Saarek
1890 - Saarek is born on Vulcan.
1910 - 20-year-old Saarek begins his applications to the Vulcan Science Academy.
1916 - 26-year-old Saarek is accepted, but becomes the first to ever decline acceptance to the Vulcan Science Academy. Instead, he becomes a citadel science officer.
1925 - 35-year-old Saarek is selected as a Green Lantern, and trained by Abin Sur.
5 years ago - Saareks ring is depowered on Vulcan when the battery is destroyed by Hal Jordan. He accepts a commission to teach at the Science Academy.
1 year ago - Saarek accompanies Kyle Rayner to help restart the Oan Battery. He is selected to join the new Green Lantern Honor Guard.
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.
Saarek's introduction might be one of the least noticeable of all the character's we're adapting for our timeline, but I'm sure you'll all be able to work out exactly why he was necessary.
Saarek's introduction might be one of the least noticeable of all the character's we're adapting for our timeline, but I'm sure you'll all be able to work out exactly why he was necessary.
Saarek's StoryDespite it's irreplaceable role in helping to restart the Silver Age of comics, the Green Lantern series wasn't always hugely popular. It was essentially replaced with Green Lantern & Green Arrow in the early seventies, (although it kept the same numbering), and ran until 1972, where the book pretty much just stopped publishing for a while. It came back in 1976 with issue # 90. As we first see Hal back on Oa for the first time in years, he's chatting with a fellow Green Lantern we've never seen before.... although he does seem to be familiar...
|
Simply put, Saarek is a pastiche of the beloved Star Trek character Spock. Star Trek aired from 1966to 1968 and was by a wide margin the single most successful sci-fi property on the planet, so creating a Green Lantern character making a quick appearance alongside the returning Hal Jordan that was an obvious homage to the fan-favorite character was probably an obvious no-brainer.
Saarek would basically be limited to big group shots over the years, although he did change his appearance a little bit to make him his own character, shaving his head and putting a gem in his forehead, and giving him a slightly more unique uniform. He had a small 5-issue arc in Green Lantern Corp in 2008 that heavily featured his ability to speak to the dead, which he apparently had. For our purposes... we really aren't doing anything new or unique with him. As far as we're concerned, this is just an excuse for us to put Spock into our DC cannon. Spock rules. We're literally using his exact origins from Star Trek cannon. One story unique to our timeline is the quest Kyle Rayner goes on to find the necessary components to reignite the Power Battery with the help of a group of ex-Lanterns. Saarek is a fun addition to that group. |