Plot summary: Kyle Rayner is chosen as the new Green Lantern of Sector 2814, but with the nefarious Sinestro hot on his trail, Superman must help the new hero.
Notes and Trivia
Episode: 48 (S3.E7)
Original Air Date: February 6th, 1999
Directed: Butch Lukic (3)
Written: Hilary J. Bader (12)
Animation: Koko Enterprise Co., LTD & Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD. (31)
Music: Michael McCuistion (12)
Despite Hal Jordan coming to be seen as the ‘default’ Green Lantern, the creative team initially wanted John Stewart for STAS (he’d later be the GL for Justice League) but were told no. Instead they went with Kyle Rayner, the then-current GL in comics, albeit borrowing some of Hal’s origin and appearance.
The rejection letter to Kyle that Jimmy reads has the DC logo in the header.
Hal’s name pops up briefly near the end of the episode but he’s only actually seen once in the DCAU, albeit in an alternate timeline. Per Dwayne McDuffie, Hal has never been a Green Lantern in the DCAU… Put a pin in that!
Speaking of Green Lanterns, there are obviously quite a few on Oa, including Kilowog, Tomar Re, Arisia, Arrkis Chummuck, Katma Tui, Larvox and Salaak. Plus the mugger at the start of the episode looks exactly like Guy Gardener.
Gil’s Ristorante and Broome Lake appear in the episode, a tribute to Gil Kane and John Broome, the creators of Green Lanterns as we know them today (sorry but Alan Scott will never count in my eyes.) Broome Lake air base is also a nod to Groom Lake, the location of ‘Area 51’.
Recap
Jimmy Olsen and Daily Planet artist Kyle Rayner are having lunch when a mugger tries to steal Jimmy’s camera. Kyle springs into action and retrieves it, fending off a knife attack in the process.
Elsewhere, Clark & Lois observe a collision with a space shuttle attempting re-entry, requiring Superman to gently guide them back to safety.
The strange pod that hit the shuttle crash lands and the pink-skinned alien (Abin-Sur) uses his dying breaths to conceal a… green lantern… and instructs his ring to “find another”…
The glowing green ring flies itself to Kyle following his earlier heroism, and he experiences some teething problems with his newly manifesting superpowers.
Superman follows the trail of the pod, where Abin-Sur implores him to help “The Green Lantern”, before finally dying.
Sinestro, another alien wielding a yellow ring, arrives and demands to know where the green ring is, attacking our boy in blue when he says he doesn’t know, and then taking off to search for the ring.
Abin-Sur’s hidden lantern reveals itself and allows Superman to speak with the The Guardians of the Universe, who explain the concept of Green Lanterns (space cops, magic rings that conjure hard-light constructs through the user’s willpower, blah blah blah.)
They implore him to defend Kyle from Sinestro, who attacks after Kyle’s first foray into heroism. The two Lanterns brawl all over Metropolis, with Kyle doing his best to just stay alive.
Superman saves Kyle and hands over the lantern so he can recharge his depleted power ring. After a lengthy brawl Kyle is eventually able to defeat Sinestro with some creative use of his ring to set a trap.
Clark destroys Sinestro’s yellow ring and then The Guardians officially appoint Kyle the GL for this sector. He and Superman fly through space together as the music swells. Aww.
Best Performance
Dana Delany has barely been in the show this season, presumably due to scheduling conflicts. Still she gets in the fun line asking Clark how many times he’s flown around the moon. We miss you, Dana.
Ted Levine is solid as Sinestro, but his character treatment here is an extremely generic villain with the dialogue to match, so Tedski doesn’t really get to show off much. I think he was a good choice, they just weren’t overly concerned with giving him anything to do.
But thankfully for them, Michael B. Greco was up to the task of taking the lead as Kyle Rayner. It’s tough to debut a character and try and give them a distinct personality in only limited time, but Greco’s performance helped them do exactly that. He’s not spectacular or anything, but he certainly doesn’t feel out of place as a quasi-leading man and superhero, even if some of his final lines when he tries to reject the job offer are kinda weak. But you get plenty of character in his scene with Jimmy, freaking out about his new powers at The Daily Planet, and his fight banter with Sinestro.
Episode Ranking
As originally pitched, STAS was going to be a team-up show with different Justice League members guest starring in each episode. The network weren’t into that (though the concept would later be used in Batman: The Brave and the Bold), so this acts as a bit of a window into what might have been. We had team-ups with The Flash and Doctor Fate before (and of course the Batman episodes), but this was different, with Kyle getting a full origin story and far more focus than Superman, who is left playing catch-up about what the heck is going on.
In that respect I’m extremely torn and this is one of the toughest rankings I’ve done. On the one hand we’ve had 47 episodes where Superman was the main attraction, and some Green Lantern action is welcome in terms of shaking things up. But on the other hand it feels a bit clunky to have Superman sidelined for the majority of the run time, cutting back and forth between the main story & action, and a mostly mute Clark receiving exposition. Perhaps the back and forth is a little too uneven? Perhaps they could have found a more elegant way to quickly communicate the key talking points to keep Superman involved? I don’t know. It’s a cool episode of a Green Lantern series… but kind of lacking as an STAS episode.
Superman gives Kyle the lantern to recharge, gets owned by Sinestro for the second time, and then just hangs out in a hole until Kyle has saved the day. He does get to destroy Sinestro’s ring and endorses Kyle to the Guardians, but it’s kind of bizarre to depict The Man of Steel as… kind of useless? It’s also weird because in previous appearances from other DC heroes they’ve seemingly gone out of their way to stress how Superman is so much cooler and better than all of them.
Perhaps focusing on the pacing and script in general – regardless of who has the spotlight – is the way to go. I appreciate that they implied there’s a degree of ‘downloading instructions to the wearer’s brain’ by the rings, as Kyle quickly grasps his powers so we don’t have to go through a training montage they don’t have time for, and instead lets us hit the ground running. This may be a reach for an explanation on my part, but the scene where Kyle recites the GL roll-call after the Guardians start it confirms the idea in my mind. There’s obviously a lot more to the GL Corps and their whole corner of DC, but they didn’t need all of that here and managed to get the broad strokes across, thanks to the Lanterns’ abilities being so visual in nature. The villain suffers a little in terms of character, but he’s depicted as a badass, and the world-building carries much of the episode, so I suppose that’s okay. Still, even with all these allowances, I think it’s a bit of an ‘and then, and then, and then’ story due to all the cutting back and forth to such disparate elements. Opening with Kyle playing hero, then moving to a shuttle crash and then having to split attention between Superman rescuing the astronauts and Abin-Sur’s death is already a bit frenetic, but then you get Superman’s Skype call to Oa while Kyle and Sinestro are in their own episode.
Besides all that, it’s a really great looking episode. I enjoyed Kyle’s superhero sketches from the beginning as it’s always fun to see a drawing of a drawing, or animation depicted within animation. I’m glad they depicted some outlines that haven’t been fully erased. It would be bad if they were too perfect, ya know? Despite some dodgy sign work (“Elevaturs” etc.), I also enjoyed the short sequence with the power ring finding Kyle, flying around and causing light chaos. Plus we get some sweet forest action at Abin-Sur’s crash site, which is always nice when these shows are primarily set in big cities. Oh! And then there’s all the green/yellow lantern constructs, which are always a visual treat. Sinestro unleashes buzzsaws, hammers, a fist and some rockets, while Kyle inadvertently brings his sketch of a jet to life, conjures a giant crowbar and monkey wrench, and of course the usual shields. Even the more generic green laser vs yellow laser stuff looks cooler than it might thanks to the bold colours and art design. Fun selection of Lanterns to demonstrate their ranks are comprised of aliens from across the universe too.
Sooooo. Slightly shaky pacing. Excellent visuals and world building. Absence of Superman. Overall I’d say it shakes out as good but not great. Just above the middle, I guess?
- Obsession
- The Late Mr. Kent
- Brave New Metropolis
- Apokalips… Now!
- World’s Finest
- Livewire
- Double Dose
- Fun and Games
- Warrior Queen
- Knight Time
- Father’s Day
- Little Girl Lost
- The Hand of Fate
- The Last Son of Krypton
- Ghost in the Machine
- Stolen Memories
- Action Figures
- The Prometheon
- In Brightest Day… (NEW ENTRY)
- Tools of the Trade
- The Main Man
- Mxzypixilated
- Blasts from the Past
- Target
- The Way of All Flesh
- Solar Power
- Where There’s Smoke
- Protoype
- My Girl
- A Little Piece of Home
- Feeding Time
- New Kids in Town
- Little Big Head Man
- Speed Demons
- Two’s a Crowd
- Absolute Power
- Identity Crisis
- Heavy Metal
- Monkey Fun
- Bizarro’s World
Rogues Roundup
Sinestro (Ted Levine) (first appearance)
It’s a real shame that they chose to skip straight to evil Sinestro. I understand they only had 20 minutes to play with and had to introduce the general concepts of Green Lanterns, but for me there’s more juice in showing one of their greatest officers breaking bad and later discovering yellow fear rings. The Guardians instead condense all of that to 10 extremely vague seconds of dialogue and refer to him destroying green rings to increase his own power. Combine that with a near total absence of personality (you do get a brief comment about the Guardians fearing his potential) and I can’t help but say I’m disappointed.
That being said, cool points CAN get you quite far on this list, and while he’s sharing his gimmick with another character with identical powers, it’s hard to argue with the fact that Lanterns are cool. Flying around and conjuring glowing energy constructs is just fundamentally sick, and they do at least convey the difference in experience levels and personalities between Sinestro and Kyle. Where the hero turns to non-violent tools and protective measures, Sinestro is far more aggressive and goes with overt weaponry.
I think that means we need to immediately forget the Top 10 as you need some kind of character to crack that, but focus on the characters who are more cool than they are interesting. Volcana? Lobo? Luminus? The Female Furies? Somewhere in that range.
- Livewire
- Darkseid
- Toyman
- Lex Luthor
- The Joker
- Queen Maxima
- Metallo
- Parasite
- Karkull
- Brainiac
- Mr. Mxyzptlk
- Harley Quinn
- Granny Goodness
- Kalibak
- Volcana
- The Gotham Rogues
- Lobo
- Luminus
- Sinestro (NEW ENTRY)
- Project Firestorm
- The Female Furies
- DeSaad
- Detective Bowman
- Bruno Mannheim (and Intergang!)
- Steppenwolf
- The Preserver
- Bizarro
- Kanto
- Mercy Graves
- The Prometheon
- De’Cine
- Mala & Jax-Ur
- Corey Mills
- Earl Garver
- Titano
- Weather Wizard
The Matt Signal 
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