November 1940: When You Wish Upon a Ring

Beyond all that claptrap about “will power,” Green Lantern’s ability was one he would share with all his readers — the power to wish for things.

So Martin Nodell’s concept for his character — a superheroic Aladdin complete with lamp and ring — was an excellent one.

The “will power” business was, I suppose, a nod to the Protestant work ethic, a term that was coined in 1904 but a concept that had been knocking around at least since the 16th century. 

Doesn’t do to have things too easy, even if they’re magical.

But when I finally read the original GL’s earliest adventures decades later, I found Alan Scott’s original costume attractively garish, with its sweeping collared cape and dominant purples and reds. But I was disappointed in the stories.

Beginning with the hero’s origin in All-American Comics 16 (July 1940), the art seemed crude, the opponents pedestrian. His vast, fantastic powers seemed to be deliberately played down, as if dullness was supposed to be the point of the stories.

As with many DC Comics superheroes, the stories produced after World War II, in the twilight of the Golden Age, were much better. The whole tone of the comics improved considerably.

With talented writers like John Broome and the Hugo Award-winning Alfred Bester and accomplished artists like Carmine Infantino, Alex Toth and Irwin Hasen, Green Lantern now faced memorable menaces like the unstoppable swamp zombie Solomon Grundy and the cheeky rogue Harlequin, who diverted GL’s crusade against crime into a battle of the sexes.

In recent years, writers have sometimes connected Green Lantern’s power to nature magic and the Gaia hypothesis, but it’s interesting to note that the concept was suggested right in the 1940 character origin. 

“For I am the flame of life. Green, as are the plants, the growing things!” the magic lamp tells Alan Scott. “The light of the Green Lantern must be shed over the dark, evil things for the dark things cannot stand light!”