15 Little Known Facts About The Green Lantern Corps

Since the early 1940s, the Green Lantern has been a mainstay of DC, and while not quite as recognizable as Batman or Superman, is still one of the company's most popular and powerful characters.

While the Green Lantern Corps' tenure outside of comics has been shaky, several Lanterns such as Hal Jordan and John Stewart have found decent success in various DC animated projects.

In the DC universe, the Green Lantern Corps has patrolled the known universe for billions of years, and due to this its illustrious members have been crucial components of many game-changing stories such as Blackest Night, Infinite Crisis and Zero Hour.

Despite other Corps such as the Red, Orange and Blue Lanterns existing, the Green Lanterns are the most recognizable and powerful due to their experience and influence over the thousands of sectors they protect.

That said, there is so much about the Green Lantern Corps that is unknown to even the most dedicated of comics readers. From their origins, diverse members and lore, the intergalactic police force is a lot more layered than most fans would have expected.

The Guardians of the Universe, the Corps' overall supervisors, are seen as some of the universe's oldest and most principled beings, and this is believed to be the reason behind their creation of the cosmic organisation.

However, the true reason behind why they formed the Corps is a lot less noble and it reflected their own shortcomings.

Originally from the planet Maltus, the Guardians evolved from warriors to scientists over millennia, and this change led to them experimenting on the worlds around them.

However, one such experiment by a Maltusian named Krona would prove to be a tipping point in their history. Attempting to view the very beginning of the cosmos, his time-bending activity accidentally flooded the universe with entropy, causing it to be "born old".

This brought shame to some of the Maltusians, who then moved to Oa and became the present-day Guardians.