Kyle Rayner

Ron Mraz was challenged to create a new character for the ongoing series Green Lantern in 1994, he was supposed to be a third generation hero, one for the new generation of comic readers. He was told to make the character from scratch, not to use one that had previously appeared in the DCU.

The character was scheduled to take over from Hal Jordan, not an easy thing to accomplish when Hal had so many fans.

In 1994, Marston wrote:
"We knew we’d have our readers, Hal was one of DC’s second-tier icons, and pulling the big switch with him was going to bring in everyone from the curious to the plain ol’ pissed off. So we’d have our readers; the trick would be holding on to them."

Kyle's first appearance was in Green Lantern #48 in a storyline called ‘Emerald Twilight.’ This storyline was one of the big ones for DC; ever since the Death of Superman, the DCU had been feeling the shockwaves, and Hal was arguably one of the biggest. Since the destruction of Coast City in The Death of Superman, Hal found himself homeless, his home destroyed and everyone he knew and cared about gone.

Emerald Twilight

Kyle’s first words in Green Lantern comics.
"I wish we could somehow get away from out troubles. Get out of this place... leave... escape."

Kyle, to be frank, was a nobody. A struggling graphic designer who was out at a bar trying to relax when destiny chose him, destiny by the name of Ganthet. Arriving outside the bar he handed the last Power Ring to Kyle before disappearing in a green burst of light. Kyle was understandably confused at the sight of a blue midget appearing and disappearing but decided to try on the ring anyway, and from there his life changed, and not always for the better.

Kyle’s first fight was with a villain calling himself Ohm where he found himself doing better than he thought he would.

"Lack of confidence never really was one of my short comings, can’t recall ever being at a loss for words too often either. Maybe this is the right line of work for me."

Defeating Ohm, Kyle and his girlfriend Alex were on a beach, with Kyle testing out the ring and Alex taking photos for her magazine when his next big challenge came, this time by the name of Mongul. The fight wasn’t going well; to be honest Kyle was losing quite badly when he found some backup by the name of Superman. Fighting Mongul together, Superman spoke to Kyle of the Guardians, the Corps and the previous Green Lantern, none of which Kyle had heard of before, even so Kyle seemed to impress Superman with his abilities with the ring, even more puzzling was the fact that Kyle’s ring wasn’t vulnerable to yellow, something that all Green Lantern Ring’s in the past had been vulnerable to.

Next came the darkest time in Kyle’s life, the death of his girlfriend at the hands of Major Force.

Major Force had been hired by a rogue government agency to retrieve the ring from Kyle using any means necessary to get it. During the fight Kyle was to learn something else about the ring, that it required periodic charging or would go dead, leaving him extremely vulnerable in a fight.

Unbeknownst to Kyle, Major Force had brought the Power Battery with him to the fight, when he got it out to ask Kyle about it, the battery reformed in front of them, automatically charging the ring for Kyle. Being back up to full power, Kyle brought the fight back to Major Force, letting all his anger and rage out. He was about ready to kill Major Force with an Electric Chair construct when the LASCU (Los Angeles Special Crimes Unit) intervened.

Leaving them to deal with Major Force, Kyle left the scene, going back to his apartment where he found another unexpected guest, Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, now going by the name of Sentinel.

Alan explained the events leading up to the decimation of the Green Lantern Corps to Kyle, how Hal had gone mad with grief and had destroyed everything he once stood for.

"Hal’s become something other... with almost limitless power at his command. I was part of a team of heroes who confronted him, he defeated us utterly. Understand, Hal’s not evil. That’s just not the Hal Jordan I’ve always known. He believes he’s acting for the right reasons... to bring back the seven million people of coast city. But he’s no less dangerous because of it."

Leaving Kyle to think about what he had just learned, Alan left the scene with the parting words “Time is growing Short”, those words would be truer than they would ever know in the coming months.

Zero Hour; Crisis in Time

Crisis in Time

Zero Hour was a big thing for the DC universe, it was basically used as a restructuring event for the history of the DC universe, tying up loose ends and changing the past to fit in with the new storylines that had come about.

Parallax, and to a lesser extent Extant, were to be the main tools of this change. Hal was going to restart time, to change all the things that should never have happened in the original time line, to make the universe a better place, with him as God of it all.

For the first few issues we were led to believe that it was Extant who was behind it all, and only saw brief glimpses of Hal in shadows, manipulating events. Hal finally made his presence known in issue 34 of Zero Hour. Knocking out Superman with a single punch Hal made his grand entrance, to the disbelief of all who knew him. Among the people to see this entrance were Guy Gardner, Aquaman, Green Arrow, Batgirl, Kyle Rayner and Waverider. Defeating the group easily and sending Kyle on an uncontrolled trip through time with just a click of his fingers, Hal defeated the group easily before destroying time as everyone knew it.

This was just the start of what he had planned. Kyle finally made in back in time for the end gambit, where Batgirl sacrificed her life to that Green Arrow could get one shot off, distracting Hal long enough so that Damage, powered up by Waverider, Darkstar and The Spectre could let loose a massive explosion, basically causing the big bang himself.

Restarting the DCU finally cleared up a lot of the mess that Crisis on Infinite Earths had left behind, but left its own mess as well. There were now subtle changes in the timeline, Guy Gardner’s powers had been changed as well as quite a few other changes that would become more apparent as time moved on. This was a new era for DC comics; they now had new heroes and villains in the universe along with the realization that Kyle really was the last Green Lantern.

Final Night

The Final Night

Final Night was a big storyline for the DCU, not in the fact that it did something major to the timeline or made drastic changes to the DCU, but in the fact that it played out in every issue that DC comics published for that time.

The main story was that a Sun Eater was on its way to earth to devour the Sun, forming a team of heroes to combat the threat, Superman and Batman did their best to restore order on earth, even though with the sun gone Superman’s powers were fading fast.

At the end of the storyline, Kyle had left earth to seek assistance from someone he knew could help, Hal Jordan. Bringing Hal back to earth for a final push at the Sun Eater was earths only chance for survival.

Pausing time so he could do what must be done, Hal stepped into the Sun and began his final steps as a characters in the DCU. Reciting the Green Lantern Oath he began to fight the Sun Eater on two fronts, shining a light to push the ‘Darkness’ away in one hand, and drawing the ‘Darkness’ into himself on the other. It was a dangerous play, but one that eventually succeeded.

At the cost of his own life, Hal had saved Earth. Hal’s funeral was attended by most of the characters in the DCU, the entire Justice League made appearances with speeches by Kyle, Superman, Wonder Woman and more. Other faces in the crowd were Green Arrow, John Constantine, Zatanna, Swamp Thing and Donna Troy.

JLA

Kyle was unofficially inducted into the Justice League Of America when he unwittingly joined a version of the classic team in the Justice League: Midsummer's Nightmare mini-series. Kyle was relatively inexperienced even compared to the team's other younger member, Wally West, though the two were developing a love/hate friendship.

Kyle was to remain with the team when Grant Morrison began a new Justice League series, JLA, throughout which his creativity, power, and courage were frequently demonstrated. One story featuring the Vertigo character Dream features a scene where that character tells Kyle that he will surpass his predecessor Hal Jordan because he knows fear.

Emerald Knights

Emerald Knights

Emerald Knights was a storyline that ran from issues 100 to 106 of Green Lantern, and promised the team up you never thought you’d see, Kyle Rayner and Hal Jordan.

To be honest, when I first started reading this I thought it was going to be a poor storyline, bringing the old and the new together to boost sales for the comic, how wrong I was. This series finally put to rest the idea that Kyle was just ‘babysitting’ the ring until Hal came back, Kyle was now a Green Lantern in his own right.

The storyline started in the far future, when Kyle was sent into the 30th century by Grayven, son of Darkseid. He was finally sent back with the aid of Braniac and the Legion of Superheroes to “when there were supposed to be Green Lanterns’, though he overshot a bit and ended up 10 years before his time and found himself fighting Sinestro with the help of Hal Jordan and the rest of the Green Lantern Corps.

Kyle’s ring however turned out to be a major asset against Sinestro, without the Yellow weakness that the rest of the Corps had, he found himself easily beating Sinestro in a fight, and was finally sent back to his own time by The Guardians, but when he found himself back in his own time, he wasn’t alone. At the last second, Sinestro had used his yellow ring to push Hal into Kyle, sending him to the future with him.

Finding himself in the future, Kyle had no choice but to explain to Hal what had happened to him. His explained how Hal had lost his mind after Coast City was destroyed, how he had fought, and killed the entire Green Lantern Corps. He explained Hal’s atrocities during Zero Hour and finally explained how he had come back in a blaze of honour during earths Final Night and sacrificed his life for earth.

The storyline got more confusing however when Hal showed signs of going back to his ways as Parallax, in fact Hal, or one of the Hal’s, was found out to be Parallax from Zero Hour who had spotted Hal from the past in the wrong time and had come to fix the mistake.In a frantic battle between Hal as Green Lantern and Hal as Parallax they fought to a standstill, only finally separated by Kyle. Sending Hal and Parallax back to their own timelines Kyle was left with more questions about his own future than he had before, because now he was left with a spare ring from Hal, one that could replicate itself, something Kyle’s ring could never do.

Could he now rebuild the Green Lantern Corps?

Circle of Fire

Circle of Fire

Kyle had finally come to peace with himself and being a Green Lantern, he was finally making a name for himself and not living under Hal’s shadow anymore and had a good relationship with Jade when Oblivion came.

This was no normal adversary for the Justice league, when the Justice League Of America first battle Oblivion they were defeated utterly. Hearing about the Justice Leagues defeat, Kyle subconsciously sent out a distress call to any other Green Lanterns in the area, when the ring found no other Green Lanterns in the current time period it started looking elsewhere for them.

Arriving from Pocket Dimensions and other Time frames came six Green Lanterns.

Coming from the year 1256 was Pel Tavin, a Green Lantern Daxamite who protected earth and sector 2814. This Green Lantern wore the clothes of a knight from medieval times and fought with the same approach to life.

Coming from an unknown point in the future was Ali Rayner-West, a descendant of Kyle’s had married one of the “West Clan”, so Ali not only had the powers of a Green Lantern, but those of a speedster as well.

From another unknown point in the future came Hunter and Forest, members of the ‘Teen Lantern Corps’. In a future where the grownups had disappeared, the remaining children of Kyle’s descendants decided to share the ring and the responsibilities that go with it.

From several eons in the past came G.L.7177.B. A manhunter android from when the Green Lantern Corps was just being founded by the Guardians. Reprogrammed by The Guardians, 7177.B was programmed to “Assist the innocent and eradicate all evil.”

Coming from a pocket universe was Alexandra DeWitt, Kyle’s old girlfriend. In her reality Kyle had been murdered by Major Force when Alex had been given the ring, all events that had happened to Kyle had happened to Alex in her universe.

Finally fighting Oblivion, Kyle found out the horrible truth. He was responsible for Oblivion. Oblivion was created by Kyle after the death of Alex, unable to deal with the emotions of his girlfriend’s murder, Kyle subconsciously sent all the negative emotions he had into the ring and them forced them out of his body and into space. Originally just energy, it eventually gained consciousness and then control over the energy.

Fighting Oblivion on a purely metaphysical plane of existence was the hardest thing Kyle ever had to do, Oblivion first took the form of Kyle’s father then Kyle himself, it wasn’t until later that Kyle found out the second secret... Alex, Ali, Pel and the other Green Lanterns who had come to assist him weren’t Green Lantern’s at all, but constructs he had made himself that represented his hopes, dreams and his best emotions to fight Oblivion.

This was a major step for Kyle, this showed not only that he was gaining power and control over the ring, but he could not, if only subconsciously for the moment, create constructs that were as lifeli