Real
Name: Kyle
Rayner
Voiced by Michael P. Greco
Sent to find a successor by the dying Green Lantern Abin Sur, his power ring chose graphic artist Kyle Rayner, whose first act was to take down the menace of Sinestro. Recommended to veteran trainer Katma Tui by John Stewart, the novice Green Lantern is currently off-world learning the intricacies of the Green Lantern Corps.
Bruce
Timm on Kyle Rayner #1: “We’re not totally beholden to our own continuity.
If it works within the continuity of the stuff that we’ve established,
fine, and if it doesn’t, we don’t want to stifle our creativity by being
stuck by, ‘Oh, we can’t do that because in episode so-and-so of Superman
or whatever, that violates continuity.’ For
instance, we have a new Green Lantern, so we’re just kind of pretending that
the Kyle Rayner / Green Lantern episode of Superman never happened.
That kind of messes up what we’re doing now with the John Stewart Green
Lantern (courtesy of
[website
name removed]).”
Bruce
Timm on Kyle Rayner #2: “…We’re not specifically saying the Kyle Rayner episode
of Superman never happened—we just haven’t figured out yet how it could have. See,
Kyle’s not the problem...Abin Sur’s
the problem! Consider:
if Abin was Green Lantern of our sector during In Brightest Day,
how could John Stewart have been our Green Lantern for the past 10-15 years?
Maybe the Kyle episode happens after
John becomes Parallax and murders half the galaxy…oh wait, I’m getting my
continuities screwed up…where’s my Tylenol (courtesy of Toon
Zone)?”
Rich
Fogel on Kyle Rayner: “Don’t
hold your breath waiting for Kyle Rayner to show up (courtesy of Toon
Zone)!”
Bruce
Timm on Kyle Rayner #3: “Look: I’m a
hardcore comics geek, which means I love continuity too. I know this sounds completely contradictory to my previous
statements on the matter, but it’s true.
For instance, I got totally bent out of shape when Frank Miller put
hippies in Matt Murdock’s college during his ‘Matt meets Elektra’
flashback in Daredevil; it completely contradicted my own idea of
Matt’s timeline, as well as previous ‘Young Mr. Murdock’ stories—I
couldn’t wrap my head around it! So
I sympathize, really. Most of my
cohorts at [Warner Bros. Animation] dig continuity as well (whether they like to
admit it or not!). We love to throw
in ‘continuity-connectors,’ but only when it’s appropriate and doesn’t
get in the way of the story we’re trying to tell.
For instance, several supporting characters from our previous series will
be making appearances in [Justice League].
Don’t ask which ones, I’m not tellin’!
And I couldn't resist throwing in an oblique reference to [Batman
Beyond’s] The Call in the new Darkseid story.
As I’ve said elsewhere, we just try not to allow continuity to
completely hand-cuff creativity. C’mon,
we need to have a little ‘wiggle-room!’
“The ‘Kyle Question’ is a trickier thing: from what I gather from reading the various message boards there are just as many Kyle-bashers as there are Kyle-supporters, so a ‘fan consensus’ on the matter doesn’t even seem possible…so we’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t. Again, as I’ve said before, if we can address the issue without getting bogged down in minutiae, we will. Frankly, I’d rather concentrate on making [Justice League] a great show with exciting, fresh stories, deeper characterization, etc.; than worrying overmuch about continuity glitches. We do plan to utilize the [Green Lantern Corps] for a story springboard this year, so we’ll see (courtesy of Toon Zone)!”
Images
Green Lantern Model Design Sheet #1 | Green Lantern Model Design Sheet #2
Green Lantern Image | Kyle Rayner Image
NOTE: In the time between this page's completion and today, the creative team has slipped two Kyle Rayner references into Justice League; the first being in Hearts and Minds, where it was revealed that Katma Tui was training the novice Green Lantern; the second being in Hereafter, where Rayner made a cameo during Superman's funeral. However, this commentary will remain as a historical record for the time being.
It’s
times like this that I sympathize with Bruce Timm and rest of Justice
League’s creative team. On
one hand you have the “Pro-Kyle” camp—people who like Kyle Rayner, people
who hate John Stewart, and / or people who want there to be a connection between Justice
League and the Superman episode In Brightest Day.
On the other hand, however, you have the “Anti-Kyle” camp—people
who hate Kyle Rayner, people who prefer John Stewart, and / or people who hate
both of them and still think that Hal Jordan got the shaft.
These
issues aside, however, the “Kyle Question” will have to be addressed at some
point for one simple reason: Sinestro. As it
currently stands, the villainous ex-Green Lantern is being considered for Season
Two (in the Secret Society), so the events of In Brightest Day are bound
to come up…especially if Superman wants a rematch.
As
for the question of Abin Sur’s / John Stewart’s sovereignty over Sector 2814,
it can be solved with a little thought. Now,
if the Green Lantern Corps are an intergalactic police force made up of alien
beings from various points of the universe, it’s conceivable that there’s
some sort of training period where a new Green Lantern adjusts mentally to
dealing with various kinds of alien life (their appearances, customs, beliefs,
etc.). For the sake of this
discussion, let’s think of this as “immersion training.”
In
addition, it’s very likely that, when confronted with so many alien concepts
and information, there may be some tendency to flee back to the familiar.
Now, to combat this, a new Green Lantern may be given a sector of space
to patrol that is not their own so that their home world doesn’t serve as a
“distraction” from the learning process (they may even be rotated to
different sectors several times during their career).
Following the completion of their immersion training, however, a Green
Lantern can opt to transfer to the sector of space that contains his, her, or its
home world.
Flash back to 10-15 years ago: John Stewart is chosen by the Guardians to be a Green Lantern, but he’s given a different sector of space to patrol that does not include Earth within its borders for the duration of his immersion training (remember: the Cartoon Network’s press materials stated that he’s been a Green Lantern for 10-15 years, but it’s not specific about where he served). Meanwhile, Abin Sur serves as the Green Lantern of Sector 2814 (the sector that contains Earth).
Fast forward to the events of In Brightest Day: Abin Sur dies, but not before choosing Kyle Rayner as his successor. Meanwhile, John Stewart has protected his sector (or sectors) of space for 10-15 years—remember his quote from Secret Origins (“I’ve seen stranger”) and the scene from In Blackest Night where his old teacher reminds him that he still has friends in his old hometown. Following Sur’s death, Stewart is assigned to Sector 2814 (having more than adequately completing his immersion training), while Kyle Rayner is assigned to a different sector of space in order to begin his own.
I hope that Kyle Rayner isn’t written out of Justice League. Judging from the number of Stewart-bashers who dislike his “conservative” use of the ring, it would be funny to see an episode where Stewart (a military strategist) and Rayner (a graphic artist) have a dispute over the “proper” use of the Green Lantern power ring.
Images courtesy of the New Batman/Superman Adventures Homepage, [website name removed], Nickel Animation Art eBay Store, and The World's Finest.
