10 Weirdest Green Lantern Villains

May 3, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

Movies

10 Weirdest Green Lantern Villains

0 0

Summary The long history of DC Comics' hero Green Lantern has put him in a position to tangle with some truly strange antagonists over the years; while some readers might expect this to come as a result of his role as DC's foremost interstellar superhero, though in fact, most of his weirdest villains originated on Earth.

From sports-themed villains like Sportsmaster and Javelin, to thieves dressed all in yellow to thwart the Green Lantern ring's powers, to an evil wizard hidden inside the Lantern ring itself, some truly unusual enemies have battled the different incarnations of the Green Lantern over the many decades of the character's existence.

While many of the weirdest Green Lantern foes may seem like throwaways, many of them proved to be perennial opponents for the Lanterns and other DC heroes.

The Green Lanterns have the largest area to protect of any heroes in DC. While characters like Batman and Superman typically stick to either their respective cities, or even the entire planet, Green Lantern has to worry about so much more. Instead of being localized in one area, Green Lantern has fought villains all over the galaxy.

The fact Green Lantern has had to battle people all over the galaxy has given Green Lantern one of the most unique and varied rogues' gallery of any hero in comics. One minute a Green Lantern could be fighting a regular mob boss on the street, and the next they could be facing off against an intergalactic warlord far beyond the surface of Earth.

This has given writers significant freedom to create whatever villain they want, but this has also led to some pretty absurd villains as well.

Related 10 Green Lantern Constructs Only DC’s Best Artists Could Bring to Life Discover 10 amazing constructs from Green Lantern history and the amazing DC Comics artists who helped visualize the Corps’ best ideas.

10 Sportsmaster Battled The Original Green Lantern For Years

All-American Comics #85 by John Broome, Irwin Hasen, and John Belfi

One of the most straightforward villains ever to appear in a Green Lantern comic was Sportsmaster, an antagonit who used sporting gear in the pursuit of ill-gotten gains. Lawrence Crock was a former professional athlete who was banned from sports, after he was caught cheating. Infuriated that people expected him to play fair, he immediately turned to a life of crime, so he'd never have to play by the rules again.

Soon, this led him into conflict with original Green Lantern Alan Scott; during their encounters, Sportsmaster managed to battle the hero utilizing all sorts of sporting equipment. Eventually, Sportsmaster was killed by another supervillain, the Human Flame. This wasn't the end of Sportsmaster, however; subsequently, the villainous organization known as the Council cloned Crock, using him as a template for their army of enforcers.

Sportsmaster's death occurred in 2009's Final Crisis Aftermath: Run! #4 – written by Lilah Sturges, with art by Freddie E. Williams II, Tanya & Richard Horie, and Travis Lanham.

9 Javelin Was Another Sports-Themed Green Lantern Villain

Green Lantern #173 by Len Wein, Dave Gibbons, and Anthony Tollin.

Because sports-related villains are apparently very popular, Hal Jordan's Green Lantern got his very own. Javelin was a former Olympic athlete who specialized in throwing Javelins. For reasons unknown, he decided to become a super criminal and became a recurring villain for Hal Jordan. Due to his Javelins being entirely yellow, they'd often be able to pierce Hal's Green Lantern constructs, making him a surprisingly deadly foe.

While Javelin might seem to some readers like a villain destined to make just a single appearance, he actually continually popped up for over thirty years, as a perennial ally of Green Lantern and DC's heroes, before eventually being defeated in Justice League: Cry for Justice. Notably, he was also captured by the Suicide Squad and was a member of the supervillain team for a period of time.

8 Yellow Peril Were Thieves Who Got The Best Of Green Lantern

Green Lantern #107 by Bob Rozakis, Alex Saviuk, John Celardo, Anthony Tollin, and Shelly Leferman.

One of the biggest weaknesses of the Green Lanterns is the color yellow. While this flaw in the Lanterns' rings has been rectified in contemporary DC Comics stories, early in the character's career, dressing in yellow was a fully viable strategy to deal with Green Lantern. In just one example, when a group of plane hijackers wanted to pull off a crime, they dressed in full yellow bodysuits and called themselves the Yellow Peril.

Unfortunately for them, it wasn't Green Lantern who showed up at the crime scene, but Black Canary, Green Arrow, and Airwave. Together, these three heroes managed to trounce Yellow Peril, with Green Lantern only needing to come in at the end for a last minute save. After that, the criminals never appear again, apparently giving up their goals as super criminals.

7 Hector Hammond Is Green Lantern's Most Dangerous Weird Villain

Green Lantern #5 by John Broome, Gil Kane, Joe Giella, and Gaspar Saladino

Hector Hammond was a rich socialite constantly seeking more in life. Eventually, this leads him to add a meteorite to his collection, which ends up vastly evolving his brain. Hector gained immense telepathic and psychic powers, but was trapped in his weak human body, which was far less evolved than his brain. This gave Hector the bizarre appearance of having an absolutely massive head and a proportionally tiny body.

Despite his exaggerated physical depiction in many of his comic book appearances, Hector is one of the most dangerous Green Lantern villains to ever have in the DC Universe. Aside from just antagonizing the Lanterns, he has even fought against Superman in the past, as well as teaming up with Gorilla Grodd against the Flash. His never ending greed also made him an Orange Lantern at one point.

6 Green Lantern Struggled To Defeat Evil Lizards From The Future

Green Lantern #8 by John Broome, Gil Kane, Joe Giella, and Gaspar Saladino

One of the most popular tropes for superheroes is time traveling. If someone is a superhero, odds are they've either been to the far past or the further future. In the year 5700 A.D., society needed a new leader, so they decided Hal Jordan would be a great one, since he's a Green Lantern. They pull him to the future and explain that they need help defeating the Zegors, lizard people who suddenly appeared one day who seemingly obliterated anyone with their eye beams.

Green Lantern is able to discover that these beams actually shrink people down to a microscopic size. Once Hal Jordan learns this, he's able to save everyone who's been "killed" and even destroys the source of the Zegor's eye beams. With their most dangerous attack gone, the future society is able to easily defeat the Zegor menace.

5 Sonar Just Wanted His Country Recognized By The DC Universe

Green Lantern #14 by John Broome, Gil Kane, Joe Giella, and Gaspar Saladino

There are tons of countries on Earth, even more in DC's version of it. While everyone has heard of Khandaq or even Qurac, not many are as familiar with the tiny country of Modora. This was especially irritating to the villain known as Sonar. Wanting his country to be recognized and feared by the world, Sonar became a supervillain using equipment that allowed him to manipulate sonar, which he then built his entire villain gimmick around.

His plans were to build a nucleo-sonic bomb to make Modora a world power, but this plan was ultimately stopped by Green Lantern before it reached fruition. Despite his best efforts, Sonar was never able to bring Modora to national attention, and ironically, Sonar himself was the most notable thing to ever come out of Modora, as the location has been little utilized in DC since.

4 The Protonic Force Was Nearly A Galaxy-Level Threat

Green Lantern #24 by John Broome, Gil Kane, Joe Giella, and Frank Giacoia.

As a member of the interstellar Green Lantern Corps, the Green Lantern of Earth travels in outer space frequently in various stories. Part of his duties require him to protect many more planets than just Earth. And one of these planets ended up being sentient. The planet of Uugo was infected by the Protonic Force, a bizarre entity that could only survive if it was possessing matter, which included Uugo.

As the Protonic Force continued to feed on Uugo, it began to threaten to tear the planet apart from absorbing its energy. Eventually, Uugo came across Green Lantern and was able to ask Hal Jordan for help. This resulted in Hal traveling deep into the center of Uugo and ripping the Protonic Force out, tossing it into space where it couldn't hurt anyone ever again.

3 Goldface Was A Strange Villain Who Found Redemption

Green Lantern #38 by Gardner Fox, Gil Kane, Sid Greene, and Gaspar Saladino

Keith Kenyon was a political science student who was exposed to radioactive gold, which gave him super strength, invulnerability, and a golden glow. In order to rebel against his father, a popular labor union organizer, Goldface began stealing pots of gold all around town. Naturally, this led him into conflict with Green Lantern, but because of Green Lanterns' weakness towards yellow, there wasn't much Hal Jordan could do against this formidable foe, making him another surprisingly viable threat to one of DC's top heroes.

Surprisingly, after moving to Central City and becoming a recurring villain to the Flash for a while, Goldface actually decided to give up his villainous ways. Following in his father's footsteps, he became Commissioner of Union 242, and seemingly completely gave up his life of crime, though he still continued to have to live with his gold skin.

2 The Made Of Wood Killer Was Inspired By Green Lanterns Failure

Detective Comics #783 by Ed Brubaker, Patrick Zircher, Aaron Sowd, Steve Bird, Jason Wright, Wildstorm FX, and Todd Klein.

Before the Green Lanterns had to worry about the entire galaxy, Alan Scott made his home in Gotham City. It was here that he often faced off against petty criminals, rather than cosmic villains, and during one especially brutal fight against Sportsmaster, there was collateral damage. Despite the Green Lantern's best efforts, a local grocery store was destroyed by one of the Sportsmastermaster's attacks.

Instead of helping save the shop, Green Lantern persued Sportsmaster. The shop owner, having lost his life work's in the blink of an eye, was driven insane. He picked up one of Sportsmaster's discarded baseball bats and murders the local mayor for tricking people into loving Green Lantern, becoming the "Made of Wood" killer in the process. Decades later, his grandson would take up that same bat and nearly murder James Gordon.

1 Myrwhydden Is The Strangest Villain Green Lantern Has Ever Faced

Green Lantern #26 by Gardner Fox, Gil Kane, Joe Giella, and Gaspar Saladino

There is no better example of the true capacity for weirdness that Green Lantern villains have exhibited over the years than the time it was revealed a tiny evil wizard lives in Green Lantern's power ring, and absolutely hates the ring's Lantern wielder. When Abin Sur was still Green Lantern, he faced off against an evil wizard named Myrwhydden. Myrwhydden proved to be remarkably powerful, and with no other choice, Abin Sur shrank Myrwhydden down and trapped him inside his Green Lantern ring.

After Abin Sur died and passed his ring to Hal Jordan, Myrwhydden was still trapped inside, unknown to Hal. This became a problem when Myrwhydden managed to regain his powers after Abin Sur's death. He then began sending magical constructs after Hal Jordan, and forced Hal into a confrontation inside the power ring.