Thursday, October 4, 2012

Character Spotlight: Green Lantern (Hal Jordan)

Hal Jordan is the greatest Green Lantern, an inter-galactic police officer and member of the Green Lantern Corps, chosen by the Guardians of the Universe for his ability to overcome great fear. The strength of his willpower allows him to wield the universe's mightiest weapon, a power ring controlled by his thoughts.

"In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night;
No evil shall escape my sight.
Let those who worship evil's might,
Beware my power... Green Lantern's light!"



REAL NAME: Harold "Hal" Jordan
OCCUPATION: Professional Criminal and Murderer
BASE OF OPERATIONS: Sector 2812 (Formerly) and Earth (Homeworld)
HEIGHT: 6'2
WEIGHT: 186 lbs
EYES: Brown
HAIR: Brown

GREEN LANTERN STATUS: inactive; former leader of the Green Lantern Corps

TEAM AFFILIATIONS: Green Lantern CorpsJustice LeagueUS Air Force and Ferris Aircraft

FIRST APPEARANCE: Showcase #22 (October 1959

ORIGIN:
Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) was a fighter test pilot for the Air Force. That all changed when on one day, he was mysteriously transported to a crashed spaceship. There he met Abin Sur, a Green Lantern. Abin Sur was dying and offered Hal the opportunity to succeed him. Hal Jordan accepted.

With the ring in his possession, Hal Jordan became the greatest member of the Green Lantern Corps. He became a founding member of the Justice League and has helped save the world countless times.
That changed when Hal couldn’t save his hometown, Coast City, and it was destroyed by the villains Mongul and a Cyborg Superman, killing millions. This event shattered Hal and sent him on a dizzying course of destruction.

Hal tried to use the power of his ring to bring back Coast City and its citizens. But the Guardians of Oa, the leaders of the Green Lanterns, forbade him to do it. This sent Hal on a mission to get the full power of the ring from the Central Battery on the planet Oa. Hal seemingly went mad, when a parasite creature entered his body and Hal stopped calling himself Green Lantern, and emerged as Parallax.

His mission to restore Coast City destroyed most of the Green Lanterns and Guardians of Oa. Parallax was set to redo history as he saw it with the full power of the Green Lantern Central Battery, but the heroes of the DC universe stopped him. Alongside those heroes was the last of the Green Lanterns, newly appointed Kyle Rayner, who was given the power ring by Ganthet the last of the Guardians.

In the end, Hal, as Parallax, sacrificed himself when a giant alien was devouring the sun. Hal used his powers to reignite the sun and in doing so sacrificed his life as well. His spirit went and became one with the Spectre. An avenging spirit of God who righted wrongs and persecuted the guilty. Hal’s penance had begun.

But this was not Hal’s end. It was discovered that Parallax was an ancient enemy of the Green Lanterns and was imprisoned in the Central Battery for eons. This entity was still with Hal, but with the joined effort of the remaining Green Lanterns, (by this time there was John Stewart, an alien named Kilowog, current GL Kyle Rayner and onetime Lantern Guy Gardner, they reinstated Hal’s spirit into his body and defeated Parallax, sealing him again into the Central Battery, and restoring the Guardians to oversee the Green Lanterns. Hal is now the core Green Lantern of the DC universe.

POWERS/ABILITIES:
Hal Jordan is a bearer of the Green Lantern Ring and one of the most powerful of the Corps. The abilities the ring grants him are:

Animating: A Green Lantern can will things to move how he wants.

Artificial Intelligence: Every ring has a connection to the Main Battery on Oa, which taps into an artificial intelligence. It acts as an "on-board computer," telling the wearer what they need to know. It can either respond out loud, or silently directly to the wearer's mind. The AI contains a large database of information that may be crucial to a Lantern's success. The ring also translates nearly every language to and from the wearer (though they have difficulty translating profanity), which is why the Corps can communicate with each other. When the bearer of a Green Lantern ring dies, the ring will seek out a suitable replacement for their sector. The AI can be used to play a holographic playback sequence complete with colors across the spectrum based on information in memory banks. The ring can dictate when to pause or stop the playback should an interruption arise where the Lanterns undivided attention is needed. The AI can also alert the wielder of incoming threats or of attempts to manipulate the wielders construct by an outside party.

Burglar Alarm: A Green Lantern can coat anything with the ring's beam and thus, if anyone other than himself touches it, his ring will glow, alerting him to the possible theft.

Communicator: The ring can act as a personal communicator between Green Lanterns. They have also been seen connected to telephones.

Costumes: The wearer of the ring may create any costume they choose, based on their personal preferences, whenever they choose. The ring projects the costume over any clothes already worn at the time. The only rules that the Guardians of the Universe implement on the creation of a individual costumed is that the ring bearer display the insignia of the Green Lantern Corps.

Energy Projection: The rings can also project beams, form protective bubbles and force fields, and fire destructive blasts. Sometimes, depending on the wearer, the beams and blasts make sounds. Kilowog's ring is one such example of blasts making sounds.

Energy Constructs: The rings can construct anything the wearer can imagine from hard-light energy, as long as they are willing to make it. The more determined the wearer is, the more complex and intricate these things can be. The constructs can even be so complex as to form working machines, computers, and even people. However, Hal is known for his relatively simple, straightforward constructs like his ever faithful boxing glove.

Flight: The ring allows the wearer to fly in atmosphere or in space, and can achieve incredible speeds, moving from planet to planet in a matter of hours.

Invisibility: The ring can make the wearer or anything else invisible.

Matter Manipulation: A Green Lantern can use their ring to manipulate nearby matter, such as water, for various purposes such as a construct that acts like an energy construct but can block something yellow and may serve a purpose that an energy construct couldn't perform.

Mind Control: The wearer of the Ring can use it to plant post hypnotic commands or control a person.

Mirages: The Ring can create mirages/illusions.

Phasing: The ring allows the user to go through walls. This ability however required great concentration on the bearer of the ring

Power Absorbing: In the JLA's first fight with Amazo, it was GL who defeated him by drawing out all of Amazo's powers. In Green Lantern/ Silver Surfer: Unholy Alliances, Kyle defeated Parallax with SS' power and Thanos with Oa's energy by drawing out all that extra energy from them which made them unconscious. However he couldn't hold all that power nor could his Ring like Hal did with Amazo's powers, so that move isn't often used with so much power.

Probing: The ring can probe the Lantern's or another person's mind, allowing him to uncover memories or the person's thoughts. (An ability which has not been seen for some time)

Recharging: The rings need to be recharged by means of a Power Battery. Other large sources of power may be used to recharge a power ring, however effectiveness may vary. The internal power source of a Manhunter Android is, in effect, the same as a power battery, and can be used to recharge a power ring. During the JLA / Avengers crossover, a Cosmic Cubewas used to recharge a depleted ring, although this is not an ideal solution and is available if there are no other options.

Ring Duplication: Each ring can duplicate itself, creating a second ring which may be given to another as a backup, for protection, or to help the lantern in times of great need. This duplicate ring is exactly like a normal ring.

Temperature Control: The Ring can increase or decrease the temperature of anything, even something as large as stars, or even create bubbles of intense heat or cold, even down to Absolute Zero. This could be seen in the recent Sinestro Corps War when Sallak used his ring to incase an enemy in a force bubble an incinerate him.

Transforming (former): The ring can transform anyone or anything, be it into an animal, altering their state of appearance, or their size. Once Hal and Alan turned the two Flashes ( Barryand Jay) to light protons in order to free them from prisons.

Electro-magnetic scanning: The ring can allow(through the use of x rays) the user to see through walls, without the people on the other side knowing. it can also scan along the Electromagnetic spectrum.

Wormhole/Warps: The ring can open wormholes to cut down on distance.

Healing: A wielder can command a ring to heal him/her/itself of any injures incurred. It can also heal others. This ability however cannot regenerate lost limbs.

Energy twin: The ring can create an energy copy of the wielder which is connected to the ring wielder, any information the twin gathers is transferred to the wielder upon touch while others cannot see this twin apart from fellow Green Lanterns. (An ability which has not been seen for some time)

Pocket dimension: Within the ring is a pocket dimension which can altered to the wielders specification. It can be used to contain opponents.

Sub-routines: The power rings have inner programmings or mechanisms which can executed without the users permission. One such sub-routine is the autoshield. This shield automatically protects a wielder from external harm and has been proven to be capable of protecting the wielder from planetary level attacks.





-Brian Lansangan
Follow me on Twitter @MrSnugglenutz84

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