This year is definitely the year of the comic book movie. We’ve already had Thor, X-Men First Class opens in a couple of days, but the one I am most eagerly anticipating opens later this month, Green Lantern. The reason I’m anticipating this is because it’s just about damn time that DC makes a movie that isn’t Superman or Batman. It could be great, and it could be a disaster. I previously featured a space-based GL, but the Green Lantern Corps also has a bunch of earth-based heroes, and that’s who I’ll be featuring this month. The person I’m highlighting today had to wait decades to earn the right to wear the ring, but when he finally got it, he became an unforgettable character. I’m proud to present to you the Secret Origin of Guy Gardner!

Guy’s origin actually ends up being heavily tied into Hal Jordan’s, so consider this a two-fer. Our tale begins with Hal Jordan, Earth’s Green Lantern being summoned to Oa for, no kidding, a two-day seminar on “the higher techniques of the Guardians”. They probably just wanted to sell him a time-share in the western spiral arm of the galaxy or something. The Guardians eventually show Hal a machine which stores data from brains taken after death, because why not? The blue short-stacks say that they happen to have the last moments of Abin Sur, Hal’s predecessor in the machine and ask the Emerald Crusader if he’d like to watch. Hal is apparently full of morbid curiosity, because he is all for it, even though he was you know, there when Abin died.

You may have heard this story before, so forgive me for rehashing. Abin Sur is in his death throes on Earth, he beseeches his ring to find a suitable replacement for him, someone who is honest and completely fearless! The ring criss-crosses the planet at light speed and then the results are in, and here’s what you didn’t see the first time!

Yes, not only does the ring know there are two worthy candidates, it also knows enough about Earth to be cognizant of state lines! Since Abin is about to croak, he picks Hal due to him being closer. I guess that makes sense. When you’re desperate and dying, you’re not really going to have time to make an informed decision. So Hal’s origin plays out… Abin’s ring brings Hal, flight simulator and all, there’s a hasty explanation as to what the ring does and how to use it, and then Abin dies. I’m not trying to make light of it, it’s just that I am about to tell you the exact same thing in a minute…

And so, with Hal and the Guardians having seen his origin play out, with that one new detail, GL wonders what things would have been like if Guy had been chosen rather than he. The Guardians have an app for that, though. They tell the machine to show the ‘What If” scenario and so, we (and Guy) are taken back to Abin’s ship…

Guy Gardner, master of the obvious and not afraid to wear loafers with a tank top.

Guy starts his career as a Green Lantern with a bit of a shaky start. He attempts to fly, but fails until he realizes that he has to use his willpower to get that doohickey on his finger to work. Seriously, you’d think Abin would have given him a tiny bit more instruction that “Use this ring”. He quickly gets the hang of it, and is exhilarated by the sensation of flight. He practices a bit more, and we then have a quick cut to Guy’s civilian life, where we see what kind of person he really is…

"Yes, while in this gym full of sweaty young boys I must conceal my thoughts.. of being a Green Lantern!"

Finally, Guy has the gumption to go on his first case as a GL, tackling some saboteurs. It’s a pretty one-sided battle. Guy does a pretty good George Reeves impersonation by straight up crashing through the wall and shielding himself against the criminals bullets. They even call him another Superman. As the battle goes on though, we find that Guy’s tactics are all his own…

"Smell my words and hear my breath, wimpy thug person, eat my ringed fist!"

The battle over, the What If machine goes into montage mode, showing Guy’s career closely paralleling Hal’s facing the same trials and tribulations, and even making the same enemies, such as Sinestro and Black Hand. Things might have continued this way, but Hal notices that Guy takes an alternate route back to Earth (those intergalactic tolls are killer). Because of this, Guy finds himself on a planet Hal never went to, mainly because the denizens of said planet attacked him. It plays out like something out of the original Star Trek, you see, he’s attacked by a couple of robots, and they explain the situation on this world and…

Guy probably is feeling like a kid in a candy store at this point.

The robots go on to explain that the adults were wiped out by the “Yellow Plague”, which if you know anything about the GL mythos is probably anything but good for our Carrot-topped Crime Buster! Anyway, it seem the kids, being bored as all hell, being stuck as kids with no Pokémon to play, split into two camps and started an endless series of War Games. Guy makes it his mission to interfere, since “They don’t know war and destruction are evil!” Which I guess is noble, but war games and actual war are a far cry from each other, but well, whatever. Before he can get started, the Blue army uses their powers to overwhelm Guy’s will to their own ends.

Thankfully, GL doesn’t have to go kill a bunch of kids, just their bird-like war machine. Guy makes short work of it, so the Blue Army uses their pawn for greater and greater attacks, until finally they order him to take the fight to the Orangemen directly. Well, there is one more mechanical monstrosity to overcome…

"Yessir! It'd be even a bigger mess than being mind-controlled by a bunch of pre-pubescent war mongers!"

Of course Guy is once again victorious, and he’s about to slaughter a bunch of ageless children. Thankfully due to common decency (and the Comics Code), the Orange Army also has the ability to control Guy mentally. Now, with two mental armies fighting over his oh so human mind, Guy is at his wits’ end.  The opposing forces threaten to tear his brain apart until he decides to muster every last iota of will he has! Why he didn’t do this before is anyone’s guess, but the ploy works, and we get what may be the first instance of a Green Lantern using his ring to bolster defenses in an iconic way…

Galvanized by his new armored sheath, Guy pretty much instantly ends the war by saying “Don’t fight!” The collected Gheranians decide to stop their wars, and thanks the some creative ring-slinging, the kids are able to age again, so they can grow up to be adult warmongers so everything is wrapped up nicely. The even create a new world flag combining their dual colors of orange and blue, which goes to show you: kids are infinitely adaptable, but they have a lousy sense of design. With that, Guy flies back to Earth to charge his ring, and in this alternate version of events, he even gets his own unique Green Lantern Oath!

Even back then, Guy was all about "Might makes Right".

Now, the story wraps up nicely, you’d think everything is all happy sappy, and alternate reality Guy would have a long and storied career as Earth’s Green Lantern. You, my friend, would be wrong. You see, back in the Silver Age, when someone was shown to “replace” the main hero the powers that be felt they needed to re-iterate that the original is always the best, so as soon as Guy is done charging his ring, he find he has “Yellow Fever”, that is to say, the same disease that wiped out all the adults on Ghera! While this probably also means he doomed an entire planet of kids to die as soon as their voice cracks, the more immediate concern is that Guy himself is dying. He does the Abin Sur bit and wills his ring to find one suitable to carry on for him, and who else does the ring find but… Hal freaking Jordan.

"In blackest day or brightest night, watermelon, cantaloupe, yadda yadda, superstitious cowardly lot, with liberty and justice for all!"

With that, the Guardian’s “What If” machine shuts down, and “proving” that Hal was fated to be GL one way or another. Knowing how manipulative the Guardians are, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just manufactured the whole scenario to inflate Hal’s already massive ego. At any rate, Hal returns to Earth and just because he’s such a stand-up kind of guy, he decides to meet the real Guy Gardner to I dunno, rub his face in it?

"I can't tell him because that'd make me a halfway decent person!"

And sadly, Guy wasn’t done getting screwed over. Next week, I’ll tell you the story of how he almost gets to become GL again! Even when he did finally become a full-fledged Green Lantern, 18 years after his debut, he was saddled with some brain damage that made him an absolute jerk. After that, he started wielding a yellow ring (years before the Sinestro Corps), became a living alien weapon for a few years, got royally screwed over by the 90’s, and finally became a GL again with all of that baggage thankfully thrown away. These days, you can see him monthly in Green Lantern Corps, but who knows what his status will be after this supposed DC Reboot?

This story originally appeared in Green Lantern Vol 2. #59, March 1968. It hasn’t been reprinted to my knowledge, but is available digitally.