The Green Lantern Corps has a clear-cut jurisdiction, but what happens when these cosmic heroes have to deal with mystical threats?
WARNING: The following contains spoilers from “The Shadow Over Coast City,” by Kenny Porter, Riley Rossmo, Ivan Plascenia and Tom Napolitano, from DC: The Doomed and the Damned, on sale now.
The Green Lantern Corps is very specific in its jurisdiction, marking out particular sectors for each of its many officers. This clearly-defined territory means rarely results in a dispute between the corps and an outside force.
Yet Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern of sector 2814, recently had a territorial clash with the Justice League Dark’s very own Jason Blood, aka Etrigan the Demon.
This collision of the cosmic and the mystical occurred in DC: The Doomed and the Damned, in “The Shadow Over Coast City,” by Kenny Porter and Riley Rossmo. During the story, Green Lantern is fighting an escaped convict from Oa’s sciencells. This interplanetary criminal has the power to convert a planet’s population into replicas of itself, laying waste to the land.
With all of these facts in mind, it would seem that this is a cosmic, Green Lantern-type threat. However, when Jason Blood is caught in the middle of Green Lantern’s fight, he takes the form of Etrigan the Demon, claiming that this problem is more up his alley. Etrigan himself states that the creature Green Lantern is fighting is not for mortals, and is instead a more of a mystical problem. The demon specifically claims that the creature escaped from the “cosmic depths of hell.”
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Despite these claims, Hal says his ring gave no information about any escape from hell, insisting that this is Green Lantern territory. Etrigan persists, saying the only reason the creature went to space was because of his previous escape from hell. Clearly, both of these heroes’ have some claim over this threat.
As a Green Lantern, Hal has a responsibility to the corps, specifically when it comes to retrieving escaped prisoners. The corps has also charged Hal with all of sector 2814, making anything within these parameters his responsibility as a Green Lantern officer. With all of these factors in mind, this fight is very well within Green Lantern’s jurisdiction.
Still, Etrigan has a duty to protect Earth as well. Jason Blood transforms into the demon to fight against supernatural threats that violate the natural laws. Etrigan deals with the more hidden, mystical forces from other dimensions which manifest themselves on Earth. In this case, a creature escaping from hell warrants the demon’s attention, which is why Etrigan feels obligated to place this escapee back in its cage.