Early yesterday Bleeding Cool announced a recent rumor going around that DC was going to relaunch all of their titles this summer with new #1 issues. As reported, these titles would all be more closely tied to the versions of the characters seen in DC film and television. Obiously this would mean more titles featuring characters like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Arrow, Harley Quinn, the Suicide Squad, and more.

By the time mid afternoon rolled around, Dan DiDio, Jim Lee, and other posted the below image to their various social media accounts.

https://twitter.com/dandidio1/status/690640882182283265

#Rebirth pic.twitter.com/3NhY3CTTOt

— Jim Lee (@JimLee) January 22, 2016

So it’s now, as of this posting, all but OFFICIALLY confirmed by the powers that be at DC Comics.

What does this mean for Green Lantern and the related titles in their line-up? Well the short answer is, “We don’t know”.

With an emphasis supposedly on more widespread media incarnations of their characters, it’s hard to know where GL will fall. Warner/DC have been very tight lipped about Green Lantern. Rumor has it he’ll be appearing in the final act of the ‘Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice’ film alongside the other founders of the JLA. Rumor has it he’ll also be played by Dan Amboyer. But that’s just it, they’re all rumors. As for DCTV on the CW, GL has been the butt of many an Easter egg, but not much in the way of FULL ON character or casting reveals. 

Now, this ‘Rebirth’ event won’t be happening until this summer. By then, Green Lantern could, if the rumors are true, be revealed in BVSDoJ. Since he’d, hypothetically, then be revealed that means the floodgates could open concerning the rest of the plans for the Green Lantern mythos on the silver screen. MAYBE. But as things stand now, we don’t have much to go on with regards to the popular media interpretation of Green Lantern.

That could mean a few things.

It could mean that, like the New 52, Green Lantern and related titles will come out the other side of this relaunch relatively unscathed. But that’s doubtful.

Green Lantern sales and popularity haven’t been really high since Geoff Johns left the books. *EX: ‘Green Lantern’ #46 was ranked 62nd out of 100 for the month of November while the ‘Justice League: Darkseid War: Green Lantern’ one shot was ranked 81st. ‘Sinestro’ didn’t even break the top 100. That’s a decline from the prior month where ‘Green Lantern’ stood at 55th place for #45 and ‘Sinestro’ was ranked 98th for issue #16, just below the 97th spot held by ‘Star Trek/Green Lantern’ #4. For DC, cracking the top 100 could be considered an popular title, to be honest, we don’t know that information. Maybe they only consider the top 50 worth a shot? Maybe it’s the top 100? Maybe they don’t care about those numbers at all, maybe they just care about profit margins. Who knows but DC? The point is, regardless of quality, DC’s Lantern titles have been slowly falling.

(* – This information taken from the Dec & Jan issues of PREVIEWS magazine)

Would Robert Venditti stay on the title? Would Cullen Bunn stay on Sinestro? Would there even be a Sinestro title?

Like we said, right now, we just don’t know.

If this all spells goodbye for the teams behind ‘Green Lantern’ & ‘Sinestro’ (‘Green Lantern: Edge of Oblivion’ & ‘Omega Men’ not mentioned as the titles were already announced as either limited runs or being cancelled) then we wish them well. Regardless of how we PERSONALLY feel about those issues and their direction, it’s clear they were fun books for A LOT of Lantern fans. And any injection of excitement into the GL mythos is something worth thanking a creative team for. Personally, I feel bad for Cullen Bunn in all of this. After the Aquaman stuff, the sudden cancellation of ‘Lost Army’, and now this, things don’t seem to be going his way at DC lately. Particularly in regards to ‘Sinestro’. Cullen has been purposefully making sure that, while exploring “the Paling”, he establishes the Sinestro Corps as the rightful replacements for the absent Green Lantern Corps. A move that, rightfully, needs to be EARNED within the pages of the comic before we believe it. And now that he’s nearly there, the rug is (possibly) pulled out from under him before he’s got a chance to tell the stories on the other side of the new status quo he was trying to set up all this time.

But again, this all pre-supposes that the teams are changing or the books are being cancelled on the other side of “Rebirth”. They might not be. We REALLY don’t know a whole heckuvalot right now. Rest assured we’ll let you know when we DO know more, either here, on our Facebook page, on our twitter, or on the podcast itself.

-Chad Bokelman

UPDATE #1: Literally before I even hit post, Geoff Johns retweeted Jim Lee’s tweet to Ethan Van Sciver with a sly message…

@EthanVanSciver Hmmm… 😉 https://t.co/r5MwsFYoCk

— Geoff Johns (@geoffjohns) January 22, 2016

Does this mean Geoff and Ethan are returning to either the Flash or Green Lantern? God only knows. But we hope so, if only temporarily…

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