"…Green Lantern's Light!"

While still almost a year away Warner Brothers Animation wanted to get people excited about the upcoming animated series for DC Comics' space cop. The panel was moderated by current Green Lantern godfather and DC Comics Chief Creative Officer, Geoff Johns.

On the panel as guests were executive producer Bruce Timm, producer Giancarlo Volpe and producer/story editor Jim Krieg.

The panel opened up with a slide show. We were shown a slide depicting space, Oa (Home world of Green Lantern bosses, The Guardians) Earth and the general jurisdiction of the Lanterns. This was important to show the fringe of where that jurisdiction ends and where Lanterns are furthest away from Oa and the support it represents. On the fringe we were shown Green Lantern symbols representing individual Green Lanterns holding the line on the frontiers of space and then the plot thickened as we were told that on this fringe was another group dedicated to their own agenda which put them in direct conflict with the GLs. These are the Red Lanterns lead by Atrocitus.

Individually the Green Lanterns along this fringe of Guardian space are being picked off by the Reds. It was explained that the fringe area is so far away that even at top Green  Lantern flight speed it would take 18 months to get there.

Hal "borrows" a prototype Guardian ship called an interceptor and leads a small group of Green Lanterns to act as a calvary. It appears this may not be what the Guardians would have wished. Much like the comics Hal Jordan will find himself at odds with his "Cranky" blue bosses.

There was no actual footage shown but we were shown character models for Hal, Kilowog, Salakk, The Guardians including a "generic male" which Giancarlo had fun saying (Gee-Nai-Rick Molle) was the biggest jerk. Other characters shown were Carol Ferris, Atrocitus, Zilius Zox and a new character named Aya who they couldn't discuss but did say she was deeply tied in with the mythology of the Green Lanterns.

It was confirmed we would not be seeing Sinestro in the immediate future. The panel described Hal as being experienced but not yet the Veteran we know from the comics. A lot of fans wanted to know if this show would fit in with the continuity of the other DC Animated shows and Bruce Timm said no, but said some fan will probably find some way of connecting the two. They made it clear that we will not see the DC Character we might expect. (Do not expect to see Superman, Batman or Robin)

People had lots of questions about other lantern corps and Blackest Night. Regarding other Lantern Corps the general response was tune in and see. Regarding Blackest Night Timm said if they get 5 or 6 seasons anything would be possible but it would probably be down the road since that story involved a lot of other heroes and they want to focus of the Lantern characters before bringing in a lot of other characters.

We were shown a really rough early animation test that was about a minute long of Hal and Kilowog taking on a group of manhunters.

Bruce Timm said that he found The Incredibles a bit of an influence. At one point during the development stage they found the models looked like toys and then they decided that wasn't a terrible thing and he said that he  feels like there is kind of a stop motion look to it. I would not take that to literally from the test footage but again that was really early.

It seemed unlikely that we'd be seeing Black Hand, Hector Hammond and Tattoo Man in the immediate future.

All in all it looks like ambitious but with Timm and the WB Animation team I feel confident it will be another great series.

Keep your ring charged, your willpower strong, and keep coming back to ComicsOnline.com for more NYCC 2010 coverage of Green Lantern and everything geek pop culture.