Lanterns Episode 3 introduces the Guardians of the Universe, with one Guardian played by Laura Linney in human form. Her name is Lianna.
Lianna, the Guardian played by Laura Linney
The Guardians are the creators of the Green Lantern corps. They are ancient all-knowing beings who protect the universe and set the rules for the Lanterns. The subtitles of the show confirmed the Guardian played by Laura Linney is named “Lianna”. She is blue in appearance similar to other Guardians, who can all differ in appearance.
In the comics, Lianna is not a Guardian, but she is a second-generation Guardian child who is born when Kyle Rayner reignited the Central Power Battery on Oa. The Maltusians are the ancient species that the Gurians descended form. Lianna is a Maltusian that was raised by Ganthet, and later joined the Omega Men. She doesn’t usually look like a Guardian in the comics but is the same species.
Other Guardians in the show
The man disguised as an art school teacher, who gives John Stewart the ring, may also be a Guardian. The character, played by Sergio Lanza, reveals that they have been watching John, “they” referring to the Guardians presumably. If he has access to a ring, and can create a portal for John to visit the Guardian Lianna, hhe is likely a Guardian as well.
Who are the Guardians in the comics?
The Guardians first appeared in Green Lantern #1 (1960), created by John Broome and Gil Kane. They descend from the Maltusians, one of the universe’s first intelligent races. When one of their own, the renegade scientist Krona, performed a forbidden experiment to witness creation, he unleashed evil (and, in some tellings, the Multiverse itself) upon reality. Vowing to atone, the Maltusians became the Guardians and built the Corps, while their female counterparts departed to become the Zamarons.
Over decades their rigidity curdled into tyranny. In modern stories they purged emotion entirely, tried to replace the Corps with the robotic Manhunters and the “Third Army,” and were ultimately cast as villains — most of them wiped out in 2013’s Wrath of the First Lantern.
Notable Guardians in the comics
Ganthet
The most beloved of the Guardians, who broke from the others’ cold dogma to embrace emotion. He personally saved the dying Corps more than once and was instrumental in restoring Hal Jordan and rebuilding the Corps after its fall.
Sayd
Ganthet’s partner in defiance and, eventually, in love. Cast out alongside him, the two founded the hope-powered Blue Lantern Corps together.
Krona
The renegade scientist whose curiosity started it all. Obsessed with witnessing the dawn of creation, he built a machine to peer back to the beginning of time, a forbidden act the Guardians warned would be catastrophic. The experiment shattered the timestream, and in various tellings introduced evil into the universe, birthed the Multiverse, and helped spawn the Anti-Monitor. His fellow Maltusians exiled him and founded the Corps to atone for what he’d loosed. Reborn again and again across the ages, Krona endured as one of the Green Lanterns’ most dangerous and personal foes.
Scar
A Guardian corrupted by death during Blackest Night, who betrayed her own kind and served the Black Lantern rising.
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