GREEN LANTERN 267
mantle with his son. Later writers, including most recently Judd Winick, have contin-
ued providing Green Arrow with a number of challenges and changes, including the
destruction of Star City during the events of Final Crisis and his marriage to Dinah
Shore in 2008.
Like Batman before him, Green Arrow has teamed up with two younger sidekicks,
both of whom have operated under the name “Speedy.” Th e fi rst of these, Roy Harper,
was Queen’s ward from Green Arrow’s fi rst appearance, and remained so until he left to
found the Te e n T i t a n s in the 1970s. In 1971, he was the focus of a two-issue storyline
dealing with drug abuse; Harper was addicted to heroin and blamed his addiction
on Green Arrow’s lack of concern for him. Since then, he has operated as several
superheroes , including Arsenal and the Red Arrow. Since 2004, his replacement as
Speedy has been Mia Dearden, a teenage prostitute whom Green Arrow rescued during
the early days of his return from the dead. He agreed to watch out for her, and she
later proved to be very capable and street smart. She has also learned that she is HIV
positive, making her one of the few HIV-positive superheroes in comics today.
Green Arrow’s cultural importance lies in his politics. Since the 1970s, he has been
the most consistently left-liberal superhero in DC’s collection. More than simply
upholding the law, Green Arrow tries to see that it is applied fairly to rich and poor,
black and white alike. He is as likely to show compassion toward the street criminal
as show no mercy to the “boardroom fat cats;” this was especially true during Oliver
Queen’s run as mayor of Star City. Green Arrow demonstrates that he is more closely
concerned with the social dimensions of crime in Star City, and writers have often used
his character to give grittier, more real portraits of crime in comics.
Jacob Lewis
GREEN LANTERN. Created by artist Martin Nodell (most commonly known as
Mart Dellon) and scripter Bill Finger, Green Lantern originated during the Golden
Age and has become one of the central superhero characters in the DC Comics
stable, though the name has actually been assumed by several diff erent characters.
According to Maggie Th ompson, senior editor of the Comic’s Buyer Guide , Nodell,
while riding on the New York City subway on his way to All-American Publishers
in 1940, noticed a train operator waving a green light by the side of the track. Th is
experience led Nodell to develop the story of Alan Scott, a young engineer who,
after surviving a train crash, fi nds in the debris of the wreck a lantern made from
a green meteor. Scott uses the lantern to create a ring, which gives him superpow-
ers, including fl ight. He goes on to use his powers to become a crime fi ghter. Green
Lantern is an almost unbeatable entity at this time; however, the powers of his ring
do not work on wood. Because of his inability to fi ght wood, many of his villains are
made out of wood or use wooden weapons. Th e Alan Scott/Green Lantern’s arch-
enemy is a zombie strongman based on a 19th-century children’s rhyme, Solomon
Grundy, who is partly made up of woody plant growth, making him resistant to the
Green Lantern’s power. Th e Alan Scott character fi rst appeared in the July 1940,
