Warning! Spoilers for Crime Syndicate #4!
Green Lantern John Stewart is an iconic member of the Green Lantern Corps who would stop at nothing to protect those he loves and cares for, but on Earth-3, Emerald Knight John Stewart keeps his city safe at a terrible cost. This alternate earth may be a different world entirely from the one fans are used to, but John has luckily kept his heroic drive about him; he just might not be the hero he thinks he is.
Brought to fans’ attention in the fourth issue of the six-issue limited series titled Crime Syndicate by Andy Schmidt and Kieran McKeown, Earth-3 John Stewart is part of an intergalactic force known as the Emerald Knights, a similar yet vastly different group of willpower imbued space cops compared to the normal Green Lantern Corps. Doing his best to keep Coast City safe, John is teetering on the edge of being the hero he thinks he is, and becoming something much worse.
Sought out by the surprisingly non-evil Earth-3 version of the feared and iconic Green Lantern villain, Sinestro, John is told that he can be something more than “an Oan lapdog” as Sinestro uses his trusty yellow power ring to basically beat this idea into John’s head. Telling John that he’s, “…here to set you free!” from the influence of his green power ring, Sinestro uses his yellow constructs to silence the ring on John’s finger that has apparently been fueling a downward spiral that John doesn’t even know he’s part of. Reiterating to, “Listen to your true self,” Sinestro keeps hammering John with hard truths, leading to one final comment that really gets this Emerald Knight’s attention, and shows what price he’s paid to keep Coast City safe.
Breaking free from Sinestro’s construct, John is having a sort of internal crisis as he tries to rebuke the notions Sinestro is pointing out, going so far as to say, “Coast City has nothing to fear from the outside world!” a heated line that Sinestro calmly shuts down. Saying, “You’re right about one thing, John. You’ve eliminated every fear…save one,” Sinestro drops a truth bomb on John and finishes his thought with the line, “Look around. Above all else, they fear you,” immediately signaling to John that while his city is indeed safe, they’re terrified of their protector and the power he wields.
Known to never put himself before anyone in the line of duty, the idea that this world’s John Stewart can keep Coast City safe by instilling fear – intentionally or otherwise – across the city he loves is an oversight for a man that’s slowly becoming corrupted by the power of his faux-Green Lantern Corps ring. Furthermore, and now that Sinestro has poked holes through the false narrative he’s been telling himself, John has to own up to the fact that keeping his city safe is one thing, but if it’s through fear and lording power over those he protects even obliviously, it means everything he’s accomplished has been tainted at its core.
So while John has taken Sinestro up on his offer to become something better by issues end, the fact that John’s kept Coast City safe by paying the terrible price of its citizens fearing him isn’t an idea that he’s exactly proud of. Luckily, John Stewart seems to finally understand what’s going on with him, so it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out by the time this series comes to a close.
