John Stewart: The Emerald Knight #1 bridges the end of Green Lantern and the start of Dark Crisis

John Stewart: The Emerald Knight #1 cover art
John Stewart: The Emerald Knight #1 cover art (Image credit: DC)

The last volume of the Green Lantern ongoing series ended with something of a cliffhanger and the promise of the return of not only the new Godstorm-powered, sword-wielding 'Emerald Knight' version of John Stewart but the return of the Emerald Knights (plural) as well.

John Stewart: The Emerald Knight #1 cover (Image credit: DC)

Is that the Green Lantern Corps rebranded?

DC doesn't say it outright, but their promised return will happen in November in John Stewart: The Emerald Knight #1, a 48-page one-shot by the last Green Lantern series' creative team of writer Geoffrey Thorne and Marco Santucci.

According to the publisher, John will have to "become something greater" to save his fellow Green Lanterns and escape the Dark Sector where the Green Lanterns have been trapped for "months" as he faces Esak, the mad New God, in the special.

Although DC also doesn't come outright and say it specifically, the special seems to take place after the events of April 12's Green Lantern #12 but before the events of April 26's Justice League #75 and subsequent Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths event where John participated in the battle against Pariah and the Dark Army and appeared to be killed (but was instead whisked off to a happiness prison) along with his Justice League teammates.

Hal Jordan has also been a major presence in Dark Crisis so the Emerald Knight special seems designed to wrap up the Dark Sector Green Lantern storyline and catch things up to the beginning of Dark Crisis continuity.

For those of you late to the ballgame, here's an explanation of what Stewart's Godstorm powers are, and what happened in the final issue of Green Lantern as well as Justice League #75.  

John Stewart: The Emerald Knight #1 goes on sale November 29 with a main cover by Mateus Manhanini and variant covers by Jay Hero, Canaan White, and Manhanini.

Look for DC's November solicitations later this month on Newsarama.

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I'm not just the Newsarama founder and editor-in-chief, I'm also a reader. And that reference is just a little bit older than the beginning of my Newsarama journey. I founded what would become the comic book news site in 1996, and except for a brief sojourn at Marvel Comics as its marketing and communications manager in 2003, I've been writing about new comic book titles, creative changes, and occasionally offering my perspective on important industry events and developments for the 25 years since. Despite many changes to Newsarama, my passion for the medium of comic books and the characters makes the last quarter-century (it's crazy to see that in writing) time spent doing what I love most.

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