Saturday Morning Cartoons: Green Lantern – The Animated Series

As a companion piece to my post last week about Young Justice, I wanted to talk about the Green Lantern Animated Series. Around the time the movie launched, it was announced there would be a new animated series starting in the spring, with a premier episode in the fall like Young Justice. Much like Ninja Turtles, once I saw the animation style, I was instantly turned off. Too me it lacks details, and looks lazy. Considering it was new superhero property, and had Bruce Timm’s name on it, I decided to give it a go.

The first, and only season, was 26 episodes, broken up into two arcs. The primary villains of the first arc were the red lanterns, characters similar to the green lanterns but instead powered by rage, along with their leader, Atrocitus. Admittedly, I didn’t like this idea either. Hal Jordan’s (Earth’s green lantern) first major antagonist was Sinestro, a fallen green lantern who created the Sinestro Corps., using yellow rings powered by fear. Since they were trying to align the property with the movie, Sinestro was off limits.

Along with this slight change, two new characters were added to the main cast. Razor, a red lantern seeking redemption, and Aya, their ships onboard A.I. (who eventually gets her own body). These two along with green lantern Kilowog, join Hal to round out the main cast. Other well known characters are seen; Carol Ferris, Guy Gardener, Ch’p, Saleek, Mogo, and even Larfleeze. With Larfleeze we also see his orange lanterns, the greed corps. Carol Ferris is pulled into her roll as a star sapphire once or twice (powered by love) during the show. Even the blue lanterns of hope make an appearance. The only ones left out other than the Sinestro Corps. (which I imagine would have appeared eventually), were the indigo lanterns of compassion.

I recently read an article as to why the show was cancelled; merchandising. The movie tank pretty bad, but much like any comic property, there were a lot of toys. These toys didn’t sell. So when new toys were created for the animated series, the stores wouldn’t carry them. Green Lantern is Green Lantern, no differentiation between the movie and series. Even though the series was critically acclaimed, fan loved, and garnered high ratings (despite Cartoon Network’s efforts to thwart them), the show didn’t have the revenue stream from merchandising.

While Young Justice had a little more of an open ending, Green Lantern ended on a hopeful (no pun intended) closing note. While neither planned for these episodes to double as a series finale, Green Lantern truly succeeded as one.

Like any good superhero animated show, I can’t wait to own this one on DVD to re-watch, if they ever decide to release it. I’m still waiting for season 2 of Spectacular Spider-man. Apparently shows are only released in DVD volumes with a handful of episodes on each disk. Give me my collection dammit!

As I discussed last week, the new crop of shows Beware the Batman and Teen Titans Go! taking their place do not look the least bit enticing. I understand the kids needing to get their shows too, but for the first time since 1992 there isn’t a show airing or in the pipeline from Marvel or DC aimed at someone above 10. Sad 😦

Did you enjoy the series? Scared for the future of animated shows? Comment or tweet!

Beware my power…