THE Green Lantern and his fellow Corps members are some of the greatest champions of good in all of DC Comics lore, and their vaunted Power Rings are often considered the most powerful weapons in the universe.
But every weapon has a weakness, and there are more than a few vulnerabilities that supposedly prevent Green Lantern from being too overpowered – but not all these vulnerabilities resist your emerald will.
12
Original GL ring didn’t work against wood
When he first wielded the power of the Starheart and donned the mantle of Green Lantern, Golden Age icon Alan Scott’s ring had a specific vulnerability: it couldn’t affect wood. A somewhat quantitative weakness compared to today’s superheroic limitations, this still gave Green Lantern trouble against perennially present foes such as the ultimate undead, Solomon Grundy, a massive zombie infused with the wood of the swamp from which he was born. he came.
Ultimately, it was revealed that this limitation resulted from Scott’s subconscious belief that he could not affect the material, and Alan soon reaffirmed his status as one of DC’s strongest legends. But this information was only revealed after the original Emerald Guardian spent years with this self-imposed Achilles heel.
11
They can only build green buildings
It is well known that the Green Lantern ring can create virtually anything its user can imagine using the green energy of will. While this one-color setting isn’t exactly a life-threatening limitation – and could originally be bypassed by the ring of Abin Sur – makes stealth operations much more difficult for Green Lantern Corp, and naturally, Hal Jordan found a way around it.
With his new Lantern ring separate from Oa’s Central Battery, he was revealed in Green Lantern #3 by Jeremy Adams, Xermánico, and Romulo Fajardo Jr. that the titular Lantern’s ring can once again create constructs of all colors, adjusting the constructs to refract light differently.
10
Your buildings are weak to sonic attacks
A lesser-known but no less deadly weakness of a Green Lantern ring is its vulnerability to vibrational and sonic attacks. Sufficiently powerful sonic blasts are capable of destroying Green Lantern buildings – either by sheer force or by disorienting the Lantern himself – and as such puts Emerald guardians at a certain disadvantage against any sound-based opponent.
A staple member of the Green Lantern Rogues Gallery, the villain Sonar and all those who share his name have used their sonic technology to exploit this particular weakness as an ever-present thorn in the sides of Oa’s Earth-based champions. But the Green Lanterns always find a way to overcome.
9
Red Lantern Energy Dissolves Green Lantern Constructs
A fan-favorite Emotional Spectrum Corps, the Red Lanterns of Rage have a major advantage over their emerald adversaries, as their own crimson energy is capable of dissolving the energy constructs of the GL and any other rival Corps. Taking the form of an acidic and explosive plasma, the viscous vitriol of the Red Lanterns serves as the manifested rage of their holders and can burn virtually anything in its path, even in the cold vacuum of space.
A sufficiently strong-willed Green Lantern can create constructs sufficiently durable against a Red Lantern’s attack, but not indefinitely – making each Red Lantern a potentially fatal threat should they come into conflict.
8
The ring doesn’t work against yellow
By far the most famous weakness of the Green Lantern Ring is its vulnerability to the color yellow. Referred to as the Yellow Impurity, this Silver Age weakness was eventually retconned during Geoff Johns’ iconic run on Green Lantern series as a result of the fear entity called Parallax’s imprisonment within the Central Power Battery on Oa.
Representing all Fear throughout existence, the Yellow Impurity can be overcome as long as a Green Lantern can accept and overcome their own fear. Nowadays, is rarely a consideration for veteran Corps membersbut the holders of the yellow Rings of Terror still pose a unique danger to the Emerald Guardians of the DC Universe.
7
Green Lantern requires consistent charging
Incredibly powerful or not, Green Lantern’s Power Ring is still a piece of technology and as such needs to be charged every now and then. After the Corps’ initial debut, the Power Rings required a full charge every twenty-four hours using the Sacred Green Lantern Oath.
After the Corps’ fall and the debut of Kyle Rayner, this rule was changed with the last surviving Green Lantern now forced to attack his ring. only when the battery runs out, rather than every twenty-four hours. Since the Corps’ return after Green Lantern: Rebirth by Geoff Johns, Ethan Van Sciver, and others, this new charging protocol is the norm – making it more important than ever for a Green Lantern to watch how much power he’s using.
6
The ring can totally kill its user
A Green Lantern Ring’s main directive is to protect its wearer, but occasionally they can pose as great a threat to their holders as any outside opposition. During the prototype stages, the first batch of Green Lantern rings lacked many of the safeguards they now possess, with a user able to overload their Ring with willpower and destroy themselves in the process.
It was also shown in Batman #45 that a Lantern with enough willpower can use his Ring to take his own life when an alternate, Jokerized Hal Jordan so desires. Fortunately, tthis is rarely taken into consideration by most Lanternsbut it proves how dangerous these weapons really are.
5
A Green Lantern requires concentration and imagination
A routine facet of the Green Lantern Ring is the need for intense concentration and creativity to utilize it to its fullest. In that sense, the Ring is only as powerful as your Green Lantern, and if a Green Lantern becomes out of focus – or if your concentration is disturbed by your opponents – your buildings will not be strong enough to be maintained.
Imagination is as important as concentration, as each Lantern must vividly imagine everything they wish to create. The actual creativity of these constructs may vary from Lantern to Lantern, but it is not the form of the constructs that matters so much, but rather the user’s dedication to their viridian verisimilitude.
4
Green Lantern depends on the emotional spectrum
The true power source of a Green Lantern – and the entire Lantern Corps of the DC Universe – is the Emotional Spectrum. Composed of the emotions of all sentient beings across the cosmos, this Specter is incredibly powerful, but it is not infallible. And if the Specter is sufficiently disturbed, the abilities of all Lanterns will follow suit.
Any Green Lantern fully isolated from the Emotional Spectrum is essentially rendered powerlessbut that’s not necessarily the worst thing for the cosmos. After all, the glut of Lanterns in all colors has led to the depletion of the Spectrum reservoir and threatened to destroy the universe on more than one occasion, and it’s only a matter of time before it happens again.
3
Green Lantern rings must be worn
A major vulnerability for such a powerful weapon is the fact that a Green Lantern Ring must actually be worn to have any real use. A borderline sentient AI, the Ring is capable of acting on its own occasionally to seek out new users or return to its former master, but a Lantern cannot will it to create a construct without physically wielding the Ring itself.
If a Green Lantern’s finger is cut off, that Lantern will be essentially powerless until they are able to place the ring elsewhere on their physical form – otherwise a Green Lantern ring will remain little more than an emerald alien accessory.
2
A Lantern’s Will May Exceed the Ring’s Limitations
An overabundance of willpower is the necessary defining characteristic of a Green Lantern, but even a Green Lantern’s Power Ring has limits to how much he can process. As mentioned, in the early days of the Corps, the Rings did not have the necessary safeguards to properly process the will of their users, leading to the destruction of both the Ring and the user.
Since then, the safeguards in place have prevented the user’s will from destroying both parts, but with varying degrees of success. After all, fan favorite John Stewart demonstrated enough willpower to exceed the limitations of his Green Lantern Ring, causing the weapon to shut down, while the renegade Sinestro was said to have Green Lantern #5 by Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke, Mark Irwin and others for exceeding his Ring enough to destroy him – twice.
1
A Green Lantern requires immense willpower
Although an overabundance of willpower can destroy a Ring, lack of sufficient will renders the device useless. After all, superhuman willpower is the central requirement for joining the Green Lantern Corps, and considering how much will it takes to create even a single construct, it’s not hard to see why.
Green Lantern Rebirth #4 by Joh s, Van Sciver and more sees Hal Jordan’s fellow Hard-Travelin hero, Green Arrow, wield Jordan’s old ring to protect Kyle Rayner from Sinestro. With Ollie on the verge of collapse after creating a unique arrow construction, Kyle confirms that this is always how it feels to use a Power Ring. Being a member of the Corps is a singular honor that requires a singular will – and not everyone is capable of wielding the Green Lantern Lightt.