Princess Iolande
23 years ago - Iolande is born the Princess of Betrassus.
18 years ago - 5-year-old Princess Iolande begins her schooling.
1 year ago - 22-year-old Princess Iolande’s brother stages a coup in an attempt to become a Green Lantern. She is chosen instead, becoming partners with Soranik Natu.
now - 23-year-old Princess Iolande and Soranik Natu go to Korugar to stop a new despot using the Sinestro regime.
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.
Princess Iolande appeared in one of the first arcs of Geoff Johns larger Green Lantern Corp story, but it plays out more like one of the self-contained short stories you might have seen in the anthology series from decades previous. As a result she feels like a little bit of a throwback character even though she's technically a more modern addition to the mythology.
Princess Iolande appeared in one of the first arcs of Geoff Johns larger Green Lantern Corp story, but it plays out more like one of the self-contained short stories you might have seen in the anthology series from decades previous. As a result she feels like a little bit of a throwback character even though she's technically a more modern addition to the mythology.
Princess Iolande's Comic HistoryWhen Geoff Johns started rebuilding the Green Lanterns in a new Hal Jordan-centric series in 2005, he quickly followed it up with a new Green Lantern Corp series in 2006 starring Guy Gardner and a rotating cast of new Green Lantern characters like Soranik Natu. One of the very first stories in that series featured Soranik trying to solve the mystery of the death of her partner on the planet Betrassus. She and Guy were assisted by Prince Ragnar, who was an incredibly powerful warrior who seemed to worship the Green Lanterns, and dreamed of being one himself one day. Eventually, it came out that he had actually been strategically killing potential Green Lanterns in his sector before finally using a fear toxin to kill Soranik's partner... something that would have been undetectable if Soranik hadn't also been a brain surgeon.
In an interesting twist, the story ended with Soranik passing her partner's ring to his actual successor; Ragnar's little sister, the Princess Iolande. As the series continued, she went through training and became Soranik's new partner. The two of them eventually became great friends, supporting each other through all sorts of tribulations. |
Our Princess Iolande StoryIolande's story is just a great modern version of the classic Green Lantern fables. It was retold in animated fashion in the Green Lantern Animated Series, and A version of Iolande appeared among the trainees in Killowog's story during Green Lantern: Emerald Knight, which I think just illustrates how well she fits into the mythology of the Green Lanterns.
We're using her story pretty much verbatim, and bringing her into the newly restarted Green Lantern Corp, and making her Soranik's partner. They're really just a great twosome, and together give us a brand new team of Green Lantern partners as they go about their duties in deep space. |