Tweet
My latest DCUO character, & a brief GL Corps History Lesson!
Hello everyone! I'm back with a new character for DC Universe Online, as well as a brief history lesson about the origins of the Green Lantern Corps concept!
A long time ago, back during the Golden Age of Science Fiction & Fantasy (and the late 1920s, to be more precise) a young, up & coming author named E.E. "Doc" Smith pretty much single-handedly invented a new sub-genre of SF; the Space Opera! It immediately got noticed by both readers and other authors alike, and it wasn't long before other writers started creating their own Space Opera stories. Smith's tales were a direct inspiration for Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Flash Gordon, and many others. Since then, they've inspired everything from Star Wars, to Babylon 5, and beyond!
And one of those inspired was DC Comics Editor Julius "Julie" Schwartz. In the late '40s & '50s, E.E. Smith's most popular and enduring Space Opera, the Lensman Series, which was originally serialized in the pulps throughout the 1930s and '40s, began being republished as a series of novels. And Julius Schwartz worked for Smith's publisher on the editing of the Lensman Series.
The Lensman books tell the tale, spread across several generations of the Human race, of a group of "space cops" known as the Galactic Patrol. And from within the ranks of the Patrol, there eventually arises a new force for good in the Milky Way Galaxy, a race of "supermen" known as the Lensmen. The ultimate end product of a breeding and genetic engineering program that took 2 BILLION years to come to fruition, the Lensmen were created by the universe's oldest, most advanced race, the Arisians, to protect and defend the Milky Way Galaxy against an invasion by the Eddorians and their evil Boskone Empire.
While the Arisians were a benevolent, peaceful race, the Eddorians were their complete polar opposite, and were said to be pure evil incarnate. Once a few sentient beings in the Milky Way evolved enough to have the "Right Stuff", mentally speaking, the Arisians called these beings to their homeworld, Arisia, to receive the gift of the Lens, the ultimate product of the Arisians' advanced super science. A crystalline, lens-like object worn around the wrist, the Lens unlocked the full psychic potential of its wearer's mind, gifting them with psychic powers far beyond those of ordinary sentient beings, including, but not limited to, perfect, instantaneous telepathic communication, mind-to-mind, across vast, interstellar distances; the ability to wipe, reprogram, or even totally control another being's mind; and in a few rare cases, the ability to instantly project lethal bolts of psychic force across interstellar distances, killing an opponent with a single thought!
So, when the time came, at the Dawn of the Silver Age of Comics, to "re-imagine" the Golden Age hero Green Lantern, "Julie" Schwartz remembered his time editing E.E. Smith's most famous series, and drew direct inspiration from it! Gone would be the lone hero with a magical ring and lantern, a modern day Aladdin with His Magic Lamp, and in would be the Green Lantern CORPS, a group of thousands of space cops, empowered with rings and lanterns that were the product of advanced alien super science, and each member assigned to protect their assigned Space Sector against the forces of evil! The new Green Lantern, then, would be the first Earth man with the "Right Stuff" to protect Earth's Space Sector. He theorized that the youth of the late '50s and early '60s would devour this new space opera superhero just as readily as they ate up other popular space operas, and he was right!
If any of these names sound familiar to you, they should. Green Lantern's writers and artists have paid subtle homage to the Lensman Series on at least a couple of occasions.
One such occasion was when a writer on the book wanted to create a truly alien GL, rather than a standard, humanoid member of the Corps. Remembering that the evil Eddorians of the Lensman Series were said to be shape-shifters, who in their natural form were therefore amorphous, that writer created a sentient, gaseous member of the Corps, and named him/her/it Eddore as a tip of the hat to E.E. "Doc" Smith and his greatest series.
Then, in 1981, in the mini-series Tales of the Green Lantern Corps, it was decided that a new member would be introduced to the Corps, for whom Hal Jordan would be a mentor, and even her first crush. This extraterrestrial teenage girl was named Arisia as another tribute to Smith and his beloved books.
More to come in my next post! Please standby...
A long time ago, back during the Golden Age of Science Fiction & Fantasy (and the late 1920s, to be more precise) a young, up & coming author named E.E. "Doc" Smith pretty much single-handedly invented a new sub-genre of SF; the Space Opera! It immediately got noticed by both readers and other authors alike, and it wasn't long before other writers started creating their own Space Opera stories. Smith's tales were a direct inspiration for Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Flash Gordon, and many others. Since then, they've inspired everything from Star Wars, to Babylon 5, and beyond!
And one of those inspired was DC Comics Editor Julius "Julie" Schwartz. In the late '40s & '50s, E.E. Smith's most popular and enduring Space Opera, the Lensman Series, which was originally serialized in the pulps throughout the 1930s and '40s, began being republished as a series of novels. And Julius Schwartz worked for Smith's publisher on the editing of the Lensman Series.
The Lensman books tell the tale, spread across several generations of the Human race, of a group of "space cops" known as the Galactic Patrol. And from within the ranks of the Patrol, there eventually arises a new force for good in the Milky Way Galaxy, a race of "supermen" known as the Lensmen. The ultimate end product of a breeding and genetic engineering program that took 2 BILLION years to come to fruition, the Lensmen were created by the universe's oldest, most advanced race, the Arisians, to protect and defend the Milky Way Galaxy against an invasion by the Eddorians and their evil Boskone Empire.
While the Arisians were a benevolent, peaceful race, the Eddorians were their complete polar opposite, and were said to be pure evil incarnate. Once a few sentient beings in the Milky Way evolved enough to have the "Right Stuff", mentally speaking, the Arisians called these beings to their homeworld, Arisia, to receive the gift of the Lens, the ultimate product of the Arisians' advanced super science. A crystalline, lens-like object worn around the wrist, the Lens unlocked the full psychic potential of its wearer's mind, gifting them with psychic powers far beyond those of ordinary sentient beings, including, but not limited to, perfect, instantaneous telepathic communication, mind-to-mind, across vast, interstellar distances; the ability to wipe, reprogram, or even totally control another being's mind; and in a few rare cases, the ability to instantly project lethal bolts of psychic force across interstellar distances, killing an opponent with a single thought!
So, when the time came, at the Dawn of the Silver Age of Comics, to "re-imagine" the Golden Age hero Green Lantern, "Julie" Schwartz remembered his time editing E.E. Smith's most famous series, and drew direct inspiration from it! Gone would be the lone hero with a magical ring and lantern, a modern day Aladdin with His Magic Lamp, and in would be the Green Lantern CORPS, a group of thousands of space cops, empowered with rings and lanterns that were the product of advanced alien super science, and each member assigned to protect their assigned Space Sector against the forces of evil! The new Green Lantern, then, would be the first Earth man with the "Right Stuff" to protect Earth's Space Sector. He theorized that the youth of the late '50s and early '60s would devour this new space opera superhero just as readily as they ate up other popular space operas, and he was right!
If any of these names sound familiar to you, they should. Green Lantern's writers and artists have paid subtle homage to the Lensman Series on at least a couple of occasions.
One such occasion was when a writer on the book wanted to create a truly alien GL, rather than a standard, humanoid member of the Corps. Remembering that the evil Eddorians of the Lensman Series were said to be shape-shifters, who in their natural form were therefore amorphous, that writer created a sentient, gaseous member of the Corps, and named him/her/it Eddore as a tip of the hat to E.E. "Doc" Smith and his greatest series.
Then, in 1981, in the mini-series Tales of the Green Lantern Corps, it was decided that a new member would be introduced to the Corps, for whom Hal Jordan would be a mentor, and even her first crush. This extraterrestrial teenage girl was named Arisia as another tribute to Smith and his beloved books.
More to come in my next post! Please standby...
Comment