Hey look, its another Justin Jordan interview. This time the Green Lantern: New Guardians writer speaks with CBR. He discusses his introduction to Kyle Rayner, making his first issue (GLNG #21) new reader friendly, whether Kyle will stay White Lantern and more. As usual, check out some choice quotes below.

 

On his introduction to Green Lantern:

Oddly enough, my Green Lantern — in my head — is probably John Stewart. Unlike a lot of people, that’s not because of “Justice League Unlimited.” It’s because when I started seeing Green Lantern in comic books, John Stewart was the guy, which was back some time in the eighties.

 

…I was aware of Kyle from the start. I remember “Emerald Twilight” and the fact that Hal was being replaced. And I can remember the girlfriend being stuffed in the fridge before girlfriends being stuffed in a fridge was a thing.

Comparing Kyle to Hal and John:

There are probably a few things. The one that is character-related is that Kyle came from an artistic background, which is sort of true of John Stewart, as well, because he was an architect. But both Hal and John come from a more militaristic mind-set, which is not, by any means, negative but it means that they fundamentally approach things a bit differently than a guy that was a working artist who ended up with the ring. The way Kyle uses the power of the ring and the way he approaches problem solving, in general, is going to be different and that’s one of the things that I want to make apparent as I write this. He is approaching this from an artistic mind-set, as much as I can make this a thing.

 

Power-wise, he’s the White Lantern still, which means he has access to abilities that Hal and John and Guy just don’t have. He can basically access the power of any of the rings so he can do a lot of stuff that they can’t, which is something we want to explore and it works really nicely with that artistic motif — he can basically work with the entire palette. [Laughs]

Will Kyle Rayner stay as the White Lantern?

I have no plans to have him as anyone but the White Lantern for the foreseeable future.

On the upcoming villain Relic:

Relic is somebody who has seen what the unrestricted use of Green Lantern-like powers can do and looks upon it — poorly. In his own head, he’s very much not a bad guy. What he’s trying to accomplish is actually a fairly noble goal. It’s just the extent that he’s willing to go to do it puts him in conflict with pretty well everyone else.

 

…I will say that Kyle is — at least when he finds out what Relic is doing and why he is doing it — willing to listen and think about it in a way that some of the others aren’t.

And yes, I think that comes from that outside mind-set. He’s not really in the Corps anymore so he’s able to look at things from a different perspective, which is also the point of view that Relic is taking. They’ll be able to find some common ground.

What artist Brad Walker brings to the series:

I’ve seen some pages, and they are amazing. He brings a very good sense of how to present things that are happening on a big scale, which is tricky. As a writer, one of the hardest things to wrap my head around is the scale of which things are happening.

 

Brad has a much better grasp of that than I did going into it, so he’s propped me up on that regard. His work has also really helped the script, because as I see pages while I am writing future scripts, I am able to push more and come up with more challenging and interesting things that are within his wheelhouse to do. Yes, it’s very good to have Brad Walker on board.