Guy Gardner (character)

• 1. Introduction

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  In 2025, Nathan Fillion played Guy Gardner in the film Superman, giving a famously abrasive Green Lantern a place on the biggest screen yet. That same year, DC Comics gave two comic book creators full credit and royalties for reinventing Guy in the 1980s. The credit followed writer Steve Englehart telling DC he intended to talk to the press about his past treatment. Guy Gardner is a superhero published by DC Comics, usually in connection with the Green Lantern Corps. He has also belonged to several versions of the Justice League. What made him worth reinventing? Why did the reward arrive so late? And how does a hero who keeps losing his powers manage to keep coming back?

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• 2. Reinventing Guy

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  Guy Gardner first appeared in Green Lantern, volume 2, issue 59, dated March 1968. John Broome and Gil Kane created him. Kane based the original design on the actor Martin Milner. The name, allegedly, came from a frequent letter writer named Guy H. Lillian III and from Gardner Fox, a co-creator of the Justice League.

  When Steve Englehart started writing the book, John Stewart was its title character. Englehart wondered what stopped several Green Lanterns from being active at the same time. His answer was to bring back Hal Jordan and to revamp Guy, whom he thought was "a completely useless character".

  The new Guy was a jingoistic parody of an ultra-macho "red-blooded American male". Artist Joe Staton modeled the look on Major Ronald Merrick, a character in the television series The Jewel in the Crown. Staton saw in Merrick an entitlement and a resentment that matched Guy. This version remains the character's archetype today. When Guy grew popular, Englehart regretted not inventing a brand new character, because the creative team received no royalties.

  Staton also designed the blue costume that debuted in the first issue of Guy's first ongoing series, cover dated October 1992. Beau Smith wrote most of that run. He worried that leaving Guy as an angry jerk would make him stagnant and one-note. Under Smith, in a series retitled Guy Gardner: Warrior with issue 17, Guy slowly became more vulnerable and more heroic.

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• 3. Baltimore Roots

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  Roland and Peggy Gardner raised Guy in Baltimore, and Roland was an abusive alcoholic. Some of Guy's injuries were visible, while others were psychological and cut deep. Guy worked hard in school to win his father's approval. Roland still favored Guy's older brother, Mace.

  Guy found comfort in General Glory comic books. He even copied his bowl haircut from Ernie, the sidekick of General Glory. As a teenager he became a juvenile delinquent. Mace, by then a police officer, steered him onto a better path.

  Guy went to the University of Michigan, supporting himself and earning bachelor's degrees in education and psychology. He played football there until a career-ending injury ended his athletic hopes and left a lasting emotional mark. After college he became a social welfare caseworker who worked on rehabilitating prison inmates. He quit because he feared the job fed his aggressive tendencies. Teaching children with disabilities proved a better fit.

  The New 52 relaunch rewrote all of this. Guy became a former police officer from a Baltimore police family, with a father named Ebenezer and an older brother named Gerard. DC Rebirth later undid that change and restored the abusive father. Roland returned under his original name, and Guy's present-day fight with the Sinestro Corps member Arkillo helped confirm it.

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• 4. Second Choice

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  Abin Sur, a Green Lantern from the planet Ungara, crash-landed on Earth in Space Sector 2814, mortally wounded. As he died, his power ring went looking for a successor and found two candidates, Guy Gardner and Hal Jordan. Jordan was closer to the crash site, so the ring chose him. Guy became a backup, there in case anything happened to Jordan.

  Jordan later learned about his backup and arranged a meeting. The two became friends. Guy first knew nothing of Jordan's secret identity but eventually helped him on adventures. After training under Kilowog, he was partnered with Jordan.

  During an earthquake, a bus hit Guy while he tried to save one of his students. While he recovered, the Guardians recruited John Stewart as Jordan's new backup. Worse followed. Jordan's power battery exploded and trapped Guy in the Phantom Zone, and Jordan and Guy's girlfriend Kari Limbo both believed him dead.

  The two grew close and reached a marriage proposal. Guy interrupted the wedding by contacting Limbo telepathically. The ordeal left him with brain damage and in a coma for several years. When he recovered, his personality had changed, and he was arrogant and unstable.

  After Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Guardians and the Zamarons left the universe. Guy was placed in the care of Appa Ali Apsa on the planet Maltus, and Jordan later bargained for his release.

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• 5. League Years

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  Guy became a founding member of Justice League International after the original League disbanded in the 1986-87 storyline "Legends". He resented Batman's leadership and challenged him to a fist fight. Guy took off his ring first. Batman put him down with one punch, and the other members left him lying on the floor.

  When Guy woke, he banged his head on a console and knocked himself out again. This time he came to as a kind, gentle, boyishly innocent man and a perfect gentleman toward the women on the team. Another knock to the head later undid the change.

  His time on the team was a run of personality shifts and endless arguments. It included a fight with Lobo and the sucker-punching of Blue Beetle during a boxing match. He finally quit after feeling "belittled" by Superman.

  Guy was also involved with his teammate Ice. He even learned some basic Norwegian for her, yet he was often callous and slow to admit his feelings. The relationship ended when the Overmaster killed her.

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• 6. The Warrior Years

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  When Hal Jordan returned to Earth to reclaim his title as Green Lantern of Sector 2814, Guy challenged him to a fight in which the loser would quit the Corps. Guy lost and gave up his ring. After failed run-ins with Goldface and Black Hand as a vigilante without powers, he set out to regain his power. Tricking Lobo into helping, he invaded Qward looking for Sinestro's yellow power ring. The Qwardians said it never came back, so he traveled to Oa and found it on Sinestro's hand in the Crypt of the Green Lantern Corps.

  That yellow ring needs no battery. It recharges by absorbing residual energy from Green Lantern rings. Guy learned this by accident when Kilowog scanned it.

  Guy later helped the Justice League fight the monster Doomsday, a battle in which Superman was killed. During the "Reign of the Supermen" storyline, he endorsed the Last Son of Krypton Superman, who was really the Eradicator. He also cleared his name of a murder committed by his clone "Joe Gardner" and learned that Mace had become the assassin Militia. After a brawl, Guy took the codename Warrior.

  The villain Parallax, who was Hal Jordan, then caused Guy's ring to fluctuate. Blue Beetle gave Guy a golden exosuit, but Guy disliked how unnatural it felt. After Jordan destroyed the Green Lantern Corps, Parallax defeated Guy and his team on Oa, destroyed his ring and punched out one of his eyes. Guy spent three weeks in a coma.

  Ganthet offered Guy the last Green Lantern power ring, and Guy refused. Ganthet gave it to Kyle Rayner. Guy joined Buck Wargo and his Monster Hunters in the Amazon, where he drank from the chalice of the Warrior Water. That activated alien DNA placed in his bloodline a millennium earlier by the Vuldarians, a space-traveling race. Writer Beau Smith claims the resulting shapeshifting powers were editorially mandated to capitalize on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

  Guy's lost eye was restored. He could form weapons from his body, absorb some energy and heal mortal wounds, though the early changes brought him pain. He opened a superhero theme bar called Warriors. At one Christmas, the Spectre, on behalf of the Phantom Stranger, let Guy speak with his dead father, who apologized for the abuse and said how proud he was.

  Later, Guy was trapped in a pocket of Hell called the Gorge in Pokolistan. He escaped by switching places with the Superman villain Kancer as its ruler.

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• 7. Honor Guard and Rage

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  In the 2005 miniseries Green Lantern: Rebirth, Parallax possessed Guy and several other Lanterns, and his Vuldarian DNA was overwritten by his human DNA. Hal Jordan's ring split in two, and one half restored Guy's ring. The Guardians then named him a senior officer of the new Corps. In Green Lantern Corps: Recharge, written by Dave Gibbons, he became one of three main instructors alongside Kilowog and Kyle Rayner. The Guardians intended to name 7,200 members to the new Corps.

  When the Spider Guild attacked Oa, Guy rallied frightened trainees with a speech that impressed even Hal Jordan. He was promoted to Lantern #1 of the Green Lantern Honor Guard. The role asked him to "think outside the box" and to do "the jobs other Lanterns cannot".

  During Infinite Crisis he called a "Code 54", authorizing extreme force, against Superboy-Prime. Guy then helped lock the teenager in a red Sun-Eater, watched by fifty Lanterns. In the "Sinestro Corps War", Parallax nearly broke his neck, and he was infected with the Sinestro Corps virus Despotellis. The Corps' own sentient smallpox virus, Leezle Pon, cured him.

  In "Blackest Night", Kyle Rayner seemed to die, and Guy's fury turned him into a Red Lantern. He then wielded green and red rings together and destroyed Black Lanterns on sight. Mogo purged most of the rage, though only a Blue Lantern could cure him completely. In "War of the Green Lanterns", he wore a Star Sapphire ring with the red ring, drawing on love and hatred together to free Parallax from the Central Power Battery.

  In The New 52, the Guardians planned to ruin Guy by freeing his old enemy Xar. Guy later took command of the Red Lanterns after defeating Atrocitus. The 2021-2023 DC Black Label series The Human Target recast him as an obsessive stalker.

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• 8. Beyond the Page

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  Matthew Settle portrayed Guy in the television pilot Justice League of America. James Arnold Taylor voiced him in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, where he is a founding member of Justice League International. Troy Baker voiced him in Young Justice, giving him a Maryland accent. Diedrich Bader voiced him in Green Lantern: The Animated Series.

  Guy has also reached film and games. An early script for the 2011 film Green Lantern had him cameo as a football player and potential recipient of Abin Sur's ring, but the scene was cut. He appears as a playable character in Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham and as a boss in DC Universe Online. He has had figures in DC Direct, Mattel and DC Universe Classics toy lines.

  In the DC Universe, he is the self-appointed leader of Maxwell Lord's Justice Gang. He appears in the Peacemaker episode "The Ties That Grind". Lanterns and Man of Tomorrow are both listed for further appearances.

  In the Injustice: Gods Among Us prequel comic, Guy builds an army of Green Lanterns to oppose a tyrannical Superman. Over seven months he assembles that force. Hal Jordan eventually kills him. His spirit then haunts Jordan in the Injustice 2 prequel comic.

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