Alan Scott: The Green Lantern#6(2024)

In 1941, the Justice Society battle the Crimson Host. Red Lantern tells Green Lantern to create an energy construct to contain them. Alan focusses his will but is unable to get it to work and is tackled to the ground by Major Blaze. Sokov tries to pull Blaze off, but Blaze easily overpowers Vlad with his enhanced strength and viciously beats him to death. Horrified and enraged, Alan is able to create a force field bubble around them, trapping them inside. Blaze tells Alan to kill them and be done with it, but Alan says that's not how the JSA do things and they will face justice. Suddenly, Red Lantern's ring flares with the Crimson Flame and he again returns to life. Sokov annihilates the Crimson Host with a single massive energy blast, saying that the Flame chose him, not them. Horrified, Alan demands to know why he killed them, and Sokov calmly replies "I'm the villain". Alan sadly takes his ring and places him under arrest. Six weeks later, Alan goes to visit Vladimir in prison. To thank Derby for helping him during the fight, he has his friend drive him there in full costume, a public endorsement which is sure to make him the most sought-after cabbie in the city. Derby refuses money for the trip but Alan gifts him a bowler hat to replace his lost flat cap. In Vladimir's cell, Alan tells him that the Nazis have invaded Russia, and Vladimir realises that Hitler is trying to find the Red Labs and get his hands on the Crimson Flame. Alan tells Vladimir that he has been thinking about how he called himself the villain, and says that he doesn't see him that way. Although he wants Vladimir to pay for his crimes, he knows how his government used and discarded him, and that he forgives him even if the world never will. Alan phases out through the ceiling, and when he is gone Vladimir summons a flicker of the Crimson Flame in his hands, showing that he no longer needs the ring. Alan goes to the roof of the prison, where Hoover is waiting. Hoover asks what Red Lantern told him and Alan replies that Sokov knows where it is but isn't telling. Hoover demands that he go back and interrogate Red Lantern but Alan refuses. He obliquely reveals that he knows Hoover is a crossdresser and says that if Hoover broadcasts his secret, he will have no more reason to hold back, threatening to turn his power against the establishment that Hoover represents and lead an uprising of America's underground LGBT community. The Flash and the Spectre join them on the rooftop, demonstrating that they and the JSA support Green Lantern, and Alan says that the JSA is no longer under government control. At the JSA Brownstone in the present, Alan concludes telling the story of his early adventures to his son Obsidian. He reveals that Valdimir escaped from prison shortly after that, as he no longer needed the ring or lantern for his powers. They clashed repeatedly over the years, but Alan was never able to capture him. Todd asks his father why if he was able to stand up to J. Edgar Hoover in 1941 it took him decades to come out, and why he had multiple relationships with women in that time, including being married twice. He asks Alan if he's bisexual and Alan replies that he's not, but for a time believed he was, and before that he convinced himself he was straight and his attraction to Vladimir was the result of the entanglement between the Starheart and the Crimson Flame. Alan also assures Todd that he deeply and platonically loved his mother, and that he is happy Todd and Jennie-Lynn are a product of that love. They leave to meet up with Jade, but before they go Todd asks Alan if he would change the past if ever mastered time travel like Vladimir said he could. Alan replies that he has learned meddling with the past is too dangerous, so if he ever does manage to travel through time, he will only give his younger self a single piece of information, but refuses to say what it is. In 1941 an elderly Green Lantern, who has learned how to travel through time under his own power, leaves a letter for his younger self. The letter tells him that he has children somewhere, and to fight to make the world safer and better for them. He then leaves to finally watch the twins grow up.