More Than Just a Fancy Ring: The Green Lantern of Justice League

Originally a minor figure in the Green Lantern mythos, his presence on Justice League made John Stewart the Green Lantern for a generation.

In the pantheon of DC Comics icons, Green Lantern is unique in that it is an identity not limited to a single person.  Consider:  there is one Superman, one Batman, one Wonder Woman, and one Martian Manhunter.  While it is true that the comic books have featured several Flashes, they—time travel and de-aging plot points aside—are largely a generational lineage in which a new Flash picks up the costume when the previous one joins the Speed Force.  Likewise, there have been many Hawkgirls, but various retcons have tied them all together (along with Hawkman) into a never-ending chain of reincarnation, where her spirit is continually reborn into new bodies.  All in all, these are singular personas intrinsically tied to the individuals who wear their masks.

Green Lantern, on the other hand, is not limited to such restrictions.  In truth, the name “Green Lantern” is less a superhero code name and more a rank, as it is held by the [then] roughly 3,600 members of the Green Lantern Corps, a universal peacekeeping force made up of representatives from every available, sentient species.  As long as an individual is without fear (or, following the Geoff Johns 2004-2005 reboot, one who has the capacity to overcome fear), they could become a Green Lantern.  That said, there have been a number of human Green Lanterns over the decades (at least five as of 2001), so while only one man could ever wear the familiar red cape, one power ring could metaphorically be worn by many fingers.

With that in mind, the Justice League creative team had their pick of potential characters to wield the emerald energies.  They could have chosen the thrill-seeking test pilot, Hal Jordan, or the impulsive, hotheaded Guy Gardner, a must if you’re simply looking to create conflict on a team.  They could have gone the easy route and used Kyle Rayner, who had previously appeared in the Superman:  The Animated Series (STAS) episode “In Brightest Day…,” or they could have adapted Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern who is not directly related to the Corps, but who has been tangentially tied to them via some retroactive, hand-wavy retelling of DC lore.  Hell, they could have even used Kilowog if they felt so inclined.  Instead, they chose John Stewart, a long-time supporting character who, over the decades, had been largely overlooked by both creative teams and general audiences.  However, his presence in both Justice League and Justice League Unlimited (JLU) served to reignite the light of the character, introducing him to generations of new fans over the past twenty years.

Sweet Stewart’s Baadasssss Song

Created by writer Dennis “Denny” O’Neil and artist Neal Adams and debuting in Green Lantern #87 (January 1972), John Stewart had the honor of becoming DC Comics’ first Black superhero, but he also held the ignominious position of being the back-up to the back-up Green Lantern for Hal Jordan (subbing for Guy Gardner following an injury).  In a January 2005 interview with Back Issue! magazine, O’Neil discussed the thought process behind creating the character:

With the Green Lantern / Green Arrow series, Neal [Adams] and I were kind of aware that we were pushing the envelope a little bit.  I think it was just a consensus between the two of us and [Editor] Julie Schwartz that we needed a [B]lack character.  The rationale for being a Green Lantern made it very easy to create an African-American [Green Lantern] because there is no reason that a guy like that couldn’t get the ring.  […]  The original John Stewart was an angry [B]lack man, and it sort of fit in with the political tenor of that series, which was pretty angry.

[…] Ideally, of course, he would have been written by a [B]lack writer, but there were virtually none in the field back then.  I always felt a little awkward when I’m doing an ethnic character because it’s not Irish Catholic, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. (qtd. in Johnson, “Beware” 33)

Added Neal Adams:

One of the reasons why I fought so hard to have a [B]lack Green Lantern was I did not want anybody to have any reason to say this character shouldn’t exist. The ring went out and sought out the best. Because John was the best, it gave him the prize, and the prize was that he got the job of cleaning up everybody else’s mess, and if he was willing to take it, he wasn’t going to have any reward, all he would have is a little gold star in his notebook, and he would be a hero. That prize was given once to a white guy and a couple of times to some assholes, but it was given to John Stewart rightly and John Stewart, to me, is a real hero as opposed to a secondary hero.

Even when he first came out, which I’m really so proud of Denny O’Neil for this, John just didn’t take crap from Hal Jordan. I felt that was exactly the way he ought to be. John Stewart became the other Green Lantern, and not just “junior Green Lantern” or a replacement. That was really what I was hoping for from the beginning. (qtd. in Johnson, “Art” 42).

Appearing in supporting roles over the years, his first big break would come in Green Lantern #182 (November 1984) where, following an impulsive Jordan quitting the Corps, Stewart became the Green Lantern of Sector 2814 full-time (though Jordan would resume his duties in Green Lantern #198 [March 1986]). During this period, he became a better Green Lantern after training under Corps veteran Katma Tui (starting in Green Lantern #187 [April 1985]), whom he would later marry. However, post-Crisis on Infinite Earths, things would take a turn for the worse when he temporarily lost his powers and Katma was murdered by Star Sapphire in Action Comics #601 (May 1988). Then, after regaining his powers, he appeared in Cosmic Odyssey, where he was unable to save the Xanshi star system from destruction (see “Commentary” section from the “In Blackest Night” case file for the full story). Following the Emerald Twilight storyline that saw the destruction of the Green Lantern Corps, he continued to make sporadic appearances, most notably as a supporting character during Ron Marz’s Green Lantern run, where he served as a mentor for rookie Lantern Kyle Rayner.

After a promising start, John Stewart stagnated as a character, sinking to fourth-tier Green Lantern behind Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, and Kyle Rayner. Fortunately, he did have an admirer in the form of artist and DCAU Producer Bruce Timm, who was busy preparing for him the role of a lifetime.

The Revolution Will Be Televised

In truth, Bruce Timm had had John Stewart on his mind for years.  For example, the character was part of the creative team’s early plans to make STAS a team-up show, where Superman would join forces with two members of the Justice League each episode (Brick 20-22; Gross 3), and while the aforementioned Kyle Rayner did appear during STAS’ third season, they returned to Stewart when the time came to develop the Justice League sizzle reel for their initial 2000 pitch to Kids’ WB!, referred to as “Justice League:  The First Mission” on the Justice League:  Season One DVD box set.  Fortunately, the series later sold to Cartoon Network, allowing them to utilize the character whom Writer / Story Editor / Producer Dwayne McDuffie once referred to as “Bruce Timm’s favorite Lantern” in a V Hive message board post (Maestro).

Following the announcement of John Stewart’s inclusion on the Justice League’s roster, the fan community became polarized, with Hal Jordan loyalists, continuity watchdogs, and bigots protesting the move on websites and message boards all over the burgeoning Internet. In response, Bruce Timm explained his decision at the 2001 Justice League panel at San Diego Comic-Con:

He’s the most controversial character so far, from what we’ve been gathering on the Internet.  When the show was first announced, and the line-up, people were saying, “Oh, well, why aren’t they using Hal Jordan?”  And, “No, it’s gotta be Guy Gardner.”  “No, it’s gotta be Kyle Rayner.”  And, so, obviously, we picked the wrong one.  But the reasons we did choose John Stewart are various.  I think they’re all valid.  Right off the bat, I’ll just say it:  you know, we did need ethnic diversity in the Justice League.  We felt the show is going to be seen worldwide, and I think having a member of the Justice League who is not just “Mr. Whitebread” is a good thing.

Another reason why we chose him:  literally, out of all the Green Lanterns we could have chosen, we all kind of liked the John Stewart character from the comics, especially the Denny O’Neil / Neal Adams version.  When they first introduced him, he was like the angry, young Black guy, you know, in 1969 or ’70.  Even though that’s not really relevant today, like the whole Black Power movement and everything, we still wanted to keep that kind of edge and attitude with him.

And so, just in banging around ideas of what to do with him, going back to the original idea of the Green Lantern Corps, where they’re basically Lensmen.  They’re space cops; they’re space marines.  We’re like, “Okay, he’s a military guy.”  And then somebody said, “Louis Gossett Jr. [in] An Officer and a Gentlemen.”  I said, “Yeah,” and I went, “Wait a minute—Samuel L. Jackson.”  And everyone went, “Yeah!”  So, that’s kind of who he is.  He’s a real rugged, no-nonsense, barking orders kind of Green Lantern, and we love him to pieces.  We love him so much he’s, like, in almost every episode.  I predict that you guys are going to love him too. (qtd. in Davis)

Later, during an interview in 2004’s Modern Masters, Volume Three: Bruce Timm, the creator would further expand upon his logic:

BRUCE TIMM:  The only things that really needed to be settled on were which version of the Green Lantern were we going to use, because there’s so many.  We could have used Hal Jordan or Kyle Rayner or Guy Gardner, but for a number of reasons, including ethnic diversity, we chose to go with John Stewart—which has turned out to be probably the single most controversial aspect of the show amongst die-hard comic book fans.  John Stewart never really got a whole lot of face time in the comics.  There was a small period of time back in the ‘80s when Steve Englehart was writing the comic, when John was the main Green Lantern, but aside from that, he wasn’t really one of the—

MODERN MASTERS:  His solo series in the early to mid-‘90s, Green Lantern:  Mosaic, wasn’t a great seller, but it was one of my favorite series.  And ever since Cosmic Odyssey, he’s probably been my favorite of the Green Lanterns, so I was actually happy that he was the one you decided to use.

BRUCE TIMM:  Well, good, good.  I’ve always kind of liked him too, and—again—aside from the ethnic diversity thing, we were looking at what the group dynamic was going to be.  One of the things we really wanted to avoid was having a group of characters who were all pretty much interchangeable.  Going back and rereading a lot of the Silver Age Justice League comics, they really are all the same character.  Batman has no different a voice than Superman or Flash.  They’re all kind of the same character; the only thing that differentiates them is what colors they’re wearing and what powers they have.  So, we really wanted to make sure they had a much more interesting group dynamic than that and that they all had different personalities.  Going back to the original version of John Stewart from Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ day, the thing that made him interesting to us was that he was quite a bit more of a badass.  If you go back and read those, he comes across as a stereotypical, angry, young Black man.  We knew we didn’t want to do that exactly, but we still wanted to keep a little bit of that edge to him so that he would be one of the more strident of the characters. (qtd. in Nolen-Weathington 72-73)

Fortunately, Timm’s push for John Stewart was embraced by the creative team (“There wasn’t a whole lot of arguing going on. […] We all decided very quickly and easily on the lineup”; qtd. in Gross 3). Added writer and Producer Rich Fogel, in a 2006 interview from the Justice League:  Season One DVD box set, “Green Lantern wasn’t a hard decision to make, though, because of the fact that, in the mythology, there are a whole bunch of Green Lanterns, and so we didn’t feel like we needed to make a huge explanation of it” (qtd. in “Inside”).

With the identity of their Green Lantern decided upon, the next step was to craft his look. Surprisingly, his design changed little from the “STAS team-up” era, with the only major updates occurring with his face, hair, and eyes. In “The Look of the League,” a special feature from the Justice League:  Justice on Trial DVD release, Bruce Timm discussed the intricacies of the character’s blueprint:

John Stewart was the one Green Lantern in the comic book continuity who never, ever wore a mask [NOTE: as shown in the above pics, he did briefly during Englehart’s Green Lantern run in the 1980s]; ’cause most of the Green Lanterns wore a little domino mask.  So, he was the first Green Lantern to say, “No, forget it, I’m not wearing a mask.  You know, I’m not ashamed to be a Green Lantern; I’m not ashamed of being John Stewart,” so we thought that was a really important part of the John Stewart version of Green Lantern.  But, just purely for visual sake, we thought we needed to give him some kind of visual gimmick for his close-ups, so we came up with the idea that he’s been a Green Lantern for so long that the energy of the Green Lantern has kind of infused his entire being, so that it’s even in his bloodstream, and it glows out of his eyes, and it certainly makes an interesting visual.

Finally, there was the matter of his voice casting, but Voice Director Andrea Romano fortunately found a suitable actor for their ring bearer:

Phil LaMarr was an actor I’d worked with on a series called Static Shock.  He had done an audition at his agent’s office, and I thought he was very, very good.  I called up some people who had worked with him and tried to get some background.  If I’m going to commit to a series with somebody, I want to know that it’s going to be a pleasant experience.  I like to think of putting together a cast as being similar to putting together a party.  Who’s going to have fun together?  Who’s going to play well together?  Who’s going to bring something to the party?  As I was doing my research on Phil, I got very positive response, he gets the joke, he understands what’s going on.  Like I said, I had gotten to know him on Static Shock.

We were auditioning for Justice League, and we brought him in when we decided that we wanted Green Lantern to be played by an actor of color.  Phil did a voice for me that he’d never done.  When you do a series like Static Shock, and I think we did 52 episodes of that series, and you cast him as a lot of other incidental roles within, you think you’ve heard them all.  But he did five different versions of the voice for us, and we were all blown away.  All of them were good.  On Static Shock, he played a 16 or 17-year-old boy.  With Green Lantern, we play him with this depth to his voice and this kind of military feel, which we wanted for the role.  We wanted to play him almost like a Marine, and he just blew us away.  So, that was kind of easy casting. (qtd. in Gross 16)

A multitalented performer with a long list of credits, Phil LaMarr is probably best known for his voice work, most notably for playing the aforementioned Static on Static Shock (2000-2004), bureaucrat Hermes Conrad on Futurama (1999-2003, 2008-2013, 2023-present), and Samurai Jack on Samurai Jack (2001-2004, 2017). A veteran of stage and television, he also has extensive experience in sketch comedy, having appeared as a regular on MADtv for five seasons (1995-2000). That said, in my heart of hearts, I will always remember him best from the first time I saw him, which was as the hapless Marvin in Pulp Fiction (1994), who was accidentally shot in the head by Vincent Vega in a memorable scene.

In “Voices of Justice:  Super Voice Lessons from the Professionals,” a special feature on the 2005 DVD Justice League Unlimited:  Joining Forces, LaMarr went into his approach to voicing John Stewart:

The way Bruce Timm, who designs the show, draws the heroes, they have these enormous chests, you know, so, to me, it only made sense—[JOHN STEWART VOICE]—for the guy to sound like this, you know?  He’s got this huge chest; he should sound like a voice coming out of that chest.  He’s very crisp and no-nonsense.

However, in the October 17, 2023 installment of the Justice League Revisited podcast (erroneously listed as released on December 1, 2023 on Apple Podcasts), he would later reveal the true origins of his Green Lantern voice:

PHIL LaMARR:  Well, I mean, it’s tough because I always internally feel like I don’t have a voice locked in until the first time I see it fully animated.  You know, obviously because we’re always recording, they always have a reference to play for you so you can get it in your ear.  But then, for me, it feels like it’s not in my head until I see the character come to life.

Although, with John Stewart, it may have been a little different, because I felt like I saw the character come to life before I auditioned for it […] because the person who auditioned ahead of me was Dennis Haysbert—who looks like John Stewart!  It looks like—I’m like, “Oh, God, thank goodness he’s not wearing green, otherwise they wouldn’t even call for next!”

JAMES ENSTALL:  And so, you told me before, if I’m not mistaken, you just went in and did your best Dennis Haysbert impression.  [LAUGHS.]

PHIL LaMARR:  [JOHN STEWART VOICE]  Right, because, you know, Dennis is shaped like John, and he’s got that deep, heroic voice. (qtd. in Eisenberg and Enstall)

Regardless of its origins, LaMarr’s performance was a hit among the creative team. In a January 2002 interview with Starlog, Bruce Timm revealed how “I didn’t think he could play the John Stewart Green Lantern because I had never heard anything from Phil that sounded like that, so I was skeptical about him.  The minute he started reading Green Lantern’s lines, though, he put on this gruff military voice, and it was dead-on.  We found our Green Lantern” (qtd. in Jankiewicz 30). And, during a May 14, 2001 interview with Comics Continuum, Associate Producer Shaun McLaughlin raved about the voice, saying how “[i]t’s deeper, it’s more authoritative. […] If you didn’t know it was Phil, you wouldn’t guess it was Phil.  I hesitate to call him a man of a thousand voices because it takes away from how good an actor he is.  He’s stunningly talented” (qtd. in Allstetter, “Justice League Animated”).

With their character designed, it was time to promote his debut. Reproduced below is Cartoon Network’s original character profile for their new Green Lantern, officially released on October 19, 2001:

John Stewart is a veteran member of the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic peacekeeping force founded by the Guardians of Oa.  The Guardians provide each Green Lantern with a power ring that must be recharged every 24 hours from a lantern-like power source.  Acting as the ultimate defensive weapon, the ring responds to mere thought and can project powerful, laser-like beams or impenetrable force fields.  Its emerald aura also protects the wearer from the harsh environs of deep space.

Years ago, the Guardians of Oa recognized John Stewart’s potential for exceptional courage and heroism.  Awarding him a power ring, they trained him to be the Green Lantern of 2814, a quadrant of the galaxy that includes our own solar system.  For more than ten years, John has patrolled the deepest reaches of space.

Now, he has returned home to protect Earth as a member of the Justice League.  Unfortunately, the hard-nosed military attitude that makes John an ideal Green Lantern often creates friction with his fellow Justice Leaguers.  Because he views himself as an authorized peacekeeper, he sometimes treats the others like well-meaning amateurs. (qtd. in Allstetter, “Justice League Characters”)

With the series premiere now weeks away, the time had come to introduce the world to the new Green Lantern.

Hardly a Greenhorn

Before delving into Green Lantern’s arc on Justice League, some time must be spent recapping his background, which was revealed piecemeal over the course of both this series and Justice League Unlimited. According to a March 2, 2006 message board post, Dwayne McDuffie estimated that, as of the series debut, John Stewart was in his “early forties,” which means that—assuming that “Secret Origins” takes place around 2001—that could place his birth date somewhere between 1956 and 1961 (Maestro). We see him in his old neighborhood in “In Blackest Night” and, although not expressly stated, McDuffie revealed in an April 11, 2006 message board post that his hometown is Detroit, MI (Maestro). Phil LaMarr described John Stewart as coming from an “underprivileged background” (qtd. in Rossen 48) and, in a January 2005 interview with Back Issue! magazine, he described how that informed his performance:

[The producers and writers] told me about the military background and, in my experience, most of the [B]lack guys that age who went into the army did so to get out of bad circumstances.  They didn’t have a ton of opportunities and [the military] was one of the best ones.  Also, my dad is from Detroit, and I modeled a lot of [John’s] voice on him.  He’s a very intelligent guy but not excessively educated.  He’s someone who can think, but you can still hear the old neighborhood in the voice. (qtd. in Johnson, “Beware” 36)

Various episodes have given viewers a glimmer of Stewart’s childhood. In the JLU episode “Kid Stuff,” we learn that, as a child, he was near-sighted and required glasses. This, combined with the implication that he may have been smaller than the other kids (Green Lantern is drawn as being a few inches shorter than the other male heroes), it could imply the development of a mild Napoleonic complex. We would also learn from his high school history teacher, Al McGee, that Stewart was “smart, impatient, [and] headstrong” in “In Blackest Night,” so that fits. We also learned, in “Legends,” that—like his voice actor, Phil LaMarr—Stewart was a comic book geek (Eisenberg and Enstall) who would, after school, visit his Uncle James and read comic books from his collection. He would later credit those comics—particularly his favorite, The Justice Guild of America—with teaching him about heroism.

Considering the time frame of his childhood here, it is worth noting that this John Stewart would find himself growing up during the zenith of both the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement. A turbulent period where Black Americans sought to address racial inequality through both peaceful and more aggressive means, he would be witness to events such as the race riots of the “long, hot summer of 1967,” as well as the assassination of Black leaders like Malcolm X (February 21, 1965) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (April 4, 1968). Also, as a Detroit chapter of the Black Panther Party formed in 1968, it is certainly possible that an “underprivileged” youth like Stewart may have found himself fed by their Free Breakfast for School Children Program and seen by the doctors in their People’s Free Medical Centers. While this John Stewart may not have been the “angry, young Black guy” of DC’s Bronze Age of Comics, the era would certainly still be an influence on him during his formative years.

After high school, where he apparently excelled at basketball (“In Blackest Night”), John Stewart joined the U.S. Marine Corps (based on LaMarr’s above statements, I would assume he signed up at eighteen). Now, assuming he was born in 1956, he would have been 17 in 1973, meaning that he would have barely missed both the Vietnam War and the draft. We know little of his time in the service, save for him meeting Rex Mason (who would become Metamorpho in “Metamorphosis”) and developing strong marksmanship training (based on his sniper skills with Easy Company in “The Savage Time,” which carried over to the comics in Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special #1 [August 2007], where he successfully took out Sinestro Corps member Bedovian from three sectors away). Assuming that he served a full eight-year commitment before receiving an honorable discharge, that could potentially place him at twenty-six in 1982 when he left the Marines and, apparently, joined the Green Lantern Corps shortly thereafter.

Like his childhood and military years, his pre-Justice League Green Lantern tenure is equally as spotty. Assuming that Abin Sur was Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814 in the early 1980s, it’s possible that, like in the Bronze Age comic books, John Stewart was selected to be his backup should he be killed or incapacitated. Based on this logic, it implies that having Stewart and Kyle Rayner later both be Green Lanterns at the same time is no big deal, as each sector could potentially have two at any given moment, with one in the wings ready to replace the primary one if needed. This speculation was somewhat confirmed by Dwayne McDuffie, who created the following post on January 20, 2004 for his Delphi Forums message boards:

We’ve explained it in bits and pieces.  John was a Green Lantern long before Kyle but not in this sector (he was with the Honor Guard).  When Abin Sur got into trouble, his ring found another worthy Earthman, Kyle Rayner.  When Kyle was reassigned for training, John came back to cover Earth’s sector, as it was an opportunity to serve near his home planet. (Maestro)

As he was in the comics, we learn in “Hearts and Minds” that he was also trained by Katma Tui, with whom he had a shorter relationship in this continuity. We also find out that, at some point, he gained the ire of Sinestro, as we learn in the Static Shock episode “Fallen Hero” that Stewart “helped take him down” when “he got power-hungry.” Considering how, in the comic books, Sinestro conquered his native planet, Korugar—the same world Katma Tui is from—it could explain Sinestro’s specific animosity towards Stewart (enough for him to remain on Earth and repeatedly team up with Grodd to ensure his death, rather than target any of the thousands of other Green Lanterns, at any rate). Finally, while the above character profile states that John Stewart served as a Green Lantern “more than ten years” prior to Justice League, Dwayne McDuffie estimates that he was a Lantern “for as long as 15 years, near as I can figure out,” according to the aforementioned January 20, 2004 post (Maestro) so, assuming that he was born in 1956, that could potentially make him as old as 45 by the time of “Secret Origins,” which hits McDuffie’s earlier estimate of being somewhere in his “early forties.” Collectively, this history would increasingly come into play during the series, as the decisions of Stewart’s past would return to haunt him.

It’s Not That Easy Bein’ Green

Despite allegedly being a man without fear, John Stewart entered the Justice League series plagued by doubts regarding his life choices. For example, after comparing his lifestyle to that of his friend, Rex Mason, in “Metamorphosis,” Green Lantern later admitted to Hawkgirl that he wondered about the road not taken. While not explicitly jealous of Mason’s success, there was a part of him that obviously envied his lifestyle—living in plusher surroundings, having money and a steady romantic life, etc. Now, the series never really delved into Stewart’s financial status, though he must have had some sort of income to afford his Detroit studio apartment, as seen in “Only a Dream” and “Hearts and Minds.”

That said, compared to Rex Mason’s swanky penthouse apartment, it was definitely a step down. At one point, he actually confessed to Mason that, thanks to his years serving as a Green Lantern, “I’ve hardly got more than the clothes on my back.” It is unknown, however, if he was simply making a joke about his finances, considering how, in “The Once and Future Thing, Part One: Weird Western Tales,” we learn that the power ring can generate clothing, which could explain how he affords such fancy outfits on a meager budget:

To join the Green Lantern Corps, John Stewart had to surrender the potential for all these things, and now—decades later—he’s come to realize that, despite the power at his disposal and the good he has done, he has little to actually show for his life, as his calling has consumed his very existence, preventing him from building any kind of identity independent of his rank and weapon.

This anxiety regarding identity played out in several episodes of Season Two. In “Only a Dream,” Doctor Destiny presented the argument that John Stewart and the power ring were one and the same and that, after abandoning Earth for the stars, it was all he had left. Even after defeating him, these thoughts lingered as, in “Hearts and Minds,” he wrestled with his worth after Despero’s mental attack temporarily prevented him from harnessing the ring’s energies. Resorting to firearms, possibly for the first time in decades, he defensively told Hawkgirl that “I can still pull my weight, you know. There’s more to me than just a fancy ring.” This statement must have stuck with Hawkgirl, as she apparently included it in her reports about the Justice League’s weaknesses to the Thanagarian military. After all, Kragger’s statement in “Starcrossed” about how Stewart was “nothing without his toy” was intended to be psychologically painful, no doubt making him wonder if that’s what Shayera Hol really thought of him the whole time.

Calvin and Hobbes comic strip from October 14, 1993. Courtesy of Bill Watterson and Universal Press Syndicate.

Ultimately, however, these are all outgrowths of John Stewart’s main character arc: his desire to affirm his value as a human being in a vast and indifferent universe. Growing up in 1960s Detroit, he found himself part of a community that was fighting for justice and equal rights in a hostile nation that classified them as second-class citizens. Later, to become a Green Lantern, he had to not only sever all ties to this community, but to the very Earth itself. And now, after fifteen years of travelling to and seeing sights that humanity could not even hope to imagine—let alone comprehend—he returns to his native homeworld, to its local passions and struggles, only to find that there is now a disconnect between them. In the aforementioned January 2005 interview with Back Issue! magazine, Denny O’Neil and Phil LaMarr weighed in on Green Lantern’s larger conflict:

DAN JOHNSON:  Here’s a question I want to pose to both of you gentlemen.  Denny, I want to ask this of you because, as you stated before, when you first introduced John Stewart, he was the typical, angry young [B]lack man in the comics.  Phil, I wanted to ask this of you as someone who has had a chance to play this character for a while.  It is based on an idea that was presented in the “Only a Dream” episode of Justice League, where the audience got to see that John’s greatest fear is that he can’t go home again because of the power ring he has been given.  Where he started out as someone who grew up feeling like an alien to begin with (being a [B]lack man around white people), he now feels alien with all human beings, except for a select few who have been given power rings by the Guardians.  It’s that you have this man who says, “I’m [B]lack, and I’m never going to fit into the white man’s world—”

DENNY O’NEIL:  “—and now, I have these powers, and I’m not going to fit into the human world.”

DAN JOHNSON:  Exactly!  It’s like John started out not being sure how to deal with people of a different race, now he is elevated to a position where he may be unsure of how to deal with all people in general.

DENNY O’NEIL:  That’s the stuff of drama.  That’s the kind of thing a good writer could really run with.

PHIL LaMARR:  Yeah, there is so much loaded there with resonances.  As a [B]lack man, especially a [B]lack man from America, which is a completely different psychology [than] someone from a majority [B]lack culture, there are different strata.  There is always a question of can you go back.  If you move to a white neighborhood and get a big house, are you still truly [B]lack?  If you have the most powerful weapon in the universe, and you can travel throughout the galaxy without the aid of a ship, are you still a human being?

DENNY O’NEIL:  The answer that they deposited in Watchmen was no.  If you were Superman, after a while, you couldn’t relate to ordinary people.  Your concerns would be completely different.

DAN JOHNSON:  John strikes me as someone for whom these kind of questions would really weigh on his mind, more so than it would other members of the Justice League.

PHIL LaMARR:  That’s something where there is room for exploration because the audience [for Justice League] doesn’t have as strong an idea of John’s background as they do Superman’s or Batman’s.  I think it would be really interesting to find out if he was an angry young man, and is he still when he is not faced with earth-shattering crises.  I think that may be why [the writers] have spent more time with John than some of the others—there is more story to tell. (qtd. in Johnson, “Beware” 37-38)

Unfortunately for Stewart, this type of existential crisis can rarely be solved within the confines of a 22-minute episode, as it not only carried on through to Unlimited, but it also came into play with his other major storyline, his “will-they-or-won’t-they?” romance with Shayera Hol. What started as a contentious back-and-forth between two soldiers slowly developed into a friendship, which eventually blossomed into romance … only for it to abruptly end in “Starcrossed,” when it was revealed that she was 1) a spy gathering information for a Thanagarian occupation of Earth and 2) engaged to Hro Talak. After the Justice League turned back the invasion, they reluctantly parted ways, with John realizing that the woman he had fallen in love with was, in many ways, a stranger to him.

John Stewart took both the betrayal and the breakup exceptionally hard, shaving his head and growing a goatee (as Dwayne McDuffie put it in a July 31, 2004 message board post, “[t]hat’s John’s ‘breakup haircut’”; Maestro). He even, in the JLU episode “The Return,” unsuccessfully requested a transfer for a tour of duty on Oa to get away from Earth (and Shayera) for awhile. Still, he pulled it together, and—in the JLU episode “Wake the Dead”—he began dating the superhero Vixen when, by the end of the episode, Shayera Hol rejoined the Justice League, having shed her Hawkgirl identity with a makeover of her own. Finally, once he thought things were finally civil between them, he got tossed into the future in “The Once and Future Thing, Part Two: Time, Warped” and met their son, Warhawk, aka Rex Stewart.

Green Lantern’s conflict between choosing Shayera Hol or Vixen as his partner was more than just a simple love triangle—it was a man desperately attempting to assert his will over what appears to be a preordained event. Deep down, John would probably love nothing more than to reconnect with Shayera and, over time, have a child with her, but—at the same time—he cannot deny that this eventuality is being forced upon him, thereby making his own choices and opinions on the subject irrelevant. In a September 20, 2005 message board post, Dwayne McDuffie explained that “John [Stewart] actually fears that there’s nothing he can do to change the future; he interprets this as his having no free will.  This is a source of great consternation for him” (Maestro). Eventually, in the JLU episode “Ancient History,” he made his decision, choosing Vixen over Shayera, even though we—and potentially he himself—know that it won’t be forever. His explanation? “I won’t be destiny’s puppet.”

“Light ’Em Up!”

Back in the comic books, John Stewart’s starring role in a popular animated series had an immediate reaction. Returning to active duty in Green Lantern #156 (January 2003) with his now-familiar Justice League costume and appearance, he quickly joined of the Justice League for the first time in JLA #76 (February 2003). Obviously, this bit of corporate synergy was to be expected, but what wasn’t expected was the impact of writer Geoff Johns’ across-the-board reboot of Green Lantern in 2004-2005, a move that successfully brought Hal Jordan back to prominence without diminishing John Stewart, Guy Gardner, or Kyle Rayner. Since then, he has been made regular appearances in the Green Lantern titles, often in positions of leadership, and his Justice League military backstory was integrated seamlessly into his comic book backstory, where he's now an architect and a former Marine.

Still, due to his appearances on Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, there is a large portion of the population that is now more familiar with John Stewart than any other Green Lantern (although there has been a push in the past decade for television properties featuring Jessica Cruz). This has led to some interesting moments, such as the decision to use Hal Jordan in the 2011 Green Lantern feature film, leading Bleeding Cool journalist Rich Johnston to wryly observe that “[w]henever people complain this summer that Green Lantern isn’t [B]lack, look to Dwayne McDuffie for making John Stewart so iconic in the role in JLU.” Fortunately, this oversight will be rectified in the upcoming 2026 HBO Max series Lanterns, which will feature an older Hal Jordan training Stewart to be his replacement. He may even get a another shot with Hawkgirl, as Isabela Merced—who plays the winged hero in the current Superman film—has expressed interest in bringing the storyline into James Gunn’s developing cinematic universe (“SUPERMAN”). Not bad for a kid from Detroit.

John Stewart’s tumultuous multimedia rise to prominence as Green Lantern is a story of seeking both dignity and better representation for the Black community, for comic book fans, and for the character himself. Once brushed off as the “fill-in” Green Lantern, he is now the first Green Lantern that many think of when the franchise comes up, and while he may now share the stage with eight other human Green Lanterns in the comics (ten if you count Teen Lantern and sometimes-member Jade), he does so equally as a respected hero and veteran of the Corps. And even in his darkest moments, both in comics and animation, his message was always the same: I am John Stewart. I am a Green Lantern. And I matter as both.

Works Cited

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Images—unless otherwise indicated—courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Warner Bros. Animation, DC Comics, and Phil LaMarr.