One of the biggest reveals for the Green Lantern in DC history was actually first predicted twenty years ago by the late Godfather of the Marvel Universe, Stan Lee. Fairly recently, it was revealed that the Green Light of Will (or the willpower of the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum) is connected to Green, the source of Swamp Thing’s power.

Believe it or not, the prospect of a Green Lantern being powered by the Green was predicted in Just Imagine Stan Lee with Dave Gibbons Creating Green Lantern #1 by — of course — Stan Lee, Dave Gibbons, Dick Giordano, and Alex Sinclair. As a series, Just Imagine brought DC Comics together with Marvel’s Stan Lee for the iconic creator to put his own spin on classic DC characters.

Lee’s vision of the Green Lantern envisioned the character as more of a nature god, a concept that today has snuck its way into the current DC canon thanks to the connection between Swamp Thing, the Green, and the Green Light of Will that gives the Green Lanterns their powers. Lee’s Green Lantern, twenty years earlier, was given elemental powers by the Norse Tree of Life, Yggdrasil, blurring the line between the Green and the Green Light.

Stan Lee Predicted Green Lantern’s New Connection to the Green

Lee Reimagined the Justice League for DC Comics in His Just Imagine Series

When reinventing the Green Lantern for DC Comics with his own sensibilities, Lee conceived of Leonard “Len” Lewis, an archeology professor at Los Angeles University. His ambition to discover what’s been deemed undiscoverable (namely, traces of alien life that’s visited Earth), he ventures to Africa to seek the Tree of Life, certain that the tree spoken highly of in religions, fables, and fairy tales must exist. Unluckily for Len, he’s immediately shot to death by Cragg Crogor and the rest of the followers of Reverend Dominic Darrk in search of the power the villain is forcing them to find.

However, and luckily for Len, he dies in front of Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life. Yggdrasil has bigger plans for Len, so he revives him using his healing juices. As Len is being healed, he explains that humanity is harming itself and nature in ways that need to be policed before humanity destroys itself. As such, pegging him immediately as a worthy human of pure heart, Yggdrasil graces Len with its green misted roots of power to re-christen Len as the Green Lantern.

Stan Lee’s Green Lantern Was a Nature God

And Now Green Lantern Is Officially Connected to the Green

At the story’s core, Lee recontextualized the Green Lantern as a god powered by nature, and as fate would happen, the Green Lantern is exactly that in the official canon. There’s no proof that DC took inspiration from Stan Lee’s Just Imagine to conceive such a concept, but even by pure coincidence, it’s happenstance that makes sense in retrospect. The power of the Green Lantern is rooted in willpower, and by Yggdrasil’s logic, humanity is willing itself into destruction by not policing how it treats nature, thus justifying the Green’s connection to and need for a Lantern’s presence.

Just Imagine Stan Lee with Dave Gibbons Creating Green Lantern #1 is available now from DC Comics.