MBTI: Green Lantern supporting cast

We find, in Green Lantern, a core cast - a stable of supporting characters - who show up again and again, and can be typed.

This article was inspired by Taylor's magnificent typing of the Breaking Bad supporting cast. Until I read this article, I didn't think that one could type every recurring character on a TV show or in a comic book - even the most peripheral characters. But it can be done, providing you keep your eye open for what I call the 'defining moments' - little pieces of screen time here and there when the character reveals its type to you. Taylor found it hard to type Hector Salamanca - until Hector revealed himself in one little incident (read Taylor's article and you'll see what it is).

My rule here is that I'll only list recurring characters. Quite a few characters appear in the John Broome / Gil Kane run, but I can't include them all here. (But I've made one exception, see below, and included a once-off character).

Carol Ferris / Star Sapphire - ESFJ

Hal Jordan's on-again / off-again girlfriend, sometime supervillain and President of Ferris Aircraft, the first that strikes us about Carol is that she cares. Like Hank Scorpio in The Simpsons, she appears to us as the nice type of corporate executive and leader you'd like to work for - except that she possesses none of the guru-like and manipulative tendencies of Hank (an ENFJ). She displays a maternal and caring instinct at all times - which makes her an ESFJ. Even when she's a supervillain (Star Sapphire), she doesn't really want to injure and kill Green Lantern: no, she wants him alive - so she can marry him and abduct him to another planet where he can be her consort. Hal Jordan doesn't take her up on her offer, of course, because, dammit, he has obligations.

 (I'm sure that many male comic book readers would like to be Star Sapphire's consort. But, if you're a little boy reader, you would look at the below cover and say 'Ugh'. Be married to a girl and give up superheroing - no way).

Thomas 'Pieface' Kalmuku - ISFJ

Hal Jordan's best friend, mechanic Thomas 'Pieface' Kalmuku (an 'Eskimo Grease Monkey') worships Green Lantern and keeps a 'Green Lantern Scrapbook' chronicling all of the Lantern's adventures. Like John Watson in the Sherlock Holmes stories, or Alfred Pennyworth in Batman, Pieface plays the role of loyal buddy to the hero - reliable and unstinting in his support. In other words, Pieface is a stock ISFJ type.

Jim Jordan, ISFJ; Sue Jordan, ENFJ

Hal Jordan's brother and his sister in law respectively. The Silver Age Green Lantern  ran with a yuk-yuk subplot for a while wherein Hal's brother Jim was constantly mistaken by the Jordan family for being Green Lantern. The grovelling and henpecked Jim is constantly nagged by his wife Sue, who wants him to admit to being Green Lantern and face up to it 'like a man'. Through a comic series of mix-ups, Jim Jordan was caught a number of times wearing a Green Lantern outfit and participating in adventures - all of which only deepened the Jordan family's suspicions.

Jim clearly marks himself as an ISFJ. Sue, however, poses a mystery. I think one has to understand that she does what she does out of a desire to improve Jim - she wants him to be all he can be. She reminds me of a life-coach or guru - and that makes her an ENFJ. Not a good combination for a marriage, one would think.

Thomas Titus Jordan - ESTJ

Jordan family patriarch and bully, Hal Jordan's wealthy and irascible uncle Titus Jordan appears in a number of stories. He finds himself in league with Jim's wife Sue in her crusade to prove that Jim 'really is Green Lantern'. In his first appearance, Jim concocts a scheme to get himself robbed by a supervillain called the Bottler - in the hope that Jim will change into Green Lantern, spring to the rescue and thereby reveal his identity.

Because of his bullying, his occupying an executive position (and the fact that he travels with a posse - EJ Arendee remarks that ENTJs, unlike ESTJs, always travel with a posse), his acting without thinking, I make Uncle Titus out to be an ENTJ.

Doug 'Hip' Jordan - ENTP

Black sheep of the Jordan family and an evil hippie (of the Charles Manson variety) from Tennessee, 'Hip' Jordan only appears once, unfortunately. But, seeing as he's such good value, I have to include him here.

 I don't think that Green Lantern writer John Broome liked hippies. Hip's appearance in 'Hip Jordan Makes the Scene!' (published in 1969) represents Broome's takedown of the burgeoning hippie culture. (Titus, on seeing walk through the door at the Jordan mansion, remarks 'I think you need to go upstairs and take a bath').

Here we can find a summary of this story:

Once again the Jordan clan has another family reunion. This years festivities however are marred by the arrival of Doug "Hip" Jordan, Hal's cousin from Tennessee who is the black sheep of the family. Always hating the rest of his family for their good fortune, Hip plans on stealing Uncle Titus' Rolls Royce. When Sue overhears this, and still thinking her husband James is really the Green Lantern, she tells her husband and demands he go into action to stop Hip. When James tries to convince her that he is not Green Lantern and that he doesn't have a GL costume, she finds one in the closet (unwilling to believe that it's a left over from last years Halloween party) and forces James to put it on and try and stop Hip.

Black sheep of the family and rebel against society and the family patriarch, Hip can't be anything other than an ENTP. As we shall see later on, ENTPs more often than not appear as rebellious, 'Luciferian' characters who defy the will of Man and God. In Green Lantern terms, that defiance entails annoying your wealthy uncle, trying to steal his Rolls Royce and murdering Green Lantern.

Alan Scott / Green Lantern of Earth-2 - ESFJ

As readers of Green Lantern know, the original Green Lantern (from the 1940s) lives on Earth-Two. In one of his first crossover stories with Hal Jordan (of Earth-One), Alan discovers that his power ring has lost its one defect (its inability to affect anything made of wood). He reasons that his pal Hal Jordan's ring must have likewise lost its one defect - the inability to anything made of yellow - and hurries off to Earth-One to tell Hal the good news. What a guy! From that point on, I had Alan typed as a caring guy - an ESFJ - and nothing he did or said afterwards disconfirmed that initial impression. Alan Scott belongs in the same group as caring and maternal superheroes such as Superman and the Fantastic Four's Thing.

'Doiby' Dickles - ISFJ

Cab driver, 'Joisey' boy and loyal pal of Alan Scott, 'Doiby' serves as the Earth-Two equivalent of Pieface. Broome must have modelled Pieface on Doiby: loyal to a fault, worshipful of Green Lantern and always there to help Alan in a scrape.

Princess Ramia - ENFP

Outer-space princess from the planet Myrg on the planet Bez, this character appears in a few stories and winds up as Doiby Dickles' wife. Impetuous, impulsive, defiant of rules and regulations, she rejects the suitors proffered to her by her government and travels to Earth (Earth-Two, to be exact) in search of thrills and excitement. She adapts well to her environment, makes friends with a lot of people, falls in love with (or has crushes on) more than one man, is scatterbrained and zany - in other words, an ENFP, through and through.

Abin Sur - INFJ

Cosmic, mystical and eerie, Earth's original Green Lantern crash-lands in Sierra Madre and, upon realising that he's dying, chooses Hal Jordan as a successor Green Lantern for this galaxy's 'sector'. Because of his Yoda-like and Gandalf-like qualities - his strangeness, his playing a mentor role, his powers, his concern for all living things - I categorise him as an INFJ. This type always appears to be mystical and unearthly, and cosmic, and Abin Sur is no exception. In terms of looks, he reminds of the Vision - another INFJ.

Guy Gardner - ISTJ

In a fantasy 'What If'-type story, we get to see what would have happened had Abin Sur chosen someone 'equally as worthy' as Hal Jordan to be Earth's next Green Lantern. Guy Gardner, a high school physical education teacher, turns out to be Abin Sur's second choice.

While he performs admirably as Green Lantern, he (in this alternate reality scenario) contracts a space-virus and dies.

Before his death, he selects Hal Jordan to be his replacement.

The fact that Gardner likes to take care of his body indicates that he's an introverted sensor. In his first appearance, Gardner makes a suit of armour for himself and tells off some children on an outer space planet for making war on one another. Wagging his finger and wearing his helmet, he looks quite foreboding. This, in combination with his athletic proclivities, tells me that Guy is an ISTJ. The helmet for proved to be the clincher: ISTJ types such as Cyclops, Judge Dredd, Darth Vader and Orion of the New Gods like helmets and visors of all kinds. Metallic head pieces make them look more official. It can't be denied that Guy, in his first appearances in Green Lantern, is a rather official and square-looking guy - he's quite different from the character he become in the 1980s. 

Mark Hootsen signing off.