It features the Green Lantern's In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night, No Evil Shall Escape My Sight vow on the front, and details about the opening of the ride on the reserve.
Very cool, very rare . . . and great graphics.
BACKGROUND
Green Lantern: First Flight was a steel roller coaster formerly located at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, United States. The ZacSpin model from Intamin was the first of its kind in the US when it opened on July 1, 2011. Its debut allowed Magic Mountain to reclaim its status of having the most roller coasters in the world.[2]
Green Lantern closed abruptly in 2017 and remained inactive until its removal in 2019. It was moved to La Ronde amusement park in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where it was set to reopen as Vipère in 2020. As a result of extended closures and limited park operation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Vipère's opening was indefinitely delayed. In 2022, La Ronde made the decision to cancel the coaster's installation.
History
Six Flags Magic Mountain (2011–2019)
.jpg)
On October 20, 2010, six days after a leaked video revealed plans for a new roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain, Six Flags officially confirmed that Green Lantern: First Flight would open in spring of 2011.[2][3][4] The new coaster, a ZacSpin model from Intamin, would be the first of its kind in the United States.[3] According to the press release, it was scheduled to be built in a "newly themed section" of the park, later revealed as DC Universe in place of Gotham City Backlot.[3][5][6] Reports surfaced in February 2011 that portions of track had arrived on site.[7] The ride vehicles also arrived at the park during this time.[8]
After delaying the ride's opening multiple times, Six Flags eventually settled on an opening date of July 1, 2011.[9][10] Park officials clarified that the delays were due to unplanned design changes to the loading station and not because of mechanical issues.[9] Primary construction was completed in May 2011.[11] In addition to Green Lantern's premiere on July 1, other rides in the DC Universe themed area made their debut as well, including The Flash: Speed Force, and Wonder Woman: Lasso of Truth.[12]
The coaster had a mechanical flaw where the trains would reportedly get stuck upside down. As a solution, Green Lantern received modifications to the trains to reduce the spinning. This, however, resulted in unnatural, painful and shaky movements which caused the ride to receive somewhat mixed reviews from those who experienced the coaster.[1]
After the deadly incident on Inferno at Terra Mítica in Benidorm, Spain on July 7, 2014,[13][14] and because the two rides share several similarities, Six Flags Magic Mountain had ceased running Green Lantern: First Flight pending investigation findings from the European park.[15] A week and a half later, Six Flags Magic Mountain reopened the coaster.
La Ronde: cancelled opening
In July 2017, Green Lantern closed unexpectedly for unknown reasons. It remained inactive at the park, and in March 2019, Six Flags announced that Green Lantern would not be reopening.[1] The coaster was removed later in the year and relocated to La Ronde in Montreal, where it was originally set to reopen as Vipère in 2020.[16] Green Lantern's loading station left behind was reused in 2022 for its replacement roller coaster, Wonder Woman Flight of Courage.[17]
Due to the growing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Six Flags suspended operations across the company on March 13, 2020.[18] This included La Ronde's construction of Vipère. While the park resumed normal operations in August 2020,[19][20] Vipère's construction remained on hold. Six Flags had begun taking steps to improve its financial standing by deferring capital projects during the pandemic.[21] A park spokesperson stated that Vipère's debut was being pushed to the 2021 season.[22]
In 2021, La Ronde extended the postponement indefinitely.[23] The Vipère project was eventually cancelled in February 2022.[24]
Ride
Green Lantern: First Flight was an Intamin ZacSpin roller coaster where riders zig zag along a 825-foot (251 m) track at speeds of up to 37 miles per hour (60 km/h). Riders flip head over heels several times throughout the ride in a somewhat uncontrolled manner, but due to the way the ride vehicles are loaded, it sometimes didn't flip at all.[10][25] The ride has the same layout as Insane at Gröna Lund in Sweden.
Green Lantern was similar to X2, which is also a 4th Dimension roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain that opened in 2002. The difference between the two roller coasters was based on the spinning or rotation of the vehicle. On X2, the seat rotation is controlled by the position of two rails on the outside of the track, resulting in a "choreographed" rotation that is identical on every ride. On Green Lantern, the rotation of the vehicle is controlled by the unequal gravitational pull on different sides of the rotational axis. This uncontrolled spinning results in a slightly different ride experience every time.
Theme
When located at Magic Mountain, Green Lantern: First Flight was themed to the DC Comics superhero, Green Lantern. Its opening was preceded by Green Lantern at Six Flags Great Adventure as well as the Green Lantern film. The ride's name also appears as a title for a DC Animated Universe film, Green Lantern: First Flight.
Each of the ride's five cars are themed to resemble shuriken. The entrance of the ride was marked by a 10-foot (3.0 m)-tall lantern icon that glowed green at night.[9] The Green Lantern battery was located at the entrance of the ride.[26]
Green Lantern is the name of several superheroes appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. They fight evil with the aid of rings that grant them a variety of extraordinary powers, all of which come from imagination, fearlessness, and the electromagnetic spectrum of emotional willpower.[1] The characters are typically depicted as members of the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic law enforcement agency.
The first Green Lantern character, Alan Scott, was created in 1940 by Martin Nodell with scripting or co-scripting of the first stories by Bill Finger[2] during the Golden Age of Comic Books and usually fought common criminals in Capitol City (and later, Gotham City) with the aid of his magic ring. For the Silver Age of Comic Books, John Broome and Gil Kane reinvented the character as Hal Jordan in 1959 and introduced the Green Lantern Corps, shifting the nature of the character from fantasy to science fiction. During the Bronze Age of Comic Books, Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams introduced John Stewart, a new member of the Corps who was one of DC's first black superheroes. Other notable Green Lanterns include Guy Gardner, Kyle Rayner, Simon Baz, Jessica Cruz and Jo Mullein.
The Green Lanterns are among DC Comics' longest lasting sets of
characters. They have been adapted to television, video games, and
motion pictures.
Martin Nodell (initially using the pen-name Mart Dellon) created the first Green Lantern in collaboration with Bill Finger. He first appeared in the Golden Age of Comic Books in All-American Comics #16 (July 1940), published by All-American Publications, one of three companies that would eventually merge to form DC Comics.[3]
This Green Lantern's real name was Alan Scott, a railroad engineer who, after a railway crash, came into possession of a magic lantern which spoke to him and said it would bring power. From this, he crafted a magic ring that gave him a wide variety of powers. The limitations of the ring were that it had to be "charged" every 24 hours by touching it to the lantern for a time and that it could not directly affect objects made of wood. Alan Scott fought mostly ordinary human villains, but he did have a few paranormal ones such as the immortal Vandal Savage and the zombie Solomon Grundy. Most stories took place in New York. Green lantern rings are made from magic.
As a popular character in the 1940s, the Green Lantern featured both in anthology books such as All-American Comics and Comic Cavalcade, as well as his own book, Green Lantern. He also appeared in All Star Comics as a member of the superhero team known as the Justice Society of America.
After World War II the popularity of superheroes in general declined. The Green Lantern comic book was cancelled with issue #38 (May–June 1949), and All Star Comics #57 (1951) was the character's last Golden Age appearance. When superheroes came back in fashion in later decades, the character Alan Scott was revived, but he was forever marginalized by the new Hal Jordan character who had been created to supplant him (see below). Initially, he made guest appearances in other superheroes' books, but eventually got regular roles in books featuring the Justice Society. He never got another solo series, although he did star in individual stories and in the single-issue 2002 comic book Brightest Day, Blackest Night.[4] Between 1995 and 2003, DC Comics changed Alan Scott's superhero codename to "Sentinel" in order to distinguish him from the newer and more popular science fictional Green Lanterns.
In 2011, the Alan Scott character was revamped. His costume was redesigned to be all green and the source of his powers was changed to that of the mystical power of nature (referred to in the stories as "the Green").
Silver Age
In 1959, Julius Schwartz reinvented the Green Lantern character as a science fiction hero named Hal Jordan. Hal Jordan's powers were more or less the same as Alan Scott's, but otherwise this character was completely different from the Green Lantern character of the 1940s. He had a new name, a redesigned costume, and a rewritten origin story. Hal Jordan received his ring from a dying alien and was commissioned as an officer of the Green Lantern Corps, an interstellar law enforcement agency overseen by the Guardians of the Universe.[5]
Hal Jordan was introduced in Showcase #22 (September–October 1959). Gil Kane and Sid Greene were the art team most notable on the title in its early years, along with writer John Broome. His initial physical appearance, according to Kane, was patterned after his one-time neighbor, actor Paul Newman.[6]
Later developments
With issue #76 (April 1970), the series made a radical stylistic departure. Editor Schwartz, in one of the company's earliest efforts to provide more than fantasy, worked with the writer-artist team of Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams to spark new interest in the comic book series and address a perceived need for social relevance. They added the character Green Arrow (with the cover, but not the official name, retitled Green Lantern Co-Starring Green Arrow) and had the pair travel through America encountering "real world" issues, to which they reacted in different ways — Green Lantern as fundamentally a lawman, Green Arrow as a liberal iconoclast. Additionally during this run, the groundbreaking "Snowbirds Don't Fly" story was published (issues #85–86) in which Green Arrow's teen sidekick Speedy (the later grown-up hero Red Arrow) developed a heroin addiction that he was forcibly made to quit. The stories were critically acclaimed, with publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek citing it as an example of how comic books were "growing up".[7] However, the O'Neil/Adams run was not a commercial success, and the series was cancelled after only 14 issues, though an additional unpublished three installments were finally published as back-ups in The Flash #217–219.[8]
The title saw a number of revivals and cancellations. It changed to Green Lantern Corps at one point as the popularity rose and waned. During a time there were two regular titles, each with a Green Lantern, and a third member in the Justice League. A new character, Kyle Rayner, was created to become the feature while Hal Jordan first became the villain Parallax, then died and came back as the Spectre.
In the wake of The New Frontier, writer Geoff Johns returned Hal Jordan as Green Lantern in Green Lantern: Rebirth (2004–05). Johns began to lay the groundwork for "Blackest Night" (released July 13, 2010)[9]), viewing it as the third part of the trilogy started by Rebirth. Expanding on the Green Lantern mythology in the second part, "Sinestro Corps War" (2007), Johns, with artist Ethan van Sciver, found wide critical acclaim and commercial success with the series, which promised the introduction of a spectrum of colored "lanterns".
Awards
The series and its creators have received several awards over the years, including the 1961 Alley Award for Best Adventure Hero/Heroine with Own Book[10] and the Academy of Comic Book Arts Shazam Award for Best Continuing Feature in 1970, for Best Individual Story ("No Evil Shall Escape My Sight", Green Lantern (vol. 2) #76 by Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams),[11] and in 1971 for Best Individual Story ("Snowbirds Don't Fly", Green Lantern (vol. 2) #85 by O'Neil and Adams).[12]
Writer O'Neil received the Shazam Award for Best Writer (Dramatic Division) in 1970 for his work on Green Lantern, Batman, Superman and other titles, while artist Adams received the Shazam for Best Artist (Dramatic Division) in 1970 for his work on Green Lantern and Batman.[11] Inker Dick Giordano received the Shazam Award for Best Inker (Dramatic Division) for his work on Green Lantern and other titles.[11]
In Judd Winick's first regular writing assignment on Green Lantern, he wrote a storyline in which an assistant of Kyle Rayner's emerged as a gay character in Green Lantern (vol. 3) #137 (June 2001). In Green Lantern (vol. 3) #154 (November 2001) the story entitled "Hate Crime" gained media recognition when Terry was brutally beaten in a homophobic attack. Winick was interviewed on Phil Donahue's show on MSNBC for that storyline on August 15, 2002[13] and received two GLAAD Media Awards for his Green Lantern work.[14]
In May 2011, Green Lantern placed 7th on IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time.[15]
Legal disputes
DC Comics has been involved in two disputes concerning Green Lantern trade marks before the United States Patent and Trade Mark Office, the first in 2012 and the second in 2016.[16]