So here's the thing. I've tried writing a piece for a few months now on a variety of subjects and each time, I've lost interest by the midway point. As my interest wains off, It goes from an actual piece about a thing to Wikipedia summary so instead, I'm gonna try something a bit shorter and hopefully sweeter. I'm gonna talk about my favorite member of my favorite space cops.
Who the Fuck is Jessica Cruz?
First introduced properly in Justice League #30 by Geoff Johns in May of 2014, Jessica Cruz is a character whose defined by trauma. A hunting trip with friends turned into a nightmare that would haunt Jessica for the rest of her life when they accidentally stumble upon two criminals burying a body in the woods. Her friends are killed and she manages to escape but is left with crippling anxiety and PTSD as she locked herself away for years, terrified that the criminals would find her. When Power Ring, an evil version of Green Lantern from Earth-3, died during an attempted invasion of Prime Earth (long story, don't worry about it) his ring found its way to Jessica Cruz. The ring, known as the Ring of Volthoom, feeds on the wearers fear and corrupts them into doing evil. Jessica was eventually freed from the Rings influence by the Justice League after she went on a rampage. Specifically, she was snapped out of it by Batman, another victim of a horrible tragedy who managed to relate to her past enough to break the rings hold on her. Hal Jordan, the (unfortunately) most well-known Green Lantern, was called in to help mentor Jessica and her new-found control of the Ring of Volthoom. The Ring was destroyed in a battle with Darkseid when Jessica threw herself in front of the Flash to save his life and she's given a true, classic Green Lantern ring. These rings are powered by the bearers willpower, an emotion you'd think would be lacking in someone with a crippling anxiety disorder. However, during the Green Lanterns: Rebirth comic run following her and fellow rookie Lantern Simon Baz, she gradually learns to overcome her mental health issues and thrive. There's a story where she's framed for murder and both Baz AND Jordan come to try and arrest her. She not only manages to keep her cool but proves her innocence. Both her and Baz were members of the Justice League during its Rebirth run, dealing with all the universe-threatening shit they deal with on the daily and proved herself a valuable member of the team alongside the DC universes heaviest hitters. She also has a brief love triangle with Catwoman and Batman and honestly, good for her. She even faces down Darkseid himself, rallying a group of heroes to foil his plans in the mysterious Ghost Sector. Over time, she manages to come to terms with the trauma of her past, even delving into a reformed Ring of Volthoom to break its hold on her for good. This all comes to a peak, however, in a relatively recent story.
Recent DC Editorials have led to the Green Lanterns as a whole becoming a bit hard to follow. There's a lot about Godstorms and Remnants that I honestly have no idea about. What we need to know for this piece are the events depicted in Green Lantern Annual 2021. During a routine patrol of a Green Lantern outpost out in space, Cruz is trapped when the Central Power Battery of the Green Lantern Corp is destroyed, leaving her powerless. When the Sinestro Corp (henceforth Yellow Lanterns because fuck Sinestro), a rival Corp powered by fear, attack the station, Jessica manages to overpower them and is chosen by one of their rings. She's taken to Sinestro, the leader of the Yellow Corp and after a lot of back and forth (plus a quick mission to save a spaceship), Jessica takes on the Yellow and joins officially, becoming the first Yellow Lantern of Earth.
the Greens and the Yellows have a long and bloody history (see Sinestro Corp War) but in recent years have entered a more cold war-style relationship. They're not kill-on-sight and they'll work together when needed but they're absolutely not allies. Whereas the Green Lanterns take on the role of space cops/space detectives, the Yellow traditionally lean more enforcers and protection racket. They're a heavier handed Green Lantern Corp, in simple terms. Whereas a Green would see a corrupt tyrant ruling over a planet and be bound to red tape and galactic politics, a Yellow would charge in, make the dude piss themselves and kick em out. Whether either would stay behind and help the world recover or even fill the power vacuum is on a case-by-case basis but on the whole, that's the modus operandi. Jessica being possessed a parasitic ring fueled by the wearer's insecurities and fear makes sense and her eventually taking up a Green Ring powered by willpower is a good target to shoot at for her character. Yellow Lantern Jessica Cruz is easily one of the most out of left field decisions that also makes the most perfect sense once you have some time to process it.
One Candle at a Time
The most interesting element of the Green Lantern mythos is the other Lantern corps and how all work in various ways. The Indigo Lantern Corp, for example, are powered by compassion which sounds pretty good until you learn their ranks are formed of sociopaths, their home is essentially a cult retreat and that they're also, in general, shady as fuck. On the flip side, the Red Lantern Corp are fueled by rage and their rings replace their blood and heart with liquid fire to forever fuel that rage. They're the secondary big Lantern Corp antagonist behind the Yellow, but their backstory is rooted in the failures of the Guardians past attempts to police the galaxy before the Green Lanterns and there's examples of Reds using that rage to do good, such as Guy Gardener or the dark horse candidate for most underrated Lantern, Razer. Rage isn't inherently a negative emotion, after all, and can be used as a fuel to accomplish a lot. The Corps are dominated by their relevant emotion but that emotion isn't inherently good or evil and therefore, neither are the Corps themselves. What all the Corps DO have is history. Like I said, the Yellow and Green have a longstanding shitty relationship, the Reds tend to go berserk and even the more 'friendly' Corps like the Star Sapphires/Pink Lantern Corps, powered by love, aren't always going to act in the best interest of the universe at large. For that reason, when Hal Jordan stumbles across Jessica in her Yellow Lantern gear, despite knowing her for years at this point as well as being the closest she had to a mentor and sponsor in the Green Lanterns, he immediately thinks she's turned evil. Hal, in all fairness, is the Lantern with the most reason to despise the Yellow Lanterns (see Emerald Twilight), he's also jumping to conclusions and still isn't super happy with the compromise he makes with Jessica come story's end. However, despite that and Jessica's own bias towards the Yellow Rings, she takes it on for a couple of reasons.
Firstly and least important in my opinion, the DC universe at this time is in a bit of a flux. DC Editorial had released a series of stories called Future State, created to show various points in the future of the DC universe as a sort of test to gauge people's interest in various plots. One of these was the Green Lanterns being stranded in a different galaxy after their Central Power Battery was destroyed. A lot of these stories had involved major shifts in the status quo, such as Gotham becoming a police state led by a high-tech militia or Superman trapped on Warworld without his powers. So when the Future State stories that were set closer to the current time began to unfold, you're left with a lot of the usual narrative spines of the universe becoming unreliable. Jessica, aware of both the destruction of the Green Lantern Corp as she knew it as well as sensing how much terror is currently in the universe given Future State becoming the present, takes advantage of her new powers to help how she can.
The second and more interesting point is how she interprets her version of being a Yellow Lantern. On the whole, the Yellow Lanterns use their abilities to instill fear in others to achieve their own ends in exactly the way you'd expect. They're usually physically intimidating and their constructs take a more monstrous shape compared to the other corps. Jessica, as a Yellow Lantern, does fall into the latter category but she doesn't instill fear maliciously. If anything, I'd say she uses fear to trigger people's survival instinct. For example, in her first outing, she saves a ship from pirates by sensing the fears of the crew and captain and the lack of fear from the first mate, secretly having hijacked the ship. She uses her abilities to keep the crew on edge and focused as opposed to wallowing in their emotions, a healthy dose of fear to keep them motivated. It sounds sinister, absolutely, but it worked. What I think is most interesting is what Jessica decides to do at the end of the story.
There's a discussion between Jessica and Sinestro about what the Yellow Corp wants to do in a universe without their biggest rivals. In Sinestro's mind, the Green Lanterns kept the peace through their strength of numbers, willpower and brute force. Like I said, space cops. Sinestro's version of protecting the universe leans more tyrannical in the most traditional sense of the term. Simply put, you can't fix all your problems by punching. Sure, if an evil army of robots show up, both the Green and Yellow can beat them up and stop them. Only the fear the Yellows have mastered can prevent someone from even wanting to create said army. As Sinestro puts it "Imagine a universal primordial power, understood by good and evil alike. Control not through brute strength, but empathy". Again, its a very nice way to describe ruling through fear but there's some semblance of truth in it. Having zero fear leads directly to fucking around and finding out and too much fear leads to never doing anything so a healthy amount is necessary to living a full life without being a dumbass or a shut-in. Plus, Sinestro's philosophy isn't that far off what Batman's entire modus operandi is. It's proactive crime prevention. In all honesty, having now sat here and written this entire piece out, this view on the purpose of the Yellow Lantern Corp is essentially "what if a Lantern Corp but all Batman?". Which is a neat bow to tie on Jessica Cruz's story considering how close she and Simon Baz are to Batman in comparison to the rest of the Lanterns. One final note about Jessica before I wrap up is her design. Each of the human Lanterns have pretty different uniforms that help set them apart in a line-up. Rayner's chunkier visor, Gardener's puffy jacket and newer characters like Jo Mulligan's 80s ass glasses all are great but a personal favourite has always been Jessica's Lantern Symbol on her eye. It's simple and sweet and I just really like it. Nothing deeper then that, its just pretty.
What's Next for Jessica Cruz?
I'll be honest, I've no fucking idea. After the Green Lantern Annual that introduced Yellow Lantern Cruz, DC did a big event called Dark Crisis which featured a shot of a gathered Green Lantern Corp with a once again Green Jessica with no explanation. Combined with the on-going Green Lantern comic that didn't feature her at all as well as the new 'Dawn of DC' publishing line that again has no Jessica in sight, she's kinda up in the air right now. No one is ever permanently gone in comic books, people forget that the idea of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man and Blue Beetle ever getting their own movies would get you laughed at a few years ago and, at time of writing, the Spot is currently a major part of the biggest animated movie of the year. I have full faith Jessica Cruz is gonna play a major part of some story in the future. I just hope whatever writer picks her up remembers what makes her stand out from her compatriots.
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