The Appeal of Alan Scott (and the Starheart)

I personally interpret Alan Scott's character and the concept of the Starheart as a metaphor for the chaos of life and the willpower needed to live in such a world. I consider Scott's origin to be the most satisfying and mythic of all the Golden Age superheroes, and the Starheart retcon to be the greatest retcon that I have come across in comics.

Alan Scott first appeared in 1940 with a pretty lengthy and detailed origin compared to the other superheroes at the time. A green meteor lands in ancient China and speaks, saying it will flame three times: once to bring death, once to bring life, once to bring power. Someone turns it into a lantern and the lantern kills some evildoers (bringing death). It later ends up at an asylum, where it restores someone to mental wellness (bringing life, figuratively). And eventually it ends up on a train, where Alan Scott finds it after the train crashes. He makes a ring out of it that is capable of almost any magical feat, with its power coming from his own will, and uses it to become the superhero Green Lantern.

30-something years later, Dennis O'Neil retconned Martin Nodell's origin from 1940, and somehow made it even more resonant.

The green meteor was now the product of the Starheart: a star in which the Guardians of the Universe tried to trap all the magic in the universe. The star became sentient, and sent a piece of itself to Earth.

This story is in character for the Guardians, order-obsessed as they are, wanting to control everything, and hating the idea of magic existing as something uncontrollable and unpredictable. And it presents a good lesson about chaos – chaos always finds a way. You can't control or predict everything.

Chaos can do many things. It can make your car break down on your way to work when you least expect it. It can win you the lottery, it can suddenly kill someone you care about, it can bring a bunch of atoms together and make them react in just the right way for millions of years, to accidentally create life in the universe. It can cause death, it can create life, it can give power.

We only exist because of random chaos, really. And our whole lives are built around facilitating order within that chaos: keeping up with your car's maintenance, buying lottery tickets to maximize your chances, making the most of our time with our loved ones before we die, etc. Most of what we do as problem-solving organisms with forethought is about order. 

Following the retcon, The Green Lantern is essentially the embodiment of that aspect of life. A symbol of chaos brought the lantern to Alan Scott and, because he's a hero, he used it to make his life and the lives of others better. Chaos finds a way in life, always. All we can do is try to make the best of what we're given. And oftentimes that requires great willpower.

Maybe you were born in poverty, or to a difficult family, or to physical disease -- you chose none of these things and you couldn't control them, so chaos brought them to you. Your life is now bound by the box of chaos you were placed in. And you make order by working hard to succeed financially, trying to deal with your family members or find a new home, or learning how to cope with your disease as best as possible. You play the hand you're dealt, just like Green Lantern.

I'm a person to whom chaos has brought a good deal of difficulty, in the form of ongoing health issues. And many times, a painful flare-up can happen no matter how well I manage things. Pushing through it takes willpower, the will to take the randomness and make something out of it, even if all you can make is a moderately-functional life. Or maybe you can help others who have gone through the same chaos-given challenges as you, by providing support or comfort. So my experiences often make me think of Green Lantern: someone who figuratively took an element of chaos and made it into something positive for himself and others. That's basically what we all try to do in life, as we play the hand we're dealt. And Alan Scott's willpower being central to doing so is truly resonant, because we use our willpower every day to play our imperfect hand. This is what makes the original Green Lantern such a special, inspiring character to me.