The '90s were a different time for DC. Nearly every major hero underwent drastic changes before the first half of the decade was finished. Batman was replaced after his back was broken by Bane. Wonder Woman had her title and role stripped and given to Artemis. Superman was dead, Aquaman lost his arm, and Green Lantern...went crazy and tried to reset the universe. Okay, one of these things might not be like the others.
In the end, the events that happened during "Emerald Twilight" would put Hal Jordan on the shelf for far longer than any of those other changes. In his place, we received a new Green Lantern for the era: Kyle Rayner. But how much do people really know about him? Hal Jordan has long since retaken his role as the primary Green Lantern, after all. So here's a rundown of facts only true fans could know about the Torchbearer.
10 HE GOT HIS RING IN AN ALLEY
It gets forgotten these days since we mostly focus on Hal Jordan, and especially since the character’s origins aren’t so iconic that we hearken back to them for a retelling over and over. However, Kyle Rayner got his ring from the Guardian Ganthet when he wandered out the back of a bar to get some air after doing far too much drinking.
Ganthet popped up, looked at him, decided “you’ll have to do” and handed him the ring before leaving him to figure it out on his own. It’s a far cry from nearly crashing in an experimental jet or a train, but everyone starts somewhere.
9 HIS RING ONLY WORKS FOR HIM
This is somewhat obvious. After all, Green Lantern rings in general only work for beings capable of overcoming great fear, and ones with incredible depths of willpower to draw on. That means most people attempting to put it on and gain access to the most powerful weapon in the universe are going to fail.
However, it actually runs much deeper than this. Kyle’s ring was designed by Ganthet so it literally only works for him and people in his bloodline, meaning other Green Lanterns are unable to use it as well. This kept pesky former GLs from attempting to take it and use it in his place.
8 HIS RING HAS NO YELLOW WEAKNESS
In the Silver Age, it felt like every superhero had a weakness. For Superman it was Kryptonite, Aquaman could not stay out of water for longer than a few hours, and Green Lantern was susceptible to the color yellow.
By the mid-’90s, everyone was beginning to realize being unable to defend against a color was a tad…odd. So with Kyle taking over this weakness was tossed out. It wouldn’t be until the Green Lantern: Rebirth era that this would carry over to other Lanterns, and the weakness was finally explained as a result of Parallax trapped inside of the Central Power Battery.
7 HE WAS A MEMBER OF THE TITANS
These days, Kyle’s mostly known for his time with the Green Lantern Corps. Others might even remember him as the Green Lantern representative for the Justice League before Hal Jordan came back to life. But before he was a member of either of those groups, Kyle was a member of the Titans.
No, he wasn’t a teen, but by that point, the “Teen” moniker had mostly vanished and the Titans were just made up of heroes who couldn’t be slotted elsewhere. Kyle’s Titans roster is full of characters readers never knew worked together: Donna Troy, Impulse, Roy Harper, and Damage. It was a brief trip in the minors before he got promoted to the big (Justice) league.
6 HIS RING WAS THE FIRST TO LAST OVER 24 HOURS
Before Kyle Rayner, Green Lantern rings had a major rule in place: They had to be recharged once every 24 hours. However, a new Lantern meant a new era. Ganthet reworked Kyle’s ring so that it would retain charge far beyond its 24-hour time limit, although a new limitation was added in its place.
Now, the ring would gradually lose energy based on what was expended by its user. No specifics were placed on what would expend the most energy, but this is what would eventually lead to all Lanterns getting the so-called “gas tank” models of the present.
5 HE WAS THE ORIGINAL ION
Today we refer to Ion as the guardian of the green energy of willpower, something that’s always existed since the very beginning of time. But originally, it was the name Kyle Rayner called himself when he was briefly a cosmically powered being. In the aftermath of his battle against Hal Jordan, Kyle had unknowingly absorbed much of the Central Power Battery energy within him.
This, combined with the energy released in later battles, turned him into a nigh-omnipotent being. Essentially Parallax minus the desire to erase and reset the timeline, Kyle briefly enjoyed having unlimited power before using it to restore the Central Power Battery and the Guardians to the universe.
4 HE WAS FORCED TO BE PARALLAX
After helping to restore the Corps to its proper standing in the galaxy as the premiere keepers of order, Kyle maintained a pretty high standing in the organization. So high in fact, that one of the first actions Sinestro took when he declared war on the Green Lanterns was to kidnap him.
They pulled the Ion force out of him and replaced it with the energies of Parallax, turning the Green Lanterns’ greatest source of hope into a powerful weapon against them. It would take all the other human Green Lanterns working together to finally free him of Parallax’s corrupting influence.
3 HE HAS HORRIBLE LUCK WITH WOMEN
Kyle has absolutely horrible luck with women. His first girlfriend wound up being gruesomely murdered by the psychotic villain Major Force. Since then, he’s mostly dated other women in the job (superheroes or Green Lanterns). Women have been known to cheat on him (ex-roommate Jade) or die in battle (former Titan and teammate Donna Troy).
More recently he was dating fellow GL Soranik Natu, but after she discovered that Kyle kept the identity of their villainous son from the future a secret, Soranik dumped him. Furthermore, she branded Rayner with the Sinestro Corps symbol and abandoned the Green Lanterns to work for her father Sinestro.
2 HE WAS A WHITE LANTERN
During the New 52 era, Kyle was the headliner of the book Green Lantern: New Guardians. During that time period, Kyle teamed up with members of other Lantern Corps to deal with threats around the universe. But eventually, a specific problem demanded the appearance of a new White Lantern, which led to Kyle learning to master the other six ring powers and combining them all to become the new White Lantern.
Kyle held that power for several years until DC’s Rebirth began, and an attempt to revive the Blue Lantern Corps caused his White Lantern ring to split off into seven separate rings once again.
1 HIS FATHER WAS IN THE CIA
Here is a simple fact to remember when it comes to superheroes; if their parents are missing, it’s safe to assume they were once secret agents. Kyle grew up in a single-parent home because his father was believed to have walked out on him and his mother when he was a baby.
Kyle never had much luck finding him, but once he gained the power of Ion he used it to track his father down, discovering he was a former CIA agent and sniper who did black ops work for the army. Actually named Gabriel Vasquez, he abandoned the family after his cover was blown and it was no longer safe to stay with the family.