This is "You Act Like We Never Have Met," which is a feature about one-time cast members of popular comic book series that have fallen by the wayside in the years since. Some of these are characters who would appear in comics routinely read by hundreds of thousands of people but are now effectively mysteries.
Today, we look at Green Lantern's long-lost pal, Itty!
The original Green Lantern/Green Arrow team-up in the early 1970s proved to be a huge critical hit but wasn't as successful, sales-wise, so Green Lantern lost his own series in 1972. After a couple of months off, the Green Lantern/Green Arrow pairing continued as a back-up feature in the pages of the Flash, with Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams still on board. Once they wrapped that up, though, the two heroes split up and each got their own ongoing back-up feature (and Adams moved on). Green Lantern remained in Flash while Green Arrow moved over to Action Comics. This continued for a few years.
In Flash #238 (by Denny O'Neil, Mike Grell and Tex Blaisdell), Green Lantern is in the Vivarium trying to rescue a raise of tiny aliens known as the Ayrie.
He eventually succeeds in rescuing the tiny aliens...
Green Lantern took the next issue off, but when he returned in Flash #240, he now had a new pal! One of the Ayrie decided to hitch a ride. Hal welcomed the traveling companion, noting that it gets pretty lonely out in outer space by yourself (O'Neil likely also believed that it would be a good idea to give Hal someone to talk to for exposition purposes)...
Later in the story, the alien actually warns Hal from a dangerous trap...
Now that the alien has saved his life, Hal decides that he should give his new friend a name, so he dubs him Itty!
In Flash #246 (with Terry Austin now inking Grell), Itty continues to help his new pal out with warnings...
At the end of the issue, Itty even recites the Green Lantern Corps oath with Hal!
DC decided to give Green Lantern and Green Arrow a second chance at this point. So, in 1976, O'Neil and Grell returned the Hard Travelin' Heroes to their own series in Green Lantern #90.
In Green Lantern #93 (by O'Neil, Grell and Austin), we see that everyone is so used to Itty that he even stays on Hal's shoulder during dinner parties (this is getting kind of weird, Hal)...
In Green Lantern #99 (by O'Neil, Grell and Vince Colletta), Green Arrow is a total jerk to Itty...
There is no twist there. That was just Ollie being a jerk. Weird.
Anyhow, at the end of the issue, we see that Itty was actually being possessed during the issue! That's not why Ollie hit him, though. Ollie is just a jerk...
In Green Lantern #100 (with Alex Saviuk now penciling the book), Hal is now a trucker and Itty is his traveling companion on his trucking journeys...
That issue introduced Hal Jordan to his namesake, Hal Jordan, who wanted to become a superhero in honor of his father, Larry Jordan, the original Air Wave. So Air Wave II begins to hang out with Hal while getting trained as a superhero. In Green Lantern #103, we see that Air Wave now gets Itty while Hal is off doing stuff...
Clearly, with the book now starring Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Black Canary plus Air Wave and Carol Ferris, to boot, there were too many characters and so Itty was a bit useless, so how did O'Neil get rid of the tiny alien?
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In Green Lantern #104 (by O'Neil, Saviuk and Colletta), Itty just dies...
Later, though, something is happening back at Itty's grave...
It continues at the end of the issue...
In the following issue, the creature attacks Carol but Hal saves her...
Hal takes some samples to get tested by his pal, the Atom. Hal notices that Itty's grave is now empty!
At the end of the issue, the creature attacks Green Arrow and Black Canary...
In the next issue (art by Grell and Bruce Patterson), Hal finally realizes that the creature IS Itty (a bit slow on the uptake there, Hal)...
Hal saves Arrow and Canary from "Itty," just in time for the creature to continue its evolution...
And that was it for Itty as a regular cast member of Green Lantern's series.
That's not it for Itty, though, in case anyone's interested in his later fate, I might write about it in the future!
Okay, that's it for this installment of You Act Like We Never Have Met! Feel free to write in to brianc@cbr.com if you have suggestions for future installments!