The following excerpt is taken from Toy Otter’s Super Powers Find: John Stewart was the back-up Green Lantern for Hal Jordon (although I never understood the concept- if Hal Jordan was injured or killed, then why not just wait and choose a new Green Lantern then? Why go to the trouble of having a reluctant reserve who does nothing most of the time?) Anyway, at the time of the pitch Guy Gardner had barely appeared and was a more minor character, so Kenner decided to go with the Black Green Lantern (good research there, guys).
While John did eventually get his own unique uniform, at the time he was wearing the same basic outfit that Hal did (albeit most of the time with no mask- again, nice research Kenner!) This raises the question, was this figure intended to be a straight repaint? Maybe a repaint with a new head? In the concept art, they threw in a few characters such as John here that beg for the repaint treatment, rather than all-new sculpts. Was Kenner looking at saving money as the line died down? An interesting question that will go unanswered for now.
With this in mind, I kept my John Stewart Green Lantern custom pretty simple. The body is that of a Hal Jordon Green Lantern with the head replaced with one from a Congo Kahega figure. The head was reworked a little with Magic Sculpt, but for the most part this project is nothing more than a simple headswap. And yet, it’s accurate to what Kenner was likely to produce.
If you are new to customizing and want to learn the tricks of the trade, doing a simple headswap like this is a good place to start.
Created Summer 2004
Featured in CustomCon 11
