The 10 Best Non-Human Green Lanterns

The best thing about the Green Lantern Corps is that the ring will pick a squirrel, a dog, or an entire planet. Hal Jordan gets the poster, but the Corps is at its best when it looks like a cantina.

Ground rules: the Lantern has to be non-human and has to have worn a green ring. Korugarians look human but come from Korugar, so they count. Mogo is a planet, and I'm counting him anyway.

Honorable mentions

Salaak. He's a veteran Lantern, created by Marv Wolfman and Joe Staton, who first showed up in Green Lantern #149 (1982). He's a famous pessimist and a creature of protocol, and he later became the Corps' senior administrator and Keeper of the Book of Oa. During Blackest Night he took command as Clarissi and stopped the Alpha Lanterns from seizing control. Bureaucracy has never been this useful.

Tomar-Tu. He's the son and successor of Tomar-Re. He also served as a Darkstar and died in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #50 (October 2018). He misses the top 10 only because his father is in it.

10. Soranik Natu

Soranik is a Korugarian neurosurgeon who saw the Corps as a symbol of oppression because of Sinestro. She debuted in Green Lantern Corps: Recharge #1 (2005) and took the ring reluctantly, to save a patient's life. Her father is Sinestro and her mother was Arin Sur, Abin Sur's sister. That makes Abin her uncle, which is a great family tree.

9. G'nort

I can't say I blame you if you laughed first. G'nort is a dog from the planet G'newt who got his ring because his uncle, a famous Lantern, pulled strings. He debuted in Justice League International #10 (February 1988).

The joke is that he's incompetent. He's also consistently brave, loyal, and honorable. When the First Lantern attacked in 2013, G'nort helped stop the Red Lanterns from hitting the Corps.

8. Ch'p

Ch'p is a squirrel-like alien who debuted in Green Lantern #148 (January 1982). He was fighting to defend his planet, H'lven, from Doctor Ub'x's Crabster army when he was captured and sentenced to death. A Guardian secretly arrived to make him a Lantern, and he used the ring to beat Ub'x and free H'lven. A squirrel got out of death row with a Green Lantern ring and then won the war.

7. Arisia Rrab

Arisia is from Graxos IV and first appeared in Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #1 (May 1981). She was chosen at 13, the youngest ever, though a year on Graxos IV is long enough that 13 of them add up to roughly 240 Earth years.

Her crush on Hal Jordan is the part of her story that has aged worst, I'd argue. The better part came after, when she became good friends with Kilowog.

6. Katma Tui

Tomar-Re nominated Katma to replace Sinestro as the Lantern of Korugar. That meant wearing a symbol her own people had learned to hate. They came to call her Katma Tui the Lost.

She debuted in Green Lantern #30 (July 1964). She also got John Stewart to take Hal's ring: when he turned it down, she called him a coward and he changed his mind.

5. Sinestro

Sinestro is the entry where the former-Lantern rule matters. He debuted in Green Lantern #7 (August 1961), created by John Broome and Gil Kane. Abin Sur trained him, and the Guardians later picked him to mentor Hal Jordan. He was also ruling Korugar as a dictator the whole time.

For years he was the Corps' best, and the yellow ring came later. He lands at #5 because the Green Lantern years are the shorter part of his story.

4. Tomar-Re

Tomar-Re is a bird-like Xudarian from Sector 2813. He debuted in Green Lantern #6 (1961), created by John Broome and Gil Kane. He built the Zathon Ray Communicator to warn of disasters in his sector and later joined the Honor Guard.

His most famous mission was Krypton, which sat in his sector. A solar flare blinded him, he dropped the stellarium he needed to save it, and Krypton exploded. Geoffrey Rush voiced him in the 2011 movie.

3. Abin Sur

Abin Sur was a history professor from Ungara, Lantern of Sector 2814, and Hal Jordan's predecessor. He debuted in Showcase #22 (1959). Every Earth Green Lantern story runs back to his crash.

He was also Sinestro's mentor. Sinestro married his sister, Arin. He gets less credit than he deserves because he spends most of the early comics dying.

2. Mogo

Mogo is a living planet and the Lantern of Sector 2261. He debuted in a six-page backup story, "Mogo Doesn't Socialize," in Green Lantern #188 (May 1985), by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, about a year before they started Watchmen together. I'd argue it's the best six pages in Green Lantern history.

The bounty hunter Bolphunga spent years searching the planet for Mogo before realizing he was standing on him. The issue ranked #29 on Wizard's list of the 100 best single issues since you were born. Mogo later became a training and recreation planet for the Corps, and shielded them with dirt and stone against the First Lantern.

1. Kilowog

Kilowog is the Corps' drill instructor, a Bolovaxian from Sector 674, and he first appeared in Green Lantern Corps #201 (June 1986), created by Steve Englehart and Joe Staton. He was a genetic scientist before the Guardians recruited him. Bolovax Vik was destroyed in Crisis on Infinite Earths, which makes him the last of his kind. Every recruit is a "poozer" until they aren't.

When Hal Jordan went rogue, Kilowog was the last Lantern to stand against him. He also became briefly famous on Earth after beating Black Hand on live television at Anaheim Stadium. A Lantern's job is willpower and imagination, and Kilowog teaches both better than anyone.

Kilowog is the best non-human Green Lantern.