Power ring (DC Comics)

Power ring
The Green Lantern Corps' rings.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	All-American Comics Number Sixteen (July 1940)
Created by	Bill Finger (writer) Martin Nodell (artist)
In story information
Type	Weapon
Element of stories featuring	Alan Scott White Lantern Corps Green Lantern Corps Sinestro Corps Star Sapphires Red Lantern Corps Blue Lantern Corps Agent Orange Black Lantern Corps Indigo Tribe

A power ring is an object featured in American comic books published by DC Comics. The power ring first appeared in All-American Comics #16 on July 14, 1940.

The first appearance of a power ring was in All-American Comics Number Sixteen on July 14, 1940, the flagship title of comic book publisher All-American Publications, which featured the first appearance of Alan Scott. Creator Martin Nodell has cited Richard Wagner's opera cycle The Ring of the Nibelung and the sight of a trainman's green railway lantern as inspirations for the combination of a magical ring and lantern.

Alan Scott's ring is powered by the Green Flame, a magically empowered flame contained within a metallic orb that fell from space. The orb was found by a lamp maker named Chang, who fashioned into a lantern and ring. Later writers revised this to be a fragment of an object called the Starheart, the result of Guardians of the Universe collecting and isolating most of the magic forces in the universe. This early version of the ring is shown as being powerless against wooden objects.

When the Green Lantern character was reinvented, beginning with the introduction of Hal Jordan, the magical ring concept was replaced with a scientifically based one. The new version of the ring is created by the Guardians of the Universe, who also create the Green Lantern Corps.

No hard upper limit to the power ring's capabilities has yet been demonstrated; it is often referred to as "the most powerful weapon in the universe."

The power ring's most distinctive effect is the generation of green, solid-light constructs, the precise physical nature of which has never been specified. The size, complexity, and strength of these constructs is limited only by the ring-bearer's willpower; whatever the wearer imagines, the ring will create.

When active, a power ring will encase its user in a protective, life-supporting force field. This force field allows the user to fly, travel through inhospitable environments (outer space, underwater, etc.), and enter hyperspace in order to move vast distances quickly. The ring also generates its wearer's Green Lantern uniform: the uniform appears over their normal attire and vanishes at the user's will. The uniform varies from Lantern to Lantern, based on anatomy, personal preference, and the social norms of their race.