So you like a character, but don’t like the particular piece I focused on? I hear ya! Spotlight is a variant of my Team Build article series focused on building around a particular character rather than piece. In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night, Green Lantern is today’s Spotlight!

Why Green Lantern: GL is more of a title than it is a particular character. Where Wonder Woman and Magneto (the first two Spotlight characters) are both particular individuals, there are many different lanterns. Their powers are nearly limitless, to the point that an entire wave of resources was built around them. Although I don’t know too much about the character because I don’t read DC, I remember really liking Green Lantern when I first started playing Heroclix. Also, these pieces tend to be some of the best ranged attackers in the game.

Modern gives us a total of six different Green Lanterns to work with. Let’s go over each one of them and see how they rack up compared to each other. I’ll rate each one on a scale of 1-5, and then I’ll make some team builds. This can be quite long depending on how many of these pieces we have in modern, so feel free to skip to which pieces you like.

1. D16-005 Green Lantern – 115 points

The LE Green Lantern is our only Hal Jordan piece in Modern currently, and he’s a pretty decent piece. He’s got 7 range with two targets and Flight, and sports the Green Lantern Team Ability which is pretty rare these days. He comes in with 6 clicks of health, and his values being a little low for his point cost. Sidestep, TK, and Barrier give him some options, but doesn’t really equate to a primary/secondary attacker cost.His later dial is much better with 11/12 Pen/Psy, 18 Toughness/Invulnerable, and 9 Running Shot. The tipping point on the LE would be his traits; the first gives him Willpower and the ability to swap his range value to insane levels the more hurt he is. The second lets him pick a light or dark green power and he can use that power until your next turn. That gives you Earthbound (I guess?), Quake, Combat Reflexes, Exploit Weakness, Charge, Super Strength, Energy Shields, or Enhancement. Not bad, but not my favorite. I feel like this Green Lantern just doesn’t know what he wants to be for the points. Score: 3/5

2. JW 052 Green Lantern – 35 Points

I covered this guy pretty extensively on my Joker’s Wild Set Review article, but I’ll give you the short and sweet as to why he’s great. He’s cheap in points, has a 10 movement with Flight (a great taxi), has 19 defense from range with Indom, and can pump out a free barrier token every turn as a free action that also nerfs Stealth and gives a -1 to defense. Plus his combat values aren’t half bad with 10 attack, 3 damage, and 7 range. Score: 5/5

3. WF 064 Green Lantern – 170 Points/30 Points

If you don’t know about this GL yet, I’m not sure where you’ve been. Possibly the best tentpole piece in the game currently, this version of Alan Scott isn’t messing around. His stats are flat-out insanity with 10 Running Shot, 12 TK, 20 Invincible, and 4 Ranged Combat Expert with Indom and 9 range and Flight. JSA team ability lets him transfer that huge defense value over, and the KC team ability and trait keeps him safe and makes him harder to hit. Oh, and for 30 points, you get a Barrier/Perplex piece that’s incredibly hard to beat in terms of value. Do we even need a rating here? Score: 5/5

4. SMWW 035 Green Lantern – 180 Points

I just don’t like this piece; when I think about 180 points, I think about the fact that I can get Super Skrull or Krang for 10 points less and this dial just makes me sad. With 8 range, Flight, Indom, 10 Running Shot, 11 Pen/Psy, 17 Impervious, and 4 damage, it’s not like he’s terrible – he just isn’t great. His powers stay consistent but the mid-dial Phasing with Pulse Wave is really a bummer as he’ll most likely get knocked out of it. He’s got a cool trait that gives him some undying tech, but it’s just not enough to drop the points. Score: 2/5

5. SMWW FF 003 Green Lantern – 95 Points

This guy is a little better than the rare in the set. He’s got the Green Lantern team ability which is just candy, and TK to help positioning even more. With Flight, Indom, and a whopping 8 range triple targets, he can certainly make an impact. 9 Running Shot, 10 TK, 18 Energy Shields, and 3 damage with an ungodly Leadership ability is pretty sweet, but it’s his mid-dial Energy Explosion that’s exciting. End-dial Regen keeps him alive and if rolled well, can get him back to his Running Shot + EE click. He’s got a mix of everything. If he was about 10-15 points cheaper, he’s be brutal. Score: 3.5/5

6. JLTW 036 Green Lantern – 96 Points

Simon is pretty bland with some contrasting power combinations and poor numbers when he gets exciting. The good; 11 movement with Flight and the Green Lantern Team ability makes him a great taxi. TK furthers the support much like the previous lantern. Willpower lets him yo-yo a bit. The bad: only possessing Willpower for defense is scary when you’re pushing 100 points. Enchancement is really weird with Charge (sure, he boosts people he carries). Those numbers. I really like the cool barrier he gets at the end of his dial, but the fact that friendly characters have to possess the Justice League of America keyword sucks. There’s just too many Justice League keywords! Score: 1/5

So which pieces am I going with for team builds? Green Lantern has some diverse dials out there currently, so we don’t have to really worry about building essentially the same team. Based on that, I’m going to be building around D16-005 GL, WF 064 GL, and SMWW FF GL. I’d really like to do something with the Joker’s Wild piece, but at 35 points you really can’t build around him. He’s a support piece, albeit a really good one, but not something you focus on.

Remember, Spotlight is more about just using these characters, so there’s less of an emphasis on competitive here. These are going to focus more on LGS play, so we’re going with the same ground rules for the builds: 300 Points, No Resources (unless otherwise noted). This will keep things consistent as a LOT of LGS’s opt for no resources to keep things on a level playing field.

D16-005 Green Lantern Build – 300 Points, No Resources

D16-005 Green Lantern | 115 Points

WF 001 Superman | 90 Points

WF 003 Batman | 60 Points

JLTW FF 007 Atomica | 25 Points

Justice League Dark ATA on each @ 2 Points each | 8 Points

Sideline: WF Superman 002, 017a, & 033 | WF Batman 004, 018, & 034

Build Total: 298 Points

This Lantern doesn’t really serve that well as a primary attacker… at first. He’s much better being a dedicated support piece that turns into your primary attacker once your opponent has burned their resources out. Thanks to the GL team ability, he can easily shuttle his Justice League palls around and TK them out next turn. Superman provides a +1 defense to everyone and with Green Lantern’s ability to pick either Energy Shield/Deflection or Combat Reflexes, you can essentially guarantee a +3 to defense against whatever you’re facing. Need to dish some damage? No problem; swap Superman and Batman to their ranged versions after getting in their green taxi cab, pick Enhancement on Hal, and blast away. Batman can swap between Outwitting targets down and hiding in Stealth (which Hal can Sidestep him into), to going into this melee powerhouse 12 attack click meaning no one is safe from his DARKNESS! NO PARENTS! (Kudos if you get that reference). Atomica is dedicated Prob control and mini-tie-up and just the best use of low points on a Justice League team. Finally, I opted for Justice League Dark to shorten opposing range to force virtually any threat into TK range from Hal. Thanks to his range amplifying the further he gets, I can’t imagine him getting hit late game and just harassing the opposition. I like the versatility of this team A LOT.

WF 064 Green Lantern Build – 300 Points, No Resources

WF 064 Green Lantern | 170 Points

JW 042 Dr. Fate | 40 Points

JW 036 The Flash | 35 Points

JW 022 The Atom | 25 Points

JW 022 The Atom | 25 Points

S.H.I.E.L.D. Level 7 ID | 5 Points

Sideline: NFAoS 056 Nick Fury

Build Total: 300 Points

I’ve been waiting to build a Justice Society team with KC Green Lantern and his monster 20 defense. So many options are available, but I really like this line up. KC GL already has unbelievable stats and can’t have his values modified, so it’s really about building the rest of his team. The Flash is just the best JSA piece from Joker’s Wild in my opinion, so he had to end up on the team. The Atom is just stupid for his points and serves as both a melee beast and a tie-up piece. With the JSA ability, your Atom’s end up with a 22 defense in melee which is borderline impossible to hit. Remember that you can chain defense values too and still get the A Simpler Time trait! Think about this: Green Lantern uses Running Shot and gets himself 2 squares away from a piece he’s either attacking or wants to slaughter next turn, carrying The Atom and dropping him right next to that target. Meanwhile, Dr. Fate carries the other Atom up and sits adjacent to GL. Now there’s 2 Atom’s adjacent to your target, shielding your dudes from ranged attacks. During their turn, Atom uses Fate’s defense value, picking up the Prob control for one die roll, which Fate JSA’s Green Lantern’s defense so Atom gets the benefit of the trait and the 20 defense value. Next turn, Fate picks up Empower, Atom’s use Close Combat Expert and put one into attack to make sure they hit, and you dish out 10 damage from two actions while Fate and GL chill out with TTPC in case they miss. Oh, and then Flash roars in and dunks anyone trying to creep up, making sure to stop next to ANY of your JSA pieces so they can chain again and make sure the entire team gets that 20 defense.

SMWW FF 003 Green Lantern Build – 300 Points, No Resources

SMWW FF 003 Green Lantern | 95 Points

SWMM FF 006E Doctor Fate + Helmet of Nabu (free per trait) | 95 Points

SMWW 021 Red Tornado | 95 Points

Wonders of the World ATA on each @ 5 Points each | 15 Points

Build Total: 300 Points

This team might not seem that strong, but I’ll bet it’s a lot better when you analyze it. Once again, our GL is acting as an early game support piece, but we aren’t utilizing his team ability since everyone on our team has Flight. Instead, we’re using his TK and awesome leadership ability to be able to remove tokens from whomever we want. We’re also trying to get him into his second click so he can blow up swarm teams, and the Wonders of the World ATA will do that for us. If you keep GL back and use him as a dedicated TK/Leadership piece, he can be a medic for one of your other pieces and keep them full health while suffering 1 unavoidable damage. Doctor Fate is really nasty with his Helmet attached. With Impervious and the ATA backing him, he’s going to be really tough to hit. Plus, he grants Empower and Enhancement to his buddies within 3 squares, so he’ll boost GL’s damage once he’s on his offensive clicks. He can also reroll one of your d6 rolls on an opponent’s turn within 3 squares, so Red Tornado has a better chance of sticking around. Speaking of her, what an amazing piece she is! Outwit will stop whatever neutralizes the team (probably Charge as this is a ranged-heavy team), while pushing them closer into your killbox of 3 squares so you still receive all of Fate’s buffs. Heck, why not just Force Blast them to Fate and Mind Control them to lash back at their friends? What I really dig about this team is that there is no highest point character, so things like Nick Fury and Artemis (or Golden Age Chase Thanos) won’t be able to benefit off of your build.

There you have it: My November, and second DC, Spotlight article. Do you like the builds? What would you have done differently? Do you have any recommendations for future Spotlight articles? Let me know in the comments below.

See ya Thursday as we wind down the year and dive into December!