DC Animated Needs More Sci-Fi

While the world has been in upheaval and trying to cope with the ongoing pandemic, I’ve found myself diving back into a lot of animated comic book properties.

A certain set of movies has caught my attention though.

The Green Lantern animated films. Them being First Flight and Emerald Knights.

Green Lantern is a mythos I constantly find myself drawn to, but have never fully delved into. Though, after rewatching those two movies I’ve been looking down the rabbit hole for Green Lantern stories.

Looking through the stories of the Green Lantern mythos, it makes me somewhat dissapointed that more Green Lantern animated movies have not been made.

It's also a moreso general dissapointment that there haven’t been many DC animated movies that take place in space, despite the DC character lineup being the initial kickstarters of the Sci-Fi era of comics back in the Silver Age.

Moreso than any other, Green Lantern was a major pioneer of this. So it's somewhat baffling that Hal Jordan, or really any other Green Lantern, hasn’t got more movies.

Especially when nearly every ensemble Justice League animated movie greatly involves a Green Lantern. New Frontier, JL:War, and Justice League vs The Fatal Five to name a few examples. A Green Lantern is integral to, or the most important part of, the plot of those movies.

Since DC doesn’t seem in a hurry to do so, I thought I’d give some examples of stories to adapt and reasons why.

First things first, let's get the dark one out of the way. Green Lantern Emerald Twilight/New Dawn.

Emerald Twlight and New Dawn would be perfect to adapt as they’re the direct result of The Reign of The Superman. We just had the Death of Superman and Reign of The Supermen storylines adapted into film. Which are the Superman equivalent of these Green Lantern storylines.

Emerald Twilight involves Coast City being destroyed due to events that happen in the Reign of The Supermen storyline. Let's just say that this sort of drives Hal Jordan insane. He rebuilds the city and people using his ring, which The Guardians dislike.

He goes to Oa, war essentially ensues. Hal murders pretty much the entire Green Lantern Corps and leaves only one Guardian left. This is where Hal becomes the villain known as Parallax.

This ending leads directly into New Dawn, where Kyle Rayner becomes the final Green Lantern. His ring granted to him by Ganthet, the final Guardian.

This would make for, in my opinion, a hopeful ending to a dark movie. As a film, it would allow an exploration into the darker side of the GL Corps beyond “Sinestro is the bad guy!”

Another story you could do as a potential soft sequel to Emerald Twilight is Green Lantern Corps: Recharge. It is a story where Kyle Rayner and others begin to reestablish the Corps after it was wiped out.

This story isn’t exactly anything crazy like Emerald Twilight, but it deals more with the politics of the universe and the relations between Lanterns. There are members recruited straight out of the Rann/Thanagarian War, some from planets that have bred Lantern villains, etc.

There's a good mix of races and characters that allow a glimpse into the overall DC Universe.

My final idea for a Green Lantern movie would be Green Lantern Mosaic, a John Stewart based story.

In this story, Appa Ali Apsa has been driven mad (see a pattern with Green Lantern characters?) and created a world of stolen cities and communities known as the Mosaic World.

John Stewart is tasked with keeping the peace and maintaining order. The series/storyline had John Stewart dealing with issues from potential war to utter lack of population in some cities.

This series also had the death of Green Lantern Ch’p. Partially due to John's constant visions that are manifestations of Sinestro.

John Stewart eventually creates harmony on Mosaic World, but it is turned barren after Hal Jordan's attack on Oa in Emerald Twilight.

The three movies I’ve mentioned would work for a trilogy of movies that are connected by the events of Emerald Twilight.

I think it's only a matter of time until DC makes more Green Lantern movies. Especially with how much people have enjoyed the character in previous cartoons, we’ll soon see those people writing the future movies.

Feel free to comment any ideas you have for DC animated films that should be made!