Green Lantern Creator Dies

He returns to the Central Power Battery from whence he sprang:

Martin Nodell, the creator of Green Lantern, the comic book superhero who uses his magical ring to help him fight crime, has died. He was 91.

Nodell died at a nursing home in Muskego, Wis., on Saturday of natural causes, his son Spencer Nodell told The Associated Press on Tuesday. He previously lived in West Palm Beach.

Nodell was looking for a new idea for a comic book in 1940 when he was waiting for a New York subway and saw a train operator waving a lantern displaying a green light, said Maggie Thompson, senior editor of Comics Buyer's Guide.

Nodell imagined a young engineer, Alan Scott, a train crash survivor who discovers in the debris an ancient lantern forged from a green meteor. Scott constructs a ring from the lamp that gives him super powers, and becomes a crime fighter.

He brought his drawings and story lines to All-American Publications, which later became a part of National Periodical Publications, the company that was to become DC Comics, Thompson said.

The first Green Lantern appearance came in July 1940, an eight-page story in a comic book also featuring other characters. The character then got his own series, and Nodell drew it until 1947 under the name Mart Dellon.

After its cancellation in 1949, the series was reborn in 1959 with a revised story line, and it has been revived several times.

What can I say? I'm a fan. GL doesn't get the props he deserves. Green Lantern II -- the one most know, Hal Jordan -- was one of the few Republican/conservative characters in the comics. We found that out when he started palling around with that subersive gaylord the Green Arrow.

Thanks to Riehl World.

No Googling: Anyone remember the old rhyme from the old GL? I think he used to say it when he juiced up from the lantern.

posted by Ace at 12:56 PM

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