After Emerald Dawn, DC launched a new ongoing Green Lantern series, written by Gerard Jones.
The first eight issues of the new series did the hard work of reconstructing the Green Lantern characters in the present, climaxing in a great battle and Hal Jordan set to reconstruct the Corps. The next four issues focused on Guy Gardner. Green Lantern #13 was extra-long and focused on Hal’s new Corps. A four-issue storyline followed, focusing on John Stuart, assigned to manage the patchwork of cities from various worlds left over after the end of the first eight-issue storyline. Issue #19 was another extra-length issue, this one focused on Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott.
A family of characters was being systematically — and quite artistically — reconstructed. With #25, that family took the form of a family of titles with the launching of Green Lantern: Mosaic — a risky but ingenious title focusing on John Stuart and the patchwork world of clashing cultures — and Green Lantern Corps Quarterly — an anthology handling the wide-flung world of Green Lanterns and related characters. A 3-issue prestige-format mini-series, Guy Gardner Reborn, quickly followed; after its conclusion, an ongoing title entitled Guy Gardner was launched. The same month, the ongoing title Darkstars was also launched, focusing on a group competing with the Corps. Green Lantern had in short order become a whole family of titles on par with Superman’s or Batman’s, but with unique titles for Hal Jordan, John Stuart, Guy Gardner, the rest of the Corps, and a Corps competitor.
As Green Lantern approached #50, a big shake-up was in store for the Green Lantern family of titles. But first, a major event would unite DC’s cosmic or outer space titles. Comprised of two bookend specials and taking in two months worth ofGreen Lantern, Darkstars, and L.E.G.I.O.N. ’93 issues, “Trinity” was a major DC event at the time. In the months immediately following “Trinity,” Green Lantern: Mosaic would conclude with #18, its experimental nature never adequately catching on with fans. The final fate of the Mosaic world, created in the relaunched Green Lantern‘s first storyline, was at last revealed. At the same time, in Green Lantern, Hal Jordan returned to Earth and discovered that Coast City, his home since the Silver Age, had been eradicated during Superman’s blockbuster “Reign of the Supermen” storyline.
DC editorial apparently had dictated that issues #48-50, comprising the “Emerald Twilight” storyline, would feature the destruction of the Corps and of the Guardians — as well as Hal Jordan becoming a bad guy. Gerard Jones — who had overseen the Green Lantern titles since Emerald Dawn and who had written the stories that had reconstructed the Corps which DC now so cavalierly wanted demolished — wrote a script for the story but came into conflict with DC over the changes DC wanted. Though already solicited, Jones’s issues were scrapped and a new version ordered — to be written by Ron Marz, who would replace Jones permanently on Green Lantern. Thus #47 saw Jones’s abrupt exit from the title: the end of the era he had guided became visible in the end of the Mosaic world and in the good but rushed “Emerald Twilight” storyline, mirroring the Emerald Dawn mini-series that had launched the new era. As everything Jones had constructed fell apart — in nicely mirrored though rushed fashion – Green Lantern Corps Quarterly, with #8, came to an end as well, its titular group of characters having been destroyed.
An era was indeed over. The Green Lantern family of titles had been scaled back, with Guy Gardner retitled Guy Gardner: Warrior and its hero given new, non-Green Lantern-affiliated powers. Darkstars also survived. After “Emerald Twilight,” the Corps was gone, the Guardians and Sinestro killed, and Hal Jordan made nearly omnipotent. In his place was Kyle Rayner, to whom Ganthet gave a ring at the end of #50. With the end of the Corps, a new and exciting era had begun.
Gerard Jones’s tenure on Green Lantern was a titanic one, which restored the Green Lantern Corps to prominence and saw an explosion of titles. In many ways, it was the template for Geoff Johns’s revival of Green Lantern, years later. Including “Emerald Twilight,” which marked the definitive end of Johns’s continuing story, as well as issues set in the past (e.g. Emerald Dawn), Johns’s tenure comprises an impressive 135 issues, most coming from his final two years on the franchise (when the number of Green Lantern-related titles exploded).
