John Stewart was born and raised in Detroit, where he grew up wanting to be an architect. Before that though, he joined the US Marines and excelled as a sniper. After leaving, he successfully became an architect, but lost his job after only 8 months due to apparent racism.
John was chosen to be Hal Jordan’s backup (as Green Lantern of Earth) after the original backup Guy Gardner was injured and unable to continue. His first mission went roughly (according to Hal) when he was assigned to protect a racist politician, and when averting an accident, used the circumstances to embarrass Hal as well. Later, when the assassin fired a shot at said politician, Hal sprang into action but John stayed put and refused to help. It turned out that John had stayed behind to save a criminal from killing a police officer in the parking lot and that the ‘assassin’ was hoax and was just an event of sympathy that was planned by the racist politician.
Since then, John has substituted for Hal at various times, including some missions for the Justice League. Eventually Jordan quit and Stewart took over his position as Green Lantern of Earth. During this time he ended up marrying Katma Tui (another Green Lantern), failing to stop the planet Xanshi from being destroyed (something that would haunt him for years to come),enduring his wife’s death, becoming the caretaker of the Mosaic World (A patchwork community made from multiple planets and brought to Oa, the Guardian planet, by an insane Guardian (the people who grant Green Lanterns their rings and powers)), and even became the first mortal Guardian before Parallax (a powerful universal entity) came along and destroyed the Guardians and the Central Battery of the Green Lantern rings.
This cost him his new powers and his newly resurrected wife (a gift he received for becoming the first mortal Guardian).
After that, John led the Darkstars (another interstellar peacekeeping unit much like the Green Lanterns) for a short while until he was crippled in battle. He was eventually healed as a parting gift from Hal Jordan (before he sacrificed himself to stop a great threat) and also ended up accepting a new Green Lantern ring and position, this time as Kyle Raynor’s backup.
Later on, Hal and the Guardians returned and reorganized the Green Lanterns so that each sector now had 2 Lanterns, allowing Hal and John to work side by side as Earth’s Green Lanterns.
For a large period of time, John served as the Justice League’s resident Green Lantern and helped them to fight off many threats to the planet and beyond such as the Sinestro Corps, the Anti-Monitor (a multiversal entity), Cyborg Superman, Parallax, and more.
His greatest test was in Blackest Night when he faced an entire planet full of Black Lanterns who had gathered on the newly reformed/revived planet Xanshi. John was confronted by his dead wife, as well as the planet full of dead Xanshi citizens and was forced to fight them off and escape to Earth to warn them that Xanshi, the planet full of Black Lanterns, as well as every Black Lantern in the universe was heading to Earth.
John’s powers and skills with the Green Lantern ring are great, allowing him to block planet destructing blasts and supernovas, allowing him to easily trap and subdue Martian Manhunter, to shield over 1000 people at once and more.
His powers also grant him great speed as he is shown catching up to and stopping Flash and Kid Amazo when they’re running at full speeds, flying faster than light in space, and even flying full circle around Earth and attacking his enemies from behind before they could react.
John has also shown great versatility and mastery as his constructs are more complex than other Lanterns (he’s made entire communication systems, buildings, alarms that tell him if there is trouble, an automatic attack option on his ring to attack anyone who moves faster than sound, and more), and he’s been shown overloading the ring while attempting to create an entire solar system. He’s also shown the ability to turn Wonder Woman’s lasso onto herself, modify light at the subatomic level, and create sonic booms with his ring.
John might have been a backup Green Lantern for most of his career, but he has proven himself to be one of the most capable (if not the most capable) and one of the most powerful.
Copyright © WarWithWords 2014
