Editing Kyle Rayner (section)

===The last Green Lantern===
[[File:Green Lantern 51 (March 1994).png|thumb|200 px|left|Kyle Rayner's debut as Green Lantern. Cover of ''Green Lantern'' vol. 3 #51 (March 1994). Art by [[Darryl Banks]].]]

Before he acquired a Green Lantern power ring, Kyle Rayner was a struggling-but-gifted freelance [[comic book artist]] who was raised in [[North Hollywood]] and lived and worked in [[Los Angeles]]. Kyle was raised by his Irish mother as an only child; his father abandoned his mother when she was pregnant. It was later revealed that his father was a Mexican-American CIA agent named Gabriel Vasquez and that Aaron Rayner was merely an alias and that he had once met [[Hal Jordan]] shortly after the pilot became Green Lantern. Kyle and his mother lived a modest lifestyle until he reached adulthood. After Jordan, grief-stricken over the destruction of his home of [[Coast City]], went on a mad rampage killing various members of the Green Lantern Corps and [[Guardians of the Universe]], [[Ganthet]] gave Kyle the last working Green Lantern [[power ring (weapon)|power ring]].<ref name="dc-ency"/> His reasons for doing so have never been made completely apparent, aside from Rayner having been in the right place at the right time: prior to bequeathing the ring, Ganthet simply utters, "You will have to do." Ganthet later revealed that humans make great Green Lanterns (before Hal Jordan's mental breakdown he was the Corps' greatest Green Lantern, and John Stewart became the first mortal Guardian of the Universe). Several sources, however, imply that Ganthet was following a deeper reason: Kyle Rayner was not chosen because he was fearless but because he was able to feel and overcome fear,<ref>''Green Lantern: Rebirth'' (December 2004 – May 2005)</ref><ref name="glng1">''Green Lantern: New Guardians #1 (September 2011)''</ref> thus making him, and all the future Lanterns, less susceptible to Parallax's influence. The ''New Guardians'' retelling goes so far as to replace the scowling "You will have to do" with a smiling "It would seem I chose well."

At first, Kyle took possession of the ring very lightly. His girlfriend, [[Alexandra DeWitt]], encouraged him to be more responsible, create his own version of the Green Lantern uniform, and helped him train for his new role as a [[superhero]], but she was later murdered and [[Women in Refrigerators Syndrome|stuffed in a refrigerator]] by the [[supervillain]] [[Major Force]].<ref>''Green Lantern'' (vol. 3) #54 (August 1994)</ref> The guilt over this event drove Rayner to take his role more seriously, and as a result, he strove to be the best Green Lantern he could be in honor of Alex's memory. Rayner then moved to [[New York City]], since Los Angeles reminded him of Alex and he needed a fresh start.

Rayner grew up enamored with [[Superman]] and [[Batman]], though he had only a passing knowledge of Earth's various Green Lanterns. This soon changed, and he found that the Green Lantern ring was the ultimate expression of his fertile imagination. While in battle, he often used the ring's power to create constructs of just about anything his artistic mind could imagine: other superheroes, [[anime]] characters, mystical characters, [[mecha]]s, futuristic weapons, and original characters from his comic books. While other members of the Green Lantern Corps questioned the practicality of those constructs, they often made Rayner an unpredictable and formidable opponent.{{Citation needed|date=November 2010}}