Comic Title: Secret Origins #18
Publisher: DC
Cover Date: September 1987
On Sale Date: June 9, 1987 Newsstand Date June 9, 1987
Source: DC Releases, #40

Newsstand Date June 9, 1987
Source: Amazing Heroes, #118

Shipping Date May 19, 1987
Source: Amazing Heroes, #118

Newsstand Date June 9, 1987
Source: Comics Buyers Guide, #702, #704

Copyright Date May 19, 1987
Source: Library of Congress, Copyright Office 1987
DC publication dates beyond April 1981 listed by the LoC
represent shipping dates NOT newsstand sale dates

Shipping Date May 19, 1987
Source: Comics Buyers Guide, #702, #704

Cover Price: $1.25
Page Count: 48
Editor: Greg Weisman

Title: "The Tale of the Green Lantern"
Pages: 22

Feature(s):
Green Lantern (Alan Scott Post-Crisis)

Writer: Roy Thomas
Artist: George Freeman
Letterer: Jean Simek (Izzo)
Colorist: Anthony Tollin

Reprinted In:
Last Days of the Justice Society of America TPB (2017)

Feature Character(s)

• Green Lantern (earliest chronological appearance; next appearance in Secret Origins #31)

Supporting Character(s)

• Irene Miller (earliest chronological appearance; next appearance in All-Star Squadron #67)

Villain(s)

• Several villagers (no further appearances)
• Albert Dekker and his men (Dekker dies in this story; no further appearances)
• Bart Murdock and his men (Murdock dies in this story; no further appearances)

Other Character(s)

• Chang (a lampmaker; dies in this story; no further appearances)
• Billings (a mental patient; no further appearances)
• Mrs. Smythe and Joe (a philathropist and a guard; no further appearances)
• Jimmy Henton (a friend of Alan Scott; dies in this story; no further appearances)
• Danny Miller (Irene's brother; no further appearances)
• Homer Wake and his daughter (no further appearances)

Cameo Appearance(s)

• Guardians of the Universe (in flashback to the creation of the Starheart)
• Green Lantern Corps (in flashback to their creation)

Comments:
This story is an adaptation of All-American Comics #16 and All-American Comics #18.

Billings is said to reside in Arkham Asylum in the 1930s. However, Arkham was not founded at that time. It is possible that the asylum was simply a precursor to the modern day Arkham.

Synopsis:
Billions of years in the past the Guardians of the Universe gathered the magic in the universe and formed the Starheart. A piece of the meteor broke off and landed on Earth where it was found by a chinese lampmaker. When he was killed by superstitious villagers, the meteor, now in the form of a lamp, brought death to those responsible.

Over the years the lamp switched hands many times and was eventually given to a mental patient, Billings, who fashioned the lamp into a train lantern. The lantern then restored his mind, allowing Billings to leave the asylum.

The lantern was then used in a train in the American west. When that train crashed in a bridge explosion, the lantern was found by Alan Scott, the engineer who designed the bridge. He discovers that a rival named Dekker had destroyed the bridge. The lantern spoke to Scott and instructed him to create a ring of power which enabled him to bring Dekker to justice. Alan then became a super-hero, the Green Lantern.

A short time later at the World's Fair in New York, Alan met Irene Miller who told Alan that her brother was falsely imprisoned and framed by Bart Murdock. Green Lantern stops Murdock's men during a robbery, then rescues a judge's daughter whom Murdock has kidnapped. Murdock and Green Lantern then battle atop the Perisphere. When Murdock slips, he falls to his death, but not before admitting that Danny Miller was framed.