The Green Lantern Reveals the Secret History of Earth-11
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Green Lantern Season Two#9 by Grant Morrison, Liam Sharp and Steve Oliff, available now.
One of the hallmarks of DC Comics’ lore is its original and expansive Multiverse. Whether that Multiverse is infinite or whether the limit is capped at only 52, over the years, fans have been treated to all sorts of alternate Earths with radically different versions of their favorite characters.
But with one Crisis after another, the histories of these other Earths frequently go untold. With the latest issue of The Green Lantern Season Two, readers learn a bit more about the history behind the fan-favorite Earth-11.
Click the button below to start this article in quick view. Start nowOn Earth-11, known as the planet Gaea to its native inhabitants, almost every hero of this reality is a biological-sex-swapped version of characters fans know and love. Home to the heroes of the Justice Guild, whose ranks include Superwoman, Batwoman, Wondrous Man, and Aquawoman, there are obviously some drastic foundational changes that differentiate Gaea from its prime-continuity counterpart.
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The Green Lantern Season Two #9 by Grant Morrison, Liam Sharp, and Steve Oliff goes a long way towards detailing these changes, specifically the way they changed the cosmic power structure of this dimension. While older versions of this alternate Earth have appeared more than once in DC’s history, this iteration of Earth-11 previously debuted in Morrison’s dimension-spanning adventure, The Multiversity, which featured art by Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Doug Mahnke and more.
This world’s history radically diverged from that of Earth-0 when its version of Themyscira imposed its own law across Man’s World. These alternate Amazons brought with them new technologies and philosophies while placing women in charge of shaping the future for generations. As Earth-11’s Star Sapphire explains the history of her world to Earth-0’s Hal Jordan, it becomes clear that these changes made their way to the stars of this universe as well when Gaea’s Greco-Amazonian culture made first contact with the matriarchal Zamaron’s of Oa. As in prime continuity, Oan society split when the unfeeling male Oans chose cold, hard logic -- rejecting love and any other emotion.
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After their cultures separated, the Zamarons created the Star Sapphire sorority to maintain peace and love throughout the universe. Meanwhile, the male Oans, now called the Patrons of the Pankosmos, created their Green Lantern Patrolmen, as opposed to a Green Lantern Corps, to spread their patriarchal gospel to any planet within reach. Each patrolman was considered a “chosen son,” instilled with a desire for conquest and conflict and a belief in the inherent weakness of women and their devotion to emotion.
With the Hal Jordan of this universe becoming a Green Lantern just as his counterpart did on Earth-0, his relationship with his universe’s Carol Ferris became a warped reflection of the pair’s earlier Silver Age stories. Like the then-possessed Star Sapphire to Green Lantern, Earth-11’s Hal Jordan became obsessed with proving his superiority to his universe’s Carol Ferris, seeking to make “an honest woman out of her” by taking her hand in marriage— even by force if necessary.
The sex and gender dynamics of Earth-11 may be drastically different from what fans of the traditional DC lore know and love, but they add an intriguing twist to what readers already know so well. With the potential for even greater exploration of its secret history, it’s an interesting take on a decades-old fan-favorite universe. Luckily, readers will only need to wait till the release of The Green Lantern Season Two #10 to see more of Star Sapphire and the heroes of Earth-11.
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