How many Green Lanterns are there?

Another Green Lantern is coming to the new DC Films DC Universe, with Guy Gardner joining the already announced Hal Jordan and John Stewart. Gardner will be played by Nathan Fillion, debuting in 2025's Superman: Legacy, while Hal and John - both still uncast - are scheduled to star in the planned Lanterns streaming series down the road.

So how many Green Lanterns are there in the DC Universe? 

Thanks to the idea of the Green Lantern Corps, a kind of intergalactic police force that guards the entire universe, there are literally thousands of them - at least 7,204, to be exact. And dozens of them have been well developed characters who have starred or co-starred in their own comics over the decades. 

Though there are thousands of Green Lanterns policing thousands of 'Sectors' of the DC Universe, Earth and its home Sector 2814 have had more GLs than anywhere else, with as many as half a dozen Green Lanterns operating on and around Earth at any given time. 

And judging by the way things are going, many of Earth's GL's are going to make it to the new live-action DC Films Universe. Here's what you need to know about the core Green Lanterns of the DC mythos.

Alan Scott

The original Green Lantern of comics, Alan Scott, debuted way, way back in the Golden Age in 1940's All-American Comics #16 by Mart Nodell (who also designed the Pillsbury Doughboy) and Bill Finger (who co-created Batman and the Joker). Unlike most other GL's, he's not technically part of the Green Lantern Corps, which wasn't introduced until the '60s. 

His ring is made of a piece of green meteor, and like later GL's, it has the power to shape objects out of green energy based on the wearer's imagination. Strangely, it also has an inability to affect things made of wood.

Alan Scott (who has also occasionally gone by the codename Sentinel) is a founding member of the Justice Society, and has been a member off and on throughout the team's entire history. He's often considered the most powerful member of the JSA, depending on who else is part of the team.

Hal Jordan

Hal Jordan is the most famous Green Lantern, as the hero who revived the concept in the superhero renaissance of the Silver Age. Introduced in 1959's Showcase #22 by John Broome and Gil Kane, Hal Jordan is a daring test pilot who is inducted into the Green Lantern Corps after one of the Corps' vaunted power rings chooses him to take its former wearer's place.

Hal is brash and arrogant - qualities befitting a test pilot - and has shown almost unparalleled willpower, the main quality needed to effectively wield a Green Lantern ring. He's also the first human to be part of the GL Corps, a circumstance which has made Earth one of the most spotlighted planets in all of Sector 2814, which covers an entire region of the galaxy.

Hal is the original Green Lantern of the Justice League, and is one of the team's most iconic members in addition to being arguably the most iconic Green Lantern. Even when he was dead for a time in the '90s after turning into the evil Parallax, he remained on the mind of Green Lantern fans, and loomed large over the GL legacy - though we'll get to that story in a bit.

Guy Gardner

When Hal Jordan was chosen to join the Green Lantern Corps by his power ring, the ring also found a potential backup to wear it in the event that Hal was somehow unable to serve as a Green Lantern - and that backup was Guy Gardner, a kinda affable, jock-ish gym teacher with a heart of gold, who debuted in 1968's Green Lantern #59 by John Broome and Gil Kane.

Hal and Guy eventually met up and became allies, with Guy occasionally stepping in to take Hal's place. And when Guy and Hal both became injured, the ring chose John Stewart as another alternate GL (more on him in a moment). However, when 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths limited series rewrote many aspects of DC continuity, Guy was changed from a nice guy himbo into a total misogynist bully (with rare moments of his old self shining through) thanks to a serious head injury followed by a months-long coma. 

Guy became the main Green Lantern of the Justice League through the '80s, where he notoriously butted heads with team leader Batman - until Batman literally decked him with one single punch, giving Guy a much-needed attitude adjustment. Guy has been a Green Lantern off and on since, though he's rarely been part of the Justice League since the '90s. He's still most often portrayed as a big-mouthed jerk, and that's the version that will seemingly be embodied by Nathan Fillion.

John Stewart

The next most famous and popular Green Lantern after Hal Jordan is John Stewart, Hal's partner in protecting Sector 2814, who originally joined the Green Lantern Corps as Hal's stand-in while he was incapacitated in 1972's Green Lantern #87 by Dennis O'Neill and Neal Adams.

Though his original tenure as a GL ended in disgrace when a planet was destroyed under his watch, John has become one of the most powerful and well-known members of the Green Lantern Corps, leaving his one failure in the past and rising to become not just a member of the Corps, but an ongoing member of the Justice League.

Many fans know John Stewart best from Justice League: The Animated Series and its successor Justice League Unlimited, where he was the main Green Lantern of the League.

Kyle Rayner

Hal Jordan had a rough time in the '90s. After transforming into the evil entity known as Parallax and destroying the entire Green Lantern Corps - leaving his personal ring the only one in existence - Hal died. His ring went on to choose a new successor, much like when it originally chose Hal, landing on the hand of comic book artist and reluctant hero Kyle Rayner, who debuted in 1994's Green Lantern #48 by Ron Marz and Darryl Banks.

Kyle became a breakout star, going on to join the Justice League as the team's one and only GL for most of the '90s and early '00s - though Hal had defenders calling for his return basically from the moment he went evil and died.

Hal finally returned in the early '00s along with the rest of the Green Lantern Corps, leading to a long period where Kyle often moved from being a Green Lantern, to being a White Lantern, to being a Blue Lantern, and so on. But he's since returned to his role among the GL Corps.

Simon Baz

Simon Baz is the first new main Green Lantern introduced following the DC Universe's 'New 52' reboot, in which many aspects of continuity were changed and rewritten. Baz is also unique because he wields a power ring that was created when Hal Jordan's GL ring merged with the yellow power ring of his arch-enemy Sinestro, who wields an opposite kind of energy.

Baz debuted in 2012's New 52 Free Comic Book Day Special Edition #1 by Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke. He started out his career while under investigation for terrorism due to a misunderstanding - but his somewhat rough-around-the-edges nature carried over into his early days as a hero in which he carried a gun in addition to his power ring.

Baz was eventually inducted into the Green Lantern Corps proper, as well as the Justice League. It was during his time with the League that Batman convinced him to give up his gun and rely solely on his Green Lantern powers.

Jessica Cruz

Jessica Cruz is another interesting Green Lantern who did not get her ring directly from the Green Lantern Corps. In fact her ring came from another reality entirely - the world of Earth-3, whose versions of DC's core heroes such as Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are in fact evil reflections of their mainstream counterparts.

Jessica debuted in 2013's Justice League #30 by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver, during the 'Forever Evil' crossover event. In that story, the Earth-3 villain known as Power Ring (an evil version of Green Lantern) dies, with his alt-reality ring seeking Jessica out as his new host.

She eventually became a full-fledged member of the Green Lantern Corps following the 2016 'Darkseid War' story, also serving on the Justice League as one of two GL's on the team, alongside Simon Baz.

Sojourner 'Jo' Mullein

Sojourner 'Jo' Mullein is the newest human Green Lantern in the Corps, having debuted in 2020's Far Sector limited series by NK Jemisin and Jamal Campbell, which showed Jo's first year among the Green Lantern Corps.

Unlike many other GL's, Jo had a background in law enforcement before ever joining the Green Lantern Corps, as a former New York City police officer who was fired for protesting systemic injustice in the police department.

Following her firing, Jo is inducted into the Green Lantern Corps and given an opportunity to prove she can make a real difference beyond her former job with the NYPD. She's since gone on to become a core member of the main GL Corps alongside Hal Jordan, John Stewart, and the others.

Some of Earth's Green Lanterns are among the best Green Lanterns of all time.