Geoff Johns’ final issue of Green Lantern came out last week, and what better way to say goodbye than by praising his awesomeness? I barely knew anything about Green Lantern before I decided to give Johns’ comics a try, and now the franchise is easily one of my all-time favorites. I wish I was as creative as Johns. His ideas are the kind that nobody else thought of, but once he puts them on the page, you can’t help but recognize their obvious brilliance. And I’m sure he has other good qualities too. Like, maybe he rescues orphaned puppies or something. I don’t know, I’m really only interested in the comics.

Does anybody call it ‘outer space’ anymore?

It’s hard to explain to non-comics fans just how momentous Johns’ Green Lantern series truly was. The best comparison I can think of would be to the rise in Iron Man’s popularity when his first movie came out. Before that film, nobody knew Iron Man. He was a character from the comics, nothing more nothing less. But after the movie, after Robert Downey Jr.’s performance, Iron Man is a household name, and he has headlined three other multi-million dollar movies.

Geoff Johns did the same thing for Green Lantern, at least as far as the comics are concerned. He did it by taking the core Green Lantern concept and expanding it a thousandfold with new ideas and new characters that redefined the franchise. There is so much to love about Johns’ ideas, and here are my 6 favorite.

Honorable Mention: Simon Baz

The Green Lantern who carries a gun

Green Lantern is about an intergalactic police force that uses magical green rings to fight evil. Typical superhero stuff. There have been hundreds of alien Green Lanterns over the years, and only four human GLs from Earth, all of whom Johns used to great effect in his stories. Then towards the end of his run, Johns was allowed to add his own human GL to the franchise:  Simon Baz, an Arab-American hero struggling in a post-9/11 world. I loved Simon’s origin story as a car thief with a heart of gold, but  Simon quickly fell into the background to let other stories take over. That’s why he’s only an Honorable Mention. Simon Baz is off to a great start, and I’m very excited to see where he goes. Fortunately, Johns will keep writing Simon in the pages of Justice League of America. Unfortunately, that comic is garbage and Simon has barely appeared so far. I hope DC doesn’t let such a good character go to waste.

6. All Those Pretty Colors

They’re like superhero Lucky Charms

The biggest change Johns brought to the Green Lantern mythos was that there weren’t only ‘Green’ Lanterns anymore. Johns gave the color meaning, and revealed that green was only one part of the entire Emotional Light Spectrum. Green always stood for willpower through the entire Green Lantern series, going back decades. But all of a sudden, Johns introduced other colors. Red Lanterns stood for rage. Yellow Lanterns for fear. Blue for hope. Indigo for compassion. And so on. He used the whole rainbow. And this completely changed the game. It’s as if everyone had taken the ‘Green’ part of his name for granted all those years.

The Green Lantern Corps is cool enough on its own. But creating more teams, adding new colors, was a revelation. Suddenly the universe was a much larger, more fulfilling place. And Johns found unique roles for the new colored Lanterns. They weren’t all black and white, good or evil. They are all complex and interesting characters, each with their own role to play at the universe at large. Johns took the very concept of Green Lantern, a character who had been around for decades, and opened it up in ways no one had ever thought possible. It was like teaching an old dog an amazing new trick.

5. Guy Gardner: American Badass

Kids love him

Of the five human Green Lanterns, Guy Gardner is the most prickly, and one I believe I actively disliked. I knew little of the Lanterns back in the day, but I knew enough that Guy was a cocky, arrogant, sexist douchebag of a person. That’s not my kind of character. And he was just another reason why I didn’t care for Green Lantern when I first started reading comics. But when Johns took over the franchise, he turned Guy’s boorishness into badassery. His cockiness became confidence. His arrogance became loyalty. Even his sexism was transformed into a simpler, more appealing way with the ladies. Now Guy Gardner is the proudest, toughest and most strong-hearted Green Lantern, and I think that was a fantastic transformation.

4. Larfleeze

His.

One of the coolest and most creative additions of Johns’ run has been the Orange Lantern Larfleeze. Orange Lanterns stand for greed, so Johns decided that meant there was only one Orange Lantern in the entire universe. Whereas all of the other colors have a whole Corps of Lanterns, here there is only Larfleeze, making him not only unique, but supremely powerful. His overwhelming greed has also made Larfleeze possessive, paranoid and  more than a little crazy. He’s a very odd duck sort of character, but I usually always enjoy when he shows up. Larfleeze is even going to get his own comic book series in a few months. Unfortunately, I don’t think how I picture Larfleeze matches up to how the people at DC picture Larfleeze. I think he could be the ultimate wildcard badass, choosing good or evil at the drop of a hat, and showing up in the most unexpected places. DC seems to think he works best as crazy comedy relief, and that the market should be oversaturated with Larfleeze appearances. I’m actually kind of dreading the Larfleeze solo series.

3. Focus on the Corps

A motley crew

The Green Lantern Corps hasn’t always been part of the franchise. They were around in the very beginning, but sometime in the 90s, the writers decided to ditch the Corps so that there was only one single Green Lantern left in the entire universe. His name was Kyle and he was a member of the Justice League, which is all well and good, but why would anyone get rid of the one thing that made Green Lantern unique in a world of superheroes? There’s no Superman Corps or Batman Corps. The fact that Green Lantern is one part of a larger police force is what makes him special. Johns recognize this, and when he started writing Green Lantern, he immediately brought the Corps back, and that’s how I got started reading. I ignored Johns’ Green Lantern series at first and instead started reading its sister comic, Green Lantern Corps, which was about the alien Green Lanterns fighting evil out in space. The Green Lanterns on Earth are cool and all, but personally, I’m far more interested in the Lantern Corps as a whole, and Johns put a real focus on them.

I jut love the concept of the Green Lantern Corps in this world of superheroes. When I picture an intergalactic police force, I think of some kind of militaristic army of jerks, brandishing big sidearms and looking a lot like Judge Dredd. But Green Lanterns are the exact opposite, and I love it. Green Lanterns are brightly colored superheroes brandishing magical wishing rings. And they just fly around on their own accord helping the helpless and saving people who need to be saved. Picture any giant outer space movie you can, and then imagine a little dude with a bright green ring flying around helping people. It’s just so weird and brilliant.

2. Saint Walker and the Blue Lantern Corps

This is what a space hippie looks like

What can I say? I’m a nice guy. When Johns created all of the new colored Lantern Corps, he made the Blue Lanterns into absolute good guys. The Blue Lanterns stand for hope, and their purpose is to spread hope throughout the universe. They’re the ultimate super-powered spiritualists, but they’re not zealots. They’re just a bunch of really nice guys and girls who believe “all will be well” and just want to help everyone. I think it’s great. I know I’m not a Green Lantern. I’m not some confident asskicker who can overcome great fear. I’d more likely be a Blue Lantern, a support corps designed to back up the Green Lanterns and give them a power boost. The Blue Lanterns are my kind of Corps, and I enjoy their place in the universe.

Saint Walker is their leader, the first Blue Lantern. He’s got a compellingly tragic origin story, coupled with the confidence and humility of a true leader, and just a really cool alien look. He knows his role in the cosmic tapestry, and even when faced with great evil, Saint Walker will never lose hope. He sees the good in all beings, and that’s my kind of guy. If the Green Lanterns are the brash space cops, charging into battle, the Blue Lanterns are the quiet, unsung medics who keep them patched together. They don’t get a lot of credit, but they’re always there. Blue Lanterns are to Green Lanterns like Sgt. Al Powell was to John McClane in Die Hard. And I mean that as a compliment.

1. Sinestro

Aliens do not understand hair

I think when comic book historians look back on Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern, they will conclusively decide that the real protagonist wasn’t the hero, Hal Jordan, but instead his archenemy, Sinestro. Whereas Hal mostly stayed the same through the story, Johns took Sinestro on an epic journey of evil and redemption. Sinestro started as a 2-dimensional Snidely Whiplash, and Johns took him to the evil heights of Space Hitler, then brought him down again to remind us why he was once the greatest Green Lantern of all time. That Sinestro ends Johns’ story as a noble villain is very apt. Sinestro is the one who learned a lesson in all of this. Hal Jordan is just the guy who gets the girl.

Sinestro is just plain cool now, thanks to Johns. I’d barely ever heard of him before reading these comics, and now he’s probably my favorite DC villain. What Johns did to Sinestro should be the envy of any comic book writer. As someone who wants to make a living writing comics, it still blows my mind. Let me see if I can take you through it and impart the gravity of what happened.

So back in the 60s, 70s and 80s, Sinestro was Green Lantern’s archenemy. He was the Joker to Green Lantern’s Batman, the Lex Luthor to his Superman. But Sinestro wasn’t nearly as complex or as interesting as those other villains. His name indicates that his creators didn’t believe in subtlety, and he  had a thin little porn star mustache. Sinestro also clearly suffered from a case of big, pink head syndrome.

Super Friends was kind to no one

Sinestro’s origin is that he was once the greatest Green Lantern, but he was kicked out because his views on law and order were a little too tyrannical. So he became a bad guy instead and fought against Hal Jordan and the Corps. Back then, nobody cared why they were ‘Green’ Lanterns. It was probably just the color that looked best on the printed page. Also, Green Lantern’s weakness at the time was the color yellow. That’s it, just the color. Superman’s weakness is kryptonite, shards of rock from his exploded homeworld of Krypton. Green Lantern’s weakness is the color yellow. Ridiculous yes, but nobody particularly cared. It was the Silver Age.

So in order to fight the Green Lantern Corps, with their green power rings, Sinestro found himself a yellow power ring. And that was it. He had a yellow ring, his opponent had a green ring. La de da. But then Geoff Johns came along with a simple idea, that in hindsight, is brilliant in its obviousness.

What if there were a whole corps of bad guys with yellow rings?

It’s genius! How had it never occurred to anybody before! Not only that, but Johns came up with that whole Emotional Spectrum idea, so that yellow now stood for fear instead of just being yellow. Green Lanterns were weak against yellow because the will to act is nothing when you’re too scared. It all made sense, and it elevated Sinestro into the draconian leader of his own evil army!

Somehow even motlier

Johns’ story, The Sinestro Corps War, was hugely popular. In one fell stroke, both Johns and Green Lantern were put on the map, and all because he turned Sinestro into the coolest, most vicious villain in all of comics. But that was just the beginning.

And here we are, celebrating the ending. A toast to Geoff Johns, the man who probably holds my dream job.

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I love almost everything that Geoff Johns has brought to the Green Lantern franchise. These are my top 6, but what about you guys and girls? Do you like what Geoff Johns has done to the franchise? What are your favorite bits? Or least favorite? Let me know in the comments!