Graf Toren
63 years ago - Graf Toren is born on Karax
47 years ago - 16-year-old Graf Toren takes refuge with the Karaxian Light Monks when his planet is invaded by the Spider Guild. He becomes an initiate, dedicating himself to protecting people victimized by the guild.
35 years ago - 28-year-old Graf Toren achieves his rank as a Monk.
26 years ago - 37-year-old Graf Toren is selected as the new Green Lantern for his sector, openly battling the Spider Guild.
23 years ago - 40-year-old Graf Toren finally defeats the Spider Guild.
5 years ago - 58-year-old Graf Toren is killed during Hal Jordan’s assault on Oa.
The extended membership of the Green Lantern Corp comes from a few different sources, but interestingly, those same sources all seem to happen in cycles. There are characters introduced more or less as background characters who have a line here and there but who gain popularity because of some quirk of their design, there are characters introduced in their own standalone stories whose role may or may not expand over time but who remain popular because that original story was so clever, and there are characters that are actually introduced with the intention of playing a role in the main continuity Green Lantern story. These different character sources repeat through the various eras of Green Lantern Corp mythology, resulting in a pretty deep roster of potential characters for us to go over.
Graf Toren has become a regularly appearing part of the larger cast of Green Lanterns, but didn't really start out that way. He just happened to appear in the right place at the right time in the right issues for his role to become important, and his story evolved around it.
Graf Toren has become a regularly appearing part of the larger cast of Green Lanterns, but didn't really start out that way. He just happened to appear in the right place at the right time in the right issues for his role to become important, and his story evolved around it.
Graf Toren's StoryGraf appeared for the first time in a particular story arc in the pages of the Guy Gardner series in the early 90's. His design was really clever, but his role in the story wasn't really that unique, he was more there to serve as a narrative foil for Guy as he explored his own origins. He was basically a typical 90's innovation; a cool looking but ultimately unremarkable character. In Green Lantern #49, he was among the characters killed by Hal Jordan during his assault on Oa. All of the characters killed by Hal in this issue would later be brought back as the 'Lost Lanterns', and were given more complex backstories. Graf's new backstory described him as one of the 'Kaznian Light Monks', fighting against the 'Spider Guild' in his home sector. He shows up all the time now in the Green Lantern stories, taking advantage of his unique design.
We've included Graf in our timeline because he's pretty well self-contained, a complete character with his own story that fleshes out the Green Lanterns ranks really well. |