Is Jessica Cruz The New Prominent Green Lantern In DC Animation

[SweetShop209]

Jessica Cruz is a relatively recent addition to DC Comics. Despite having only debuted in animation 2 years ago, I'm wondering if she's becoming the new prominent Green Lantern in DC Animation. Let me explain.

For many people who grew up with DC animation in the 2000s, Jon Stewart was seen as the definitive Green Lantern, all thanks to the writing to make him a compelling character, and Phil LaMarr's performance (I'm pretty sure he's channeling Morgan Freeman there).

He still appears today, but not as often. After JLU ended, DC seemed to want to push Hal Jordan as the prominent Green Lantern, such as his major role in Justice League: The New Frontier, as well as having 2 movies in 2009 and 2011. They are Green Lantern First Flight and Green Lantern Emerald Knights, with Hal voiced by Christopher Meloni and Nathan Fillion in the respective movies, with the latter being one of his go to voice actors. 2011 also saw the release of the Green Lantern theatrical movie starring Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan. Green Lantern The Animated Series also debuted that year (before officially premiering in March 2012), once again starring Hal Jordan (as voiced by Josh Keaton).

After that series ended, DC seemed to want to still push him as the prominent Green Lantern, what with some video game appearances, as well as him being in 2 Lego DC DVD movies (2015's Attack Of The Legion Of Doom and 2016's Cosmic Clash), as well as being one of the recurring male characters in DC Superhero Girls 2015.

And then season 4 of the 2015 DC Superhero Girls series. Jessica Cruz made her animation debut in the season 4 premiere, as voiced by Cristina Milizia. She's established to be Lois Lane's camerawoman, and is reluctant to take on the role of Earth's Green Lantern when Hal Jordan leaves. Eventually, she finds the courage thanks to our 3 main heroines (Wonder Woman, Batgirl, and Supergirl), and enrolls at Super Hero High. While she would only make 2 more brief appearances in this series before the show ended, this would kickstart her more prominent role in animation. She would later appear in Lego DC Superhero Girls: Supervillain High and Lego DC Comics Superheroes: Aquaman: Rage Of Atlantis, still voiced by Cristina Milizia. Her role as the young, adorkable, insecure hero still remains, and she's shown to be much more open hearted to others, such as her scenes with Ivy and Frost in the former, as well as her interactions with Mera and both Batgirl and Robin in the latter. It's also worth mentioning that in the latter, she's filling in for Hal Jordan when he's away.

2019 saw her gain more prominence in animation. She would become a main character in the rebooted DC Superhero Girls, as voiced by Myrna Velasco. Her personality is significantly revamped, where she's more headstrong and free spirited, as well as an environmentalist. Hal Jordan is also in the series, though he's not the main Green Lantern. Her other notable appearance was in the JLU revival movie, Justice League Vs The Fatal Five, voiced by Diane Guerrero. Described by many people in other sites to be her most comic accurate depiction to date (albeit without Simon Baz), this movie shows her as a young woman trying to recover from the trauma of seeing her friends be murdered.

For 2020, there's not much yet, but the recent Lego Shazam movie (which comes out tomorrow) shows that she's still the prominent Green Lantern for the movie.

So, with this in mind , do you think Jessica Cruz is becoming the new prominent Green Lantern in animation? If so, why is that? Do you think it's a good move here? Tell me your thoughts below.

 

[Neo Ultra Mike]

Green Lantern has an interesting history in animation that actually does tie into his comic book successes and failures. See the original GL Alan Scott never got any love in really any other medium but Hal Jordan like all 60's era heroes did make appearances in the Superfriends and related shows of the 70's and 80's albeit never as a major player or anything. Since yeah Green Lantern was decently popular but it wasn't like any sort of mega success. And though there were other lanterns introduced like John Stewart and Guy Gardner nothing really made GL like a top tier DC Hero or anything. Like for ages GL was more in the higher C or Lower B tier of DC heroes despite being one of the original GLers and that was probably due to a lot of people feeling it's main star Hal and his world wasn't that interesting. Thus you got the infamous event where Hal went "evil" became this figure Parallax and killed the entire Lantern core and himself and it resetted simply with Kyle Rayner as the new GL which was status quo in the comics for about a decade. Thus when the time came to put Green Lantern back in animation in the 90's in the Superman The Animated Series you had Rayner chosen as the lantern there. Like a lot of the heroes spotlighted in later Superman eps that was supposed tie an idea together of introducing them all so they would eventually form a Justice League as it's own series. However by that point the team was able to pitch the show not to Kids WB but Cartoon Network and wanted to revamp the idea like adding in more diversity so it wouldn't just be a bunch of white guys and one woman so decided instead of going with Rayner bringing in John Stewart later explaining Rayner was still in the middle of Lantern training. And yeah by developing the character (especially his relationship with Hawkgirl) Stewart became the face of GL for many of us growing up even more in a way then Rayner had due to being popular not just with comic kids but cartoon kids and Hal Jordan was kind of seen as a relic who'd get a cameo or two but wasn't ever given much screen time and felt just like the history of the lanterns, not it's star or anything.

Which of course changed in the early mid 2000's with Geoff Johns. Geoff was a huge Hal and Lantern fan and really wanted to push him back into the Lanterns in a major way. Thus when working on that series actually gave an explanation of why Hal went evil as that Parallax monster was actually part of the yellow fear construct making up the power of the yellow lanterns explaining and first using the whole emotional spectrum lanterns which revitalized and reenthused people with GL in a more major way then anything else. Thanks to Johns Hal Jordan became the face of GL again so much so you did see him not only get more major role in DTV films and animated series but yeah actually enough interest to get a major film behind the character. For those who weren't there GL was supposed to be the movie to launch a DC Cinematic Universe back in 2011. It laid the grounds for not just a trilogy of GL films but tied into other DC factors that were their first serious attempt to compete with the MCU. But that fell apart and yeah between that the GL series not going over well (or selling enough toys according to CN) and the New 52 severly messing with the continuity of the DC Universe and thus making the whole lantern mythos a lot more confusing and harder to get into it did loose a lot of people's interest in Hal and his brand. Like GL was still popular but it wasn't the mega seller it once was especially as the scene in comics had changed. People wanted more representation of well... everyone now in comics not just straight white characters but heroes of all gender race, sexuality etc so yeah though a fair amount of staples kept going you did have a lot of heroes being formed to fill out certain quotas which is where Jessica Cruz comes in. And this isn't a knock against the character at all this is just clear what is happening right now and showing DC is running this trend and honestly at the moment it is working and yeah as of the moment, Cruz probably is the most prominent GL related character.

Now that could all change especially as DC still is trying to launch another GL movie but yeah the focus at the moment seems to be on Cruz. Sure we'll even see her whenever that HBO Max Green Lantern series comes out but yeah now to a lot of kids like how Kyle and especially John became their first lantern she's a lot of first lanterns to this current generation and I'm sure DC is taking notice of that. Especially since yeah she took off wayyyyyyyyyyyy more then Simon Baz did and obviously GL is still an important part of DC's brand so expert to see more of her in the future.

 

[Frontier]

Every Earth GL (except I guess Kyle) get there time to shine in other media. Right now it's Jessica because she's the newest and adds a twofold diversity as a woman and a Latina heroine.

I don't think just DCSHG, the Lego movies, and one animated film is enough to cement her as a de-facto GL, but she's definitely getting a big push.

 

[khuddle]

DC seems to be introducing a lot of new characters into the Justice League / DCAU: Firestorm, Space Cabbie, Elasticman (who I already have a healthy dislike for), Jessica Cruz, Starboy, among others. It will be interesting to see who sticks.

 

[Neo Ultra Mike]

Every Earth GL (except I guess Kyle) get there time to shine in other media.

Not really. Only Hal Jordan, John Stewart and Jessica Cruz got any significant screen time that was anything significant. Alan's biggest appearance seems like it may be in the upcoming Stargirl series but seems like that may still only be a cameo; Guy Gardner's biggest claim to fame was like one episode of Batman Brave and the Bold, an episode of the Green Lantern series and that failed Justice League Society show pilot from 1997; like I said Kyle at one point was going to star in a Justice League cartoon before they decided to go with John Stewart to have more diversity and yeah we haven't gotten anything from Simon Baz. So only less then half the earth GLs have had significant screen time.

 

[Frontier]

Not really. Only Hal Jordan, John Stewart and Jessica Cruz got any significant screen time that was anything significant. Alan's biggest appearance seems like it may be in the upcoming Stargirl series but seems like that may still only be a cameo; Guy Gardner's biggest claim to fame was like one episode of Batman Brave and the Bold, an episode of the Green Lantern series and that failed Justice League Society show pilot from 1997; like I said Kyle at one point was going to star in a Justice League cartoon before they decided to go with John Stewart to have more diversity and yeah we haven't gotten anything from Simon Baz. So only less then half the earth GLs have had significant screen time.

Guy was the main GL of Brave and the Bold. He appeared way more then Hal did in terms of intros, guest appearances, and he was also in the show's Justice League. Not to mention he was prominet in GL:TAS and Young Justice (where he got more dialogue then Hal or John had in the show's entire run.

You're right about Simon though. Alan I left out because he's not part of the Corps. and is hardly in the running as is.

 

[Otaku-sempai]

Every Earth GL (except I guess Kyle) get there time to shine in other media. Right now it's Jessica because she's the newest and adds a twofold diversity as a woman and a Latina heroine.

I don't think just DCSHG, the Lego movies, and one animated film is enough to cement her as a de-facto GL, but she's definitely getting a big push.

Well, Kyle was the first GL to show up in the DCAU (on Superman). Hal's first appearance pre-dates Super Friends, appearing in Filmation's Superman/Aquaman series.

 

[Frontier]

Well, Kyle was the first GL to show up in the DCAU (on Superman). Hal's first appearance pre-dates Super Friends, appearing in Filmation's Superman/Aquaman series.

Yeah, but aside from a cameo in JLU, that was pretty much it for Kyle.

 

[Neo Ultra Mike]

Guy was the main GL of Brave and the Bold. He appeared way more then Hal did in terms of intros, guest appearances, and he was also in the show's Justice League. Not to mention he was prominet in GL:TAS and Young Justice (where he got more dialogue then Hal or John had in the show's entire run.

Yeah but again he was more still guest stars in those series. Like yeah Guy appeared more in Brave and th Bold in Young Justice then say Hal or John did but he wasn't like one of the main cast of core characters or anything and is still at best part of the side cast at best. Like Hal, John and Jessica got series where they were all the specific main stars and part of the central core or the central core. Guy never got that... sans again that failed movie Justice League of America.

You're right about Simon though. Alan I left out because he's not part of the Corps. and is hardly in the running as is.

Alan is still one of the earth lanterns and you mentioned Earth lanterns so yeah still have to include Alan.

But still the most important earth lanterns are Hal, John and Jessica. That GL Corps movie tossed around mentioned the focus being on Hal and John but I could see them trying to find a way to bring Jessica involved now especially with her being the current most popular lantern. Which I should note is the first time sans Hal of a lantern actually getting that success and translating it into mediums of them being in starring projects. John would only get JL like 20+ years after his debut in comics after all.

 

[Frontier]

Yeah but again he was more still guest stars in those series. Like yeah Guy appeared more in Brave and th Bold in Young Justice then say Hal or John did but he wasn't like one of the main cast of core characters or anything and is still at best part of the side cast at best. Like Hal, John and Jessica got series where they were all the specific main stars and part of the central core or the central core. Guy never got that... sans again that failed movie Justice League of America.

For a show made up of revolving guest stars, I'd say Guy was pretty major enough as the show's main GL rep for it to count. On-top of the other media appearances he had afterwards.

Alan is still one of the earth lanterns and you mentioned Earth lanterns so yeah still have to include Alan.

I guess I should have specified the Corps. .

But still the most important earth lanterns are Hal, John and Jessica. That GL Corps movie tossed around mentioned the focus being on Hal and John but I could see them trying to find a way to bring Jessica involved now especially with her being the current most popular lantern. Which I should note is the first time sans Hal of a lantern actually getting that success and translating it into mediums of them being in starring projects. John would only get JL like 20+ years after his debut in comics after all.

Poor Simon Baz .

 

[EmaHalJordan]

I liked seeing Jessica but every once in a while you always have to go back to Hal!
I would like to see a continuation of Justice league vs fatal Five and explain how Hal Jordan exists in the DCAU! (and Guy)
Maybe a Zero Hour / Final Night story!