Green Lantern #76

A failing title gets a second hero

Green Lantern's Silver Age series began in the summer of 1960, with Hal Jordan, a test pilot given a power ring by the alien Guardians of the Universe, written by John Broome and drawn by Gil Kane under editor Julius Schwartz. By the end of the decade the book was in trouble. Sales had been in a major decline by the time Green Arrow was brought in as co-star.

Schwartz handed the title to the writer Denny O'Neil and the artist Neal Adams, who had already reworked another DC hero, the archer Green Arrow. Adams had given Oliver Queen a Van Dyke beard and a costume of his own design in The Brave and the Bold #85, cover-dated August to September 1969. Green Arrow himself dated back to More Fun Comics #73 in November 1941, a Robin Hood figure created by Mort Weisinger and designed by George Papp.

Green Lantern #76 went on sale on February 19, 1970, the publication date given in U.S. Copyright Office filings, with an April cover date. An ad in another DC title had promised it for February 24. It cost 15 cents and ran 36 pages. The cover logo now read "Green Lantern Co-Starring Green Arrow," though the legal name inside stayed Green Lantern, and that logo stayed, with one exception, until the series ended.

O'Neil and Adams

Dennis O'Neil was born in St. Louis on May 3, 1939. After the Navy and a job on a Cape Girardeau newspaper, he took Marvel's writer test at Roy Thomas's suggestion and was hired by Stan Lee. When that work dried up he wrote for Charlton under a pseudonym, and in 1968 the editor Dick Giordano brought him to DC as a freelancer.

O'Neil wanted to put his own politics into comics. In a 1983 introduction to a reprint of the run, he described casting Hal Jordan, in effect an intergalactic policeman, as an establishment liberal who believed in working within the system, and Oliver Queen as an outspoken anarchist standing in for the counterculture. The two would argue their way across the country.

Neal Adams was born on Governors Island in New York City on June 15, 1941. Beyond the page he became a leading advocate for creators, helping lead the lobbying that won Superman's creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster long-overdue credit and payment. He and O'Neil also brought Batman back to darker roots and created Ra's al Ghul together. Adams died on April 28, 2022, and O'Neil on June 11, 2020.

No Evil Shall Escape My Sight

The story opens with Green Lantern stopping what looks like a street assault, only for Green Arrow to show him it is something else: the tenants of a slumlord named Jubal Slade, who plans to clear his building. When the Guardians of the Universe see Green Lantern roughing up Slade, they summon him to their planet Oa and reprimand him. He returns to Earth against their orders and gathers evidence to put Slade away.

The page everyone remembers comes on a rooftop. An elderly Black man points out that Green Lantern works for the "blue skins" and has helped beings with orange and purple skins on other worlds, but has never done anything for the black skins on his own planet. The scene also carries flashback cameos of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr..

It ends with a road trip. Hal, Oliver and one of the Guardians, disguised as a human and later known as the Old Timer, set out across America to find the country. The credits on the splash page are painted onto the side of a delivery van. Across the next issues the pair met corruption, racism, pollution and overpopulation, and in #85 and #86 Green Arrow discovered that his ward Speedy was addicted to heroin, a story that drew praise from New York Mayor John Lindsay.

The start of the Bronze Age

Comics historians do not agree on a single event that ended the Silver Age, but Green Lantern #76 is regularly named among them. The series, as one standard history puts it, centered on relevance, with Green Lantern exposed to poverty and forced into self-doubt. Later in 1970 Jack Kirby left Marvel for DC, and Julius Schwartz took over the Superman titles from Mort Weisinger.

The issue reached the stands in a country at odds with itself. The day before it went on sale, a Chicago jury acquitted the Chicago Seven of conspiracy. Within weeks the U.S. invaded Cambodia, and National Guardsmen killed four students at Kent State.

Critics loved it and readers recognized it: the issue's story won the Shazam Award for best individual story of 1970 and a Goethe Award as favorite comic-book story in 1971. Sales did not follow. Green Lantern was canceled with #89, cover-dated April to May 1972, partly because of Adams's schedule, and the climax ran as a backup in The Flash. The title returned with #90 in August to September 1976.

Copies, grades and the cover

Unlike the Golden Age keys, Green Lantern #76 survives in some numbers, and the competition is at the top of the grading scale. In August 2025 the grading census held 29 copies at CGC 9.6 and only two graded higher. A copy at 9.6 with white pages sold at auction on April 10, 2011, for $10,157.50. A dealer's hot-list tracking later recorded 9.6 copies trading at $7,000 in 2017, $5,850 in 2018 and as high as $12,000 in 2019. Another CGC 9.6 with white pages sold at auction on September 11, 2025.

The original Neal Adams cover art is far more valuable than any copy of the comic. It sold at auction in late 2015 for $442,150. The sale was unusual: in the 1970s most original comic art was not returned to artists, and Adams endorsed this one only after the owner agreed to share the proceeds with him and his family, with a portion also going to the creators' charity the Hero Initiative.

DC issued a facsimile edition of the issue, complete with original ads and letters, on May 20, 2020, for $3.99. The original letters page printed letters from readers including Martin Pasko and Alan Brennert. A leading annual price guide ranked the issue 13th on its list of the top 25 Bronze Age comics.

The numbers

Cover price

15 cents

Pages

36; the story spans 23

Print run

Not documented in the sources consulted

Census, August 2025

29 at CGC 9.6; 2 graded higher

Awards

Shazam Award, best individual story (1970); Goethe Award, favorite comic-book story (1971)

Run

O'Neil and Adams, #76 to #89 (1970 to 1972)

Timeline

1. Nov 1941

   Green Arrow debuts in More Fun Comics #73.

2. 1960

   Green Lantern's Silver Age series launches with Hal Jordan.

3. 1968

   Denny O'Neil joins DC as a freelancer.

4. Aug 1969

   Neal Adams redesigns Green Arrow with a beard and new costume in The Brave and the Bold #85.

5. Feb 19, 1970

   Green Lantern #76 goes on sale, beginning the O'Neil-Adams run.

6. 1971

   The story wins a Goethe Award as favorite comic-book story, after a Shazam Award for best story of 1970.

7. 1972

   Green Lantern is canceled with #89, cover-dated April to May 1972.

8. 1976

   The title returns with #90, cover-dated August to September.

9. Apr 10, 2011

   A CGC 9.6 copy with white pages sells at auction for $10,157.50.

10. 2015

    The original cover art sells at auction for $442,150, with Adams sharing in the proceeds.

11. May 20, 2020

    DC publishes a $3.99 facsimile edition.

12. Jun 11, 2020

    Denny O'Neil dies at 81.

13. Apr 28, 2022

    Neal Adams dies in New York at 80.

14. Aug 2025

    The census shows 29 copies at CGC 9.6 and two higher.

15. Sep 11, 2025

    A CGC 9.6 white-pages copy sells at auction.

The world in 1970

• Feb 18, 1970

  A jury acquits the Chicago Seven of conspiring to incite a riot.

• Mar 18, 1970

  Postal workers in New York go on strike, and the walkout spreads nationwide.

• Apr 1, 1970

  The 1970 census begins, counting 203,392,031 U.S. residents.

• Apr 13, 1970

  An oxygen tank explodes aboard Apollo 13; the crew returns safely four days later.

• Apr 22, 1970

  The first Earth Day is celebrated.

• May 4, 1970

  National Guardsmen kill four students at Kent State University.

• May 8, 1970

  The New York Knicks win their first NBA championship.

• Jun 22, 1970

  President Nixon signs a law lowering the voting age to 18.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Green Lantern #76 is number 49 of 100 in the comics entries of the FLOAT 100. 92 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (62 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The original cover art sold for $442,150, and Neal Adams endorsed the sale only after the owner agreed to share the money with him.
• The credits on the opening page are painted on the side of a delivery van.
• The issue was advertised for February 24, 1970, but copyright filings give February 19.
• Green Arrow was created in 1941, and Neal Adams gave him his famous beard in 1969.
• The Guardian who travels with the heroes was later given the name Appa Ali Apsa.
• The title was canceled two years after this issue despite the acclaim; the finale ran as a backup in The Flash.