Final Crisis: Alpha Lanterns

To finish up my Final Crisis themed writings I figured I'd look into characters that usually are not talked about much when it comes to Final Crisis, Alpha Lanterns.

In Final Crisis all major characters were disabled in one way or another to give the impression that Darkseid is really going to win (already won?) this time. Hal Jordan, just like in the classic "No Man Escapes The Manhunter!" story, was arrested for something he didn't do.

Who could arrest intergalactic cop? Enter Alpha Lanterns, an internal police of sorts. Supposedly created by Morrison and actually put to paper in Green Lantern books by Geoff Johns. And thats where we will start.

Once Sinestro Corps War ends Guardians feel like they need to be a bit more like Sinestro. Killing now is ok and a new Corps, Alpha Lanterns will make sure that regular GLs won't get any funny ideas. We see this in Green Lantern #26-28 by Geoff Johns. Another noteworthy thing is that, if I'm not mistaken, this is where the idea of John being a soldier (introduced in animated adaptations) is first adopted by comics.

So, how does Alpha Lantern work? Basically you lose your humanity and become a mix of a GL and Manhunter. Naturally not everyone is thrilled with the idea and John refuses such "promotion". But really, the main point of this arc is to do an "aftermath" for SCW and start building towards Blackest Night.

It is also mentioned that Kraken is from Apokolips. I wonder if the original idea for Final Crisis was that evil gods would be able to posses only people from Apokolips? Or was this supposed to be a hint that something is not right? Regardless, nothing really was done with Kraken's background and she wasn't seen after Final Crisis so it doesn't really matter.

Now, in an ideal world I'd say that Guardians would scrap the entire idea after what happened in Final Crisis and that would be that for Alpha Lanterns. But I guess people involved with Green Lantern franchise felt differently and also saw this as an opportunity to "push" Boodikka as the face of Alpha Lanterns. During this time period Green Lantern was hot property with multiple monthly titles and many guest appearances so it is possible that I missed some important appearance somewhere, but from what I can see we got three additional Alpha Lanterns focused story arcs.

First we have "The Curse of the Alpha-Lantern" in Green Lantern Corps #21-22 by Sterling Gates. It was published at around the same time as the origin story by Johns and tried to flesh out Boodikka a bit more. It ends with a weird idea of Boodikka gaining a regular GL (her sister) as a partner. I think nothing was done with this idea and I can't really blame other writers for that.

Moving on we have "Revolt of the Alpha-Lanterns" in Green Lantern Corps #48-52 by Tony Bedard. Main point of this arc is to reveal what happened to Cyborg Superman after SCW. And since at that time he had taken over Manhunters then... he is now going to take over a derivative concept - Alpha Lanterns. You can feel creativity in the air. John is involved again because Alpha Lanterns are not happy that he rejected the "promotion" back then. It ends with Boodikka overpowering Cyborg Superman's willpower and destroying him, but he obviously gets better some time later for Superman storyline. Oh, and Alpha Lanterns regain some of their emotions because why not.

Next and final story "Alpha War" happens in New 52 relaunched Green Lantern Corps #8-12 by Peter Tomasi. This time John kills another GL because he was about to betray the Corps and Alpha Lanterns decide that the best punishment for that is... death penalty. There is not much done to explain the logic behind these events and it ends with a big fight between Alpha and regular GLs. In the end Alpha Lanterns get destroyed. It feels like this is mostly done to clear the board for upcoming Third Army crossover where Guardians decide to create another version of the Corps because we need Manhunters 3.0 for some reason.

You might notice that John was involved in many of these stories and I can't stand how he is written in them. He doesn't join Alpha Lanterns because as a sniper he wants a way out. He can repair a broken lantern because you need engineering skills for it and being an architect is close enough. Only he can notice that buildings are old because he is an architect. Need to dig a hole to burry central battery? John is the man for that because you can't just dig the hole, you need to make precise calculations and only an architect can do that.

It all feels very fake, like he is not an actual character, but a checklist. You need to remind people that he is an architect and you are going to do it regardless of how out of place and stupid it looks. Not being a fan of turning yourself into Manhunter 2.0 sounds like perfectly reasonable position. But no, John does it because he is a soldier - we need to remind people that he is now a soldier, just like in the animated universe. If you removed military and architecture from his background then John would become a blank slate with no traits or interests. It is tragic that arguably best known DC's black character is written like a checklist and sadly not much has changed in last 10 years.

In the end Boodikka is still a bland GL and nothing really interesting was done with Alpha Lanterns. Their stories were mostly transitional and/or resolving some old plot points. You'll read their introduction if you care about GL run by Johns, but remaining stories feel like second or even third-tier stories for completionists.

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