Nathan Fillion’s delightfully obnoxious take on Guy Gardner has quickly made the brash Green Lantern one of the most visible DC Universe characters to date. But Guy’s comic book history is stranger — and far less straightforward — than his emerald branding suggests. At one point, Gardner traded the familiar green glow for something much more dangerous: the Qwardian Yellow Power Ring. Looper’s video above breaks down that unusual chapter in the character’s DC Comics legacy.
The Yellow Power Ring is best known as the weapon of Thaal Sinestro, the iconic Green Lantern foe portrayed by Ulrich Thomsen in “Lanterns.” Still, Sinestro is hardly the only DC character to wield yellow light. Across Green Lantern lore, the Corps has repeatedly clashed with rival forces tied to different colors of the emotional spectrum, including the fear-powered Sinestro Corps. Guy Gardner was never officially part of Sinestro’s army, but he did spend a memorable stretch using Sinestro’s own ring to fuel his rough-edged brand of antiheroism.
A defeat to Hal Jordan prompts Guy Gardner to seek out the Yellow Power Ring
DC Comics
The road to Guy Gardner’s Yellow Power Ring era began in 1992’s “Green Lantern Vol. 3” #25. In that issue, Hal Jordan — played by Kyle Chandler in “Lanterns” — returned to Earth ready to reclaim his role as the Green Lantern assigned to the sector. Guy, never one to step aside quietly, refused to accept the arrangement and challenged Hal to a winner-takes-all showdown: the victor would keep the sector, while the loser would walk away from the Green Lantern Corps.
Picking a fight with Earth’s most celebrated Green Lantern proved to be a disastrous miscalculation. Guy’s confidence collapsed into defeat, leaving him stripped of the status he had fought to protect. After several failed attempts to reinvent himself in his solo series “Guy Gardner Reborn,” he stumbled onto Sinestro’s ring during a major battle on the planet Oa. By overpowering the villain’s very soul in a fierce contest of will, Guy seized control of the fearsome weapon. What came next stands as one of the most bizarre detours in Green Lantern history, and Looper’s video above traces Gardner’s wild run with the Yellow Power Ring.
