Green Lantern Alan Scott
(Classic) (Gisted)
Context
This is the original Green Lantern, who was a major DC Comics character during the Golden Age and has endured ever since. Later Green Lantern characters took a different approach (based on science rather than magic) but the 2 were eventually given common ground.
Green Lantern (Alan Scott) has since acquired something of an elder statesman role among DC Comics heroes. This is in part because of his sheer power.
This profile is a gisted profile, and thus provides an overview rather than a precise description of the character.
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Background
- Real Name: Alan Ladd Scott (alternatively Alan Wellington Scott due to a continuity error).
- Marital Status: Single, then married twice.
- Known Relatives: None originally ; later Alyx Thorin aka Rose Canton aka The Thorn I (first wife, now deceased), Molly Catherine Mayne-Scott aka the Harlequin I (second wife), Todd Rice aka Obsidian (son), Jennie-Lynn Hayden aka Jade (daughter).
- Group Affiliation: JSA, All-Stars Squadron.
- Base Of Operations: Capitol City, later Gotham City.
- Height: 6’1” Weight: 221lbs.
- Eyes: Blue Hair: Blond
Alan Scott’s oath
The Green Lantern Oath has also evolved through the years. Here are a few versions:
“And I shall shed my light over dark evil,
For the dark things cannot stand the light,
THE LIGHT OF THE GREEN LANTERN !”
-original oath
“Let all power and triumph be mine in whatever right I do !”
-Comics Cavalcade # 1 (Winter, 1942)
“In brightest day, in blackest night,
no evil shall escape my sight,
let those who worship evil’s might,
beware my power,
Green Lantern’s light !”
– 1943
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Powers and Abilities
When he first became Green Lantern, Alan Scott’s powers stemmed from his power ring, carved from a piece of a green train lantern. That instrument was itself carved from a meteor that landed in China, and originated in a cosmic entity called the Starheart.
Green Lantern’s power ring could generate and focus green-tinted mystical energy into a variety of shapes and could enable the holder to defy gravity.
Green Lantern could for instance use his power ring to form solid-energy bubbles that he could use to transport objects/individuals, or he could form a giant hand to lift or crush objects. The limits of variation were constrained only by Green Lantern’s imagination and will power.
The ring is an extraordinarily powerful weapon, capable of destroying entire cities.
Alan Scott is a real Golden Age hero – smart, strong, tall, square-jawed, resolute, two-fisted, brave, industrious, knowledgeable about science and all that sort of things.
History
Though Alan Scott studied medicine for two years, he changed path and became an engineer. He was then hired by the American Southwest company. In 1939, while Scott was testing a locomotive, an enemy of Southwest detonated a bridge.
The whole train crashed. Only Alan survived thanks to the train lantern he had been holding – an old one made of a strange green metal. The lantern then spoke to him.
The lantern’s tale
The artefact had been crafted centuries before in China, using the metal from a meteor. The lantern then spoke to the craftsman and predicted it would flame 3 times – once to bring death, once to bring life, and once to bring power.
When the man carrying the lantern was attacked and killed, the lantern flamed and slew the attackers. Centuries later an insane lampmaker in Arkham Asylum got ahold of the lantern, which flame anew and restored his sanity.
After telling about this, the lantern flamed in front of Scott. It told him to fashion a ring from the metal, and how touching the ring to to the lantern would fill it with power. After apprehending the man who had sabotaged the ring, Scott made himself a… memorable costume and took the name “Green Lantern”.
Leaving his job to travel on the East Coast, Green Lantern foiled various crimes and eventually arrived to Capitol City. When John Tellum, the head of Apex Broadcasting, was murdered Scott decided to investigate by getting hired as a radio engineer by Apex.
After solving the case he remained with Apex for months, reasoning that having access to breaking news would allow him to respond to crimes more quickly. At Apex he was a close friend, and presumably lover, of one Irene Miller.
In Capitol Green Lantern became famous, and after he arrested gangster Elias Strake became a national sensation.
World at War
After a failed wartime mission for British intelligence in Berlin, Green Lantern and his ally the Flash (Jay Garrick) (pre-Crisis the Golden Age Batman was also present) were rescued by other costumed heroes — Dr. Fate, the Hourman, the Spectre, Hawkman, the Sandman, the Atom.
After saving President Roosevelt and at his suggestion, these heroes created the Justice Society of America, with GL as chairman.
In 1941, Irene Miller was carrying secret technical plans for Apex Broadcasting and gangsters attempted to capture her. The colourful taxi driver “Doiby” Dickles helped her fight them off until Green Lantern could arrive.
Though Scott was eventually knocked out, Dickles disguised himself as GL and distracted the gangsters – then he and Scott took their foes down. A later criminal scheme to break the cab drivers’ union reunited Green Lantern and Doiby.
Dickles then learned that Scott was Green Lantern during this case, and became the hero’s sort-of sidekick.
Ian Karkull then launched a plot to kill President Roosevelt and the next nine Presidents of the United States. The JSA opposed him and his allies, but Green Lantern couldn’t prevent Wotan from killing a young boy who would have been the President elected in 1988.
Scott nevertheless joined the All-Star Squadron when it was formed after Pearl Harbor.
One or two years later Green Lantern moved to Gotham City, where he was hired by the WXYZ radio station. This move may have been the result of a falling out with Irene Miler. Green Lantern fought various notable criminals such as the Silhouette and the Gambler, and famously clashed with the strange creature called Solomon Grundy.
The Harlequin
After the war, Scott received a series of promotions until he became the CEO of the Gotham Broadcasting Company. During that time he fought the likes of the Harlequin or the Icicle.
The Harlequin was a gifted young woman named Molly Mayne, who hoped that a very powerful man such as Green Lantern would not be intimidated by her strength and capabilities and might become a suitor.
She became Scott’s secretary and tried to catch Green Lantern’s attention as the Harlequin, always evading him when he tried to capture her.
Mistaken for a criminal, the Harlequin infiltrated the Injustice Society of the World but was stopped as she betrayed them to help the Justice Society. She escaped and later became an undercover agent for the FBI. As such she helped Green Lantern (and, pre-Crisis, the Golden Age Superman) capture Sportsmaster.
During this general era the Icicle and the Sportsmaster were Green Lantern’s most recurrent enemies.
Un-American activities
The JSA disbanded in 1951 as it was hounded by McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee — they refused to unmask then literally disappeared. During the 1950s, Scott apparently concentrated on his corporate responsibilities.
Green Lantern briefly re-emerged in the early 1960s to stop killer vigilante the Reaper in Gotham, but was badly injured in this fight. Later on he and other JSA veterans were captured by Vandal Savage, but the Flash of Earth-1 and the Flash of Earth-2 teamed up to free them.
The JSA reassembled, and would periodically work with Earth-1’s Justice League, including Scott’s namesake Hal Jordan. Many of their period enemies reemerged, including the Icicle and Solomon Grundy. Doiby Dickles, however, married a space princess and left Earth.
Green Lantern fought the villain Thorn (Rose Canton) and took her to Transformation Island, where the Amazons reformed her. In 1964 the Thorn, cured of her psychiatric issues, reinvented herself as “Alyx Florin” and eventually wed Alan Scott.
However, she seemingly died in a fire during their wedding night.
After this tragedy, the Psycho-Pirate sabotaged Alan Scott’s career. Disgraced, Scott moved to Keystone City.
He discovered that the lantern was a fragment of something called the Starheart. The Starheart is an entity in which the Guardians of the Universe had long ago attempted to lock all the universe’s magic to produce a more predictable reality.
A man called the Green Dragon attempted to take over the Starheart’s energies. Despite troubles with his rings caused by the aftereffects of the Psycho-Pirate’s emotional manipulations, Green Lantern prevailed. The Green Dragon was killed by a falling tree.
The alien Zalaz then stole the Starheart to resurrect his lover M’la. Green Lantern and Green Arrow confronted him, and in the wake of this case the returned M’la became the Starheart’s guardian.
Jade and Obsidian
During the early 1980s the young adventurers Jade and Obsidian claimed that they were Green Lantern’s children – which left Scott sceptical.
The Ultra-Humanite then subjected the JSA to the “Stream of Ruthlessness&rdqyo;. As a result, Green Lantern acted upon his old resentment of the Gotham Broadcasting Company ever since the Psycho-Pirate debacle. Infinity, Inc., a young team that had just formed and included Jade and Obsidian, rescued the JSA.
Scott moved to Los Angeles where he created a new communication business, re-hiring Molly Mayne as his assistant.
Meanwhile, Infinity, Inc. located the Thorn (Rose Canton). She revealed that she had been Alyx Florin, that she was indeed the mother of Jade and Obsidian, and that her seeming death had been the result of experimenting with her husband’s ring.
The ring had reawakened the evil Thorn personality, who had started the fire. After this revelation Rose Canton committed suicide to prevent her Thorn personality from harming Jade, Obsidian and Green Lantern.
In 1984, Molly Mayne finally revealed that she had been Harlequin all along, and soon married Alan Scott. During the wedding reception, the Crisis on the Infinite Earths reached Earth. The JSA fought during the Crisis, then had to leave for timeless Limbo where they would forever forestall Ragnarok.
It would be years on Earth before Green Lantern and the JSA could return, thanks to the Spectre and Waverider. In the interval, his company had been run by Molly Mayne-Scott.
After Ragnarok
Green Lantern resumed his activities, including a battle against Solomon Grundy.
He was then mysteriously de-aged, and eventually learned that it was the doing of the Starheart. Its guardian M’la had been slain, leaving it free to act. Scott and Green Lantern Torquemada contained part of the Starheart, but most of its evil energy escaped.
During the Zero Hour crisis, Green Lantern and the JSA were the first to attack the villainous Extant, who ravaged them with a chronal attack. Protected from the sudden ageing by his ring, Scott nevertheless to join his now elderly comrades in retirement.
Alan gave his ring to Green Lantern Kyle Rayner. However, the ring was later destroyed by Parallax (Hal Jordan), who also stole Scott’s lantern.
After a memorial service for the fallen heroes of the JSA, Green Lantern Torquemada awakened the Starheart power within Scott – a result of having borne a Starheart-powered ring for so long. Though this was very similar to his old power, Scott adopted a new code name as Sentinel.
Description
The retconned Green Lantern I is a very tall, powerful man (for the 40s), and he has something Doc Savage-ish in his look.
Alan chose his costume to be “so bizarre that once I am seen, I will never be forgotten !”.
Personality
While his emotions can occasionally get the better of him — as when he thirsted for vengeance against Dekker when he received his ring — Alan Scott is an extremely level-headed individual.
He is probably among the first Mystery Men of the early days to strive to capture his opponents over killing them, though he shed few tears when the unthinkable did happen to his prey.
For most of his early career as Green Lantern, Scott was an extremely down-to-earth hero, not only making attempts to thwart local organized crime, but also “proving” himself on a regular basis, consistently engaging himself physically, when his ring could certainly have done as good a job.
In his personal life, Alan Scott also encountered the action scene as well, often getting involved with the investigations of reporters whose equipment it was his job to maintain. Throughout all of this, Scott retained a strong sense of humour, bantering in battle nearly as much as some modern heroes.
Other traits
After the disbanding of the Justice Society, Scott threw himself into his work, for the most part, rising to the top of Gotham’s WXYZ, which he renamed Gotham Broadcasting.
This did not last long, however, and the loss of his position at Gotham Broadcasting due to the machinations of the Psycho-Pirate was, perhaps, the one regret he carried with him, and certainly the only one he acted on while under the influence of the Stream of Ruthlessness.
Since then, Scott has become, essentially, an “elder statesman” of the superhero community, becoming quite interested in teaching the latest generations of heroes what has come before.
He still, however, maintains a sense of humor about it all, and understands well that such heroes as Kyle “Green Lantern” Rayner and Courtney “Star-Spangled Kid” Whitmore are not entirely predisposed to listening to lectures.
In a sense, he really even sees Jennie-Lynn “Jade” Hayden and Todd “Obsidian” Rice as more students (the latter wayward) than children, which is perhaps appropriate given their histories.
Behind the scenes, however, Alan Scott is most devoted to his recent bride and love-lorn secretary for many decades, Molly “Harlequin” Mayne-Scott, despite the difference in their current biological ages — something Scott has had to remind his wife of several times since their marriage.
Game Stats — DC Heroes RPG
Tell me more about the game stats
Green Lantern (aka “The Master of Light”)
| Dex: 06 | Str: 04 | Bod: 05 | Motivation: Responsibility |
| Int: 06 | Wil: 08 | Min: 12 | Occupation: Broadcasting executive |
| Inf: 07 | Aur: 07 | Spi: 09 | Resources {or Wealth}: 008 |
| Init: 019 | HP: 100 |
Skills:
Gadgetry: 05, Martial artist: 05, Power Ring (Green Flame): 12, Scientist: 05
Note:
See the Hal Jordan and Power Rings articles for more about the Power Ring Skill.
Advantages:
Buddy (Doiby Dickles), Scholar (Radio engineering).
Connections:
Broadcasting Industry (High), JSA (High), All-Star Squadron (Low), Harlequin I (aka Molly Maynne, High).
Drawbacks:
Secret Identity.
Equipment:
- Mystical Lantern [BODY 20, SPIRIT 20, Energy absorption: 15, Invisibility: 15].
- RING (see below).
Alan Scott’s Power Ring
The depiction of the ring’s power slowly evolved through the years, as is typical for Golden Age comics. At first, the ring could pretty much manifest whatever power struck the writer’s fancy ; it later became more codified and closer to the subsequent Green Lantern’s power rings.
The “original power ring” stats below have been written up by Sean MacDonald using the Golden Age Green Lantern Archives, and will be of interest for those looking for the earliest depiction of GL.
The “streamlined power ring” written up after that is more in-line with the subsequent GL rings and general GL powers ; it includes the well-known vulnerability to wood and is probably closer to what modern readers would expect.
- ORIGINAL POWER RING [BODY 12 SPI 12, Flight: 15, Force wall: 10, Omni-Power: 12, Skin Armor: 09, Teleport: 01, Magic Blast: 10, Heat Vision: 12, Flash: 01, Chameleon: 01, Paralysis: 09, Pyrotechnics: 04, Flame Control: 08 (only on his green flame), Energy Blast: 08, Mind Probe: 06. Limitations:
- Teleport only functions in a very specific manner. It may only be used to teleport to the other side of a wall that the ring wearer is touching. Consequently, Teleport does not have +7 to range. The Teleportation power is a, result of being able to move into the fourth dimension. This is clearly _not_ the Dispersal power
- Skin Armor only protects against attacks by metallic items (the ring does not increase the wearer’s BODY at this stage).
- Force Wall — “an unyielding barrier of blazing light !” — was once used to create a “ring of shimmering, flaming light” to encircle some crooks.
- Whenever the Flight power is used, the ring creates a very wide beam that illuminates Alan Scott, which looks fairly odd.
- The Power Ring must be recharged once every twenty-four hours or stops working.
- The Power Ring works by willpower, and consequently will not function when the wearer is distracted. This means that after Desperation Recovery, Green Lantern must make a successful Recovery Roll to have the ring resume working — in game terms treat as if his WIL had been reduced to 02, with the ring starting to work as soon as he Recovers one or more AP beyond 02.
- Magic Blast has No Range, and will be automatically triggered by any criminal who puts on the ring. Magic Blast APs act as AV/EV, while the criminal’s SPI acts as OV/RV. This is a Killing attack.
- Chameleon has two uses. First, it disguises the green ring as a normal ring — “Alan presses the ring upon his finger, and the false top rolls back revealing the Green Lantern Ring !!”. Secondly, it can be Used Against Others in a specific way. Whenever, GL punches someone (and gets RAPs), a mark is left on the face of the victim, in the shape of a green lantern (much the way the Phantom’s enemies have a skull mark on their faces).
- Pyrotechnics causes a green flame to spring up wherever Alan wants it to be. He can control the flame with Flame Control.
- Powers mimicked via Omni-Power: Danger Sense, Hypnotism (to make crooks forget information), Flash (to blind someone, twice), Neutralize (car engine).
- STREAMLINED POWER RING [BODY 24 /BODY/ 10 SPI 24, Dispersal (ML): 10, Flight (ML): 15, Force manipulation (ML): 24, Omni-power (ML): 12, Sealed systems (ML): 15, Skin armour (ML): 04. Limitations :
- Each active AP of Skin Armour decreases both Force Manipulation and Omni-Power by one AP as long as it is active.
- The Power Ring is powerless against wood and wooden objects (this includes /BODY/).
- The Ring’s BODY and SPI are only 12 when it is not worn.
- The Power Ring must be recharged using the mystical lantern once every 24 hours or stop working.
- Force Manipulation is User-Linked to MIN + Power Ring (Green Flame)].
The green flame of retcons
The modern take on Scott implies some retcons about his stats, which are reflected in this entry. Specifically :
- The HPs have been retconned and are higher than they historically were (the original amount was 085), since the post-Crisis Scott occupies the niche that was previously the Golden Age Superman’s.
- His INF was raised from 05 to 07 to represent his retconned impact and influence ; 05 was a better value for his vintage adventures as chronicled back then.
- Height and weight went slightly up from an original 6’ and 201lbs as modern comics constantly refer to him as “tall” and “broad-shouldered”.
- Furthermore, WIL has gone down from 24 (which was there purely for user-linking) whereas MIN and SPI have gone up by several APs to better represent his willpower. See the changes in Green Lantern stats discussed in the Hal Jordan entry.
Source of Character: All-American comics and general DC Universe.
Helper(s): John Kahane, Darci.