through his ring. Things are made worse when Mogo joins the attack.[31] While Hal and Guy go to remove Parallax from the Central Power Battery, John and Kyle attempt to free Mogo from Krona's control. On the way, John attempts to stop the flow of tainted rings sent by Mogo, but fails. As he and Kyle head for Mogo's core instead, they discover residual Black Lantern energy around it. John absorbs the Black Lantern energy, along with all the Green Lantern energy, and regretfully uses it to destroy Mogo.[32] In the fallout, the two regroup with Hal, Guy and Ganthet, using the full power of the emotional spectrum to crack open the Battery and release Parallax. Their job done, the Lanterns regain their original green rings, in preparation for the final confrontation with Krona.[33]
Following the War's conclusion, John assists a new Green Lantern from Sector 2828 'selected' during the period when Mogo was under Krona's control in adjusting to the power of her ring despite the possibility that she will not be allowed to keep it by assisting her in halting a war taking place in her sector, his new student later reflecting that, despite John's reputation after destroying two worlds, she now knows that nobody could regret that action more than John himself.[34]
He is a member of the Green Lantern Marine Corps in Superman: Red Son.
He appeared as a reserve Green Lantern in Justice.
John, known now as Power Ring, is shown to be a member of the anti-matter universe Crime Syndicate that attempts to kidnap Power Girl in JSA: Classified.
In the Flashpoint universe, John Stewart was a member of Team 7, an elite unit of soldiers lead by Grifter. John and most of his teammates were ultimately killed during a botched attack on a Jihadist training camp.[35]
IGN ranked John Stewart as the 55th greatest comic book hero of all time describing him as one of the first dominant African-American heroes in the pages of DC Comics; IGN also stated that John Stewart has gone from "semi-obscurity in the mainstream to absolute recognition" thanks to his starring role in the acclaimed Justice League cartoons.[38]
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