Alan Scott: The Green Lantern #2 (2023)

Green Lantern has been running himself ragged since the bank robbery and mysterious murder of the robber, searching the city around the clock for the killer. He has Derby bring him the lantern so he can recharge his powers rather than go home and they meet in an alley. Derby tells Alan that the killer appears to be targeting him personally and, since he knew the victim, it is likely he knows the killer too. He then puts the lantern in a pillowcase to conceal it, which triggers a memory for Alan. After the encounter with the Crimson Flame and Johnny's death, the true nature of his and Alan's relationship was revealed. This would ordinarily be grounds for a dishonourable discharge but, for his actions saving the ship, his commanding officer gave him a less stringent and allowed him to seek "treatment", as homosexuality is considered a mental illness. In 1937 Alan checks himself into Arkham Asylum's "Deviancy Wing" and subjects himself to conversion therapy in the hopes of becoming heterosexual but his roommate, an elderly transwoman who goes by Billie, tells him frankly that he can't. Billie makes a train lantern from a mysterious piece of green scrap metal in the Asylum's workshop and gives it as a gift to Alan, presenting it to him wrapped in a pillowcase as they are not allowed wrapping paper. Alan asks her how she knew that he was a railway engineer and Billie tells him that she didn't, she just had the compulsion to make it. She thanks Alan for being her friend since he came to the Asylum, claiming that he brought light into a bleak world. Billie notices Alan staring at a handsome male orderly and, when Alan denies it, tells him that there's nothing wrong with being who he really is. Alan gets angry and tells Billie that he will be "cured", leave the Asylum and marry a woman, but Billie points out that he is still wearing Johnny's ring. Alan storms off with the lantern and two orderlies take Billie away. In the present Alan tries to fly off, unwilling to relive the dark times of his life, but Derby tells him that if he wants to find the killer Alan needs to look into his past for clues. He gently asks Alan to tell him what happened next. Alan tells Derby that Billie disappeared for days, and when the staff brought her back she had been lobotomised, her memories and personality obliterated to "cure" her. Alan was horrified and ran out of the room. The main psychiatrist on the wing, Dr Freeman, found him and forced him to undergo ECT. The next day with the help of the orderly, whose name was Robert, Alan lead a mass breakout from the deviancy wing. He, Robert and some of the others hopped on a freight car to Colorado, where Alan became a train engineer and met Jimmy Henton, carrying Billie's lantern with him all the way. In 1939, rival train company executive Albert Dekker sabotaged the bridge Alan's train was on, sending them into the gorge below. Jimmy and the passengers on the train were killed, but the Lantern brought Alan back from the brink of death and gave him his powers. Alan admits that the dead bank robber was Robert, and that they were briefly lovers after fleeing Arkham. He says that anytime Alan Scott gets close to someone they get taken away, but the Green Lantern will stop whoever is behind this. Meanwhile, Red Lantern hovers over New York Bay, looking down on the city.