DC Comics Announces Green Lantern: Doomed Cosmos Elseworlds Series

HBO’s Lanterns has just wrapped up, and no second season is in sight yet. Green Lantern fans still have another new take on the DC hero to look forward to. On Tuesday, DC Comics announced Green Lantern: Doomed Cosmos, a miniseries with an unusual vision of the Green Lantern Corps.

Writer Dan Watters and artist Kyle Hotz are behind the book, an Elseworlds story in which the Green Lanterns look a lot like Space Marines from Warhammer 40,000. They are big, heavily armed soldiers fighting a huge cosmic war.

Green Lantern Doomed Cosmos announced

In Doomed Cosmos, the Empire of Humanity is conquering the stars, and only the beefed-up Green Lanterns stand in its way. Hal Jordan is the only human fighting against the Empire, after Oliver Queen betrayed him. In mainstream DC continuity, Queen is Green Arrow. In this universe, it seems Jordan and Queen never bonded on a road trip across America in the 1970s.

Hotz described his approach in a news release: “Visually, I am trying to walk the line between over-the-top space opera and the emotional beats of the story.” He added that he wants the Lanterns to feel beat up, tired and certainly like underdogs. Their armor is cracked and broken, and their weapons are held together with tape and wire. In his words, these are soldiers nearing the end of their fight.

DC Comics provided this official description:

For centuries, the Empire of Humanity has swept across the universe, laying siege to the cosmos planet by planet until all kneel before the might of the human race. Only the heavily militarized Green Lantern Corps dares oppose the human crusade.

And no human has ever fought for the Corps against the Empire. Until Hal Jordan.

Once a soldier fighting on behalf of humanity, Hal was betrayed by his battle-brother Oliver Queen and left for dead on an alien world. Rescued and deprogrammed by the Green Lantern Corps, Hal is now the Corps’ only human warrior and a powerful strategic weapon in its war against humankind. Hal’s blood-soaked odyssey will carry him through the burning ruins of a DC Universe unlike any readers have seen before, as Hal fights for peace by taking the battle to the shores of Hell itself.

Green Lanterns make for great Elseworlds stories

Green Lantern: Doomed Cosmos is an Elseworlds story, so it takes place in its own continuity, much like DC’s Black Label books. Creators can upend the status quo however they like. Past examples include turning Green Lanterns into Space Marines, giving Green Lantern a high fantasy twist, or making Superman’s daddy the hero.

The six-issue miniseries begins on Jan. 20, 2027. Colorist Dan Brown (not that Dan Brown) and letterer Steve Wands join Watters and Hotz. The first issue runs 32 pages and retails for $4.99. It will have variant covers from Björn Barends, Steve Beach and Ashley Wood. A foil variant by Barends will cost $7.99.

Related reading: In the wake of HBO’s Lanterns, let’s celebrate Hal Jordan’s real talent: getting bopped on the head.

Source: Polygon