Who's This? A hero afraid of wood.
The facts: Created by Martin Nodell and Bill Finger for All-American Comics #16 (July 1940), the original ring wielder was also part of the Justice Society of America as of All-Star Comics #3, but did not appear in every issue after he got his own quarterly title (as per JSA tradition). His comedy sidekick Doiby Dickles would be part of the formula as of 1941. He would headline All-American until issue 102 in 1949 and 38 issues of his own book, as well as feature regularly in Comic Cavalcade. After the superhero bubble burst, he would disappear until the Silver Age when a new Green Lantern is created, but thanks to JLA/JSA crossovers, we discover he's been relegated to Earth-2 and would thus appear in such stories, including the All-Star Squadron in the early 80s. After Crisis, he will be youthened and start appearing in Green Lantern Quarterly as "Sentinel", then with other JSAers in various revivals, often with his legacy, i.e. his two kids Jade and Obsidian. The New52 created a new Earth2 (note the lack of hyphen) in which Alan Scott is gay, and this would carry over to the mainstream Alan Scott after Rebirth more or less restores the previous timeline.
How you could have heard of him: Not only is he currently starring in a new JSA book, but he just had his own mini-series which explored what it meant to be a gay man in the 1940s.
Example story: All-American Comics #80 (December 1946) "Long-Eared Larceny" by Alfred Bester and Paul Reinman
Post-war, it seems Americans needed a respite from gangsters and Nazis, and so the cover heralds a different kind of comic book experience. Unless those rabbit-men turn out to be Fifth Columnists of some kind... Probably not, but a criminal gang? Seems more probable. Well, let's see, shan't we? Our story begins when one of Doiby's fares tells his doorman that he's off to buy 5$ worth of stamps. Somehow, this is rumor-worthy (told you, the War is over), and by the time it gets to criminal ears, they think our man Carvel has enough money to buy 10,000$ in RARE stamps. But for now, Carvel's problem is more down to earth: Could Doiby sit with his little boy and tell him stories of Green Lantern while he and his wife go out. And it's after reading Peter Rabbit to the boy (oh, is that a Green Lantern story?) that Doiby wakes up from a dream getting kidnapped by massive rabbits! But it's no dream...
Wow, that's quite the last-minute plan. Now, they KNOW he's Doiby Dickles, they keep him there in "the dream", playing games, to distract him while they search for the non-existent stamps. Doiby does sneak off to call his pal Green Lantrin at some point to invite him over, so it looks like it's going to blow up in their faces soon.
The leader (he's the black and white rabbit) DOES find the stamps in a dark office, too dark for him to see they're just basic postage, but that's when Alan Scott starts punching his men out on the roof. Br'er Rabbit conks Alan upside the head with a weathervane and now Green Lantern too is at the rabbits' mercy! Well, he would be, but they run like hell.
It's entirely possible Green Lantern kept his strip alive as long as he did after superheroes went out of style because he had comedy support from Doiby, and Doiby sure is an important part of THIS story. But I better start seeing some ring-slinging soon... Our two heroes are off to find the rabbit gang, a trail they follow to a carnival fun house (this IS Gotham, after all). But they somehow get split up in the dark and...
Oh, COME ON! And here I thought it was Hal Jordan who had a reputation for brain damage. Meanwhile, Doiby still thinks he's invulnerable because this is a dream finds an uncommon bravery and rams a gun-totting bunny down a slide. In the confusion, G.L. intervenes and defeats the rabbits with his FISTS. And then he uses the ring like a magic lasso, to interrogate their leader.
At least willpower is part of the equation (and will become more central in the Silver Age), but wow, was the back end of Green Lantern's Golden Age stint all like this? Doiby Dickles, also featuring Green Lantern? I'm disappointed. Very little ring slinging, and certainly no attempt to capitalize on his wood weakness. I was charmed by the promise of giant rabbits, but I fell into the comic's trap! Dang!
Who's Next? A space cop.
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