(This might be technically a GQ, but it seems like this sort of comic book question very often ends up turning into a whole big geek discussion, so I figured Cafe Society was a better choice. Apologies if I picked wrong.)
Okay, so the original Green Lantern’s powers were magic-based, right? He wasn’t a part of the GL Corps, or anything, he just had this magic ring. Then with the next GL incarnation - which I think was Hal Jordan - the writers decided to handle things as SF rather than fantasy and invented the Corps.
Assuming I’ve got that correct, here’s my question: is there any sort of connection between Hal and/or the Corps and the original GL? (One possibility just occurred to me: maybe the original GL was deleted, or otherwise retconned, in the Crisis?) Or is it just a total coincidence that this guy went by the same superhero name and had basically the same powers as the Green Lantern Corps?
There’s a roundabout connection. Instead of magic, Alan Scott’s ring (now his body) is powered by an alien artifact called the Starheart, a modified GL Lantern.
Why was it modified? Thousands of years ago, an alien GL, based in China and with a costume similar to Alan Scott’s, caused the Guardians great pride and they removed the weakness against yellow. Later, he caused them great concern and they imposed a new weakness on his powers, against wood. This guy’s ring is the one Alan Scott found circa 1941.
At least one other rogue GL from antiquity, Malvolio, also wore a costume like Alan Scott’s. It’s unknown whether he had the smae ring, but after many centuries, he developed the ability to midify the rings’ abilities without Guardian participation. He altered Hal Jordan’s ring shortly before Jordan went insane, and the two events may have been linked.
Alan Scott always used his ring differently than Hal Jordan. Without training on Oa, he mostly used the ring to shoot energy rays and augment his own physical abilities (He didn’t create physifcal objects with the ring until after he met Hal and learned he could to more with it than he’d been doing). Alan even traveled to Oa with Hal and met the Guardians once.
He’s not a member of the corps, but his ring (actually, his lantern) originally belonged to someone who was. It’s basically he same thing.
Well, thanks to multiple reboots of the DC Universe, this is a difficult question to answer. At one point the Powers That Be declared that the meteor that eventually became the Golden Age Green Lantern’s (hereinafter called GAGL) was a part of the Green Life Force harnessed by the Guardians to form their giant Power Battery. So, while the GAGL was never officially part of the Corps, in some way his power had the same, quasi-mystical source.
The original GAGL still exists in the DC universe; he is now known as Sentinel and, due to having absorbed power from years of use, no longer needs his ring to focus his power.
Incidentally, in John Byrne’s “Generations 2” mini-series, he speculates that the Lantern’s weakness was psychosomatic, and not an inherint flaw in the ring. This is, of course, non-canon.