- Guardian #1: We are grateful for your help, but there is much work for you on your home planet, Green Lantern of sector 2-8-1-4.
- The Green Lantern aka Kyle Rayner: No offense, but you guys can't be serious. There must be someone better suited for the job, like him.
- [indicates Superman]
- Guardian #1: The ring has chosen you, Kyle Rayner.
- The Green Lantern aka Kyle Rayner: But I'm just an artist. I doodle in the margins of notepads, I daydream about color and form, and monster trucks. I live half my life in a fantasy world.
- Superman: You sound perfect.
- Sinestro: You can't stop me, Green Lantern, I never give up!
- Green Lantern: You never shut up, either.
- The Green Lantern aka Kyle Rayner, Guardian #1, Guardian #2: [placing his power ring in the glowing center of the power battery, Kyle sees the faces of the Guardians who recite with him the oath of the Green Lantern Corps as he recharges his ring] In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power--Green Lantern's Light!
- Sinestro: And I thought I was going to have to come looking for you.
- Green Lantern: Do I know you?
- Sinestro: The name's Sinestro. You have something I want.
- Green Lantern: [conjuring a shield to protect himself from Sinestro's attack] Are you nuts?
- Sinestro: Give me the ring!
- Green Lantern: There's one little problem. We've sort of become attached.
- [blocking another attack, then firing green goop at Sinestro]
- Sinestro: What?
- Green Lantern: Ever have gum in your hair? Takes forever to get it out.
- Green Lantern: All right, you win.
- Sinestro: The ring.
- [taking it and putting it on]
- Sinestro: Ha! At last. What?
- [it blows up in his face]
- Green Lantern: Fake-out!
- Jimmy Olsen: How do you think this stuff up, Kyle? It's awesome.
- Kyle Rayner: You're a one-man fan club, Jimmy.
- Jimmy Olsen: Huh?
- Kyle Rayner: [handing over rejection letters] Read 'em and weep. I did.
- Jimmy Olsen: "Dear, Mr. Rayner. Thank you for submitting your portfolio..."
- Kyle Rayner: Yada, yada, yada, "shows talent," yada yada yada, "nothing at this time." They all say pretty much the same thing: "don't quit your day job at the Planet, kid."
- Jimmy Olsen: Hey, listen. You know how many photos of mine Perry's rejected? He's even threatened to take away my camera.
- [a robber grabs said camera and runs off]
- Jimmy Olsen: Hey!
- [throwing a wine bottle, Kyle hits the robber in the back of the knee, which knocks him headfirst into a mailbox]
- Kyle Rayner: [catching the camera before it hits the ground] Quarterback at Metro High. You didn't stand a chance.
- Guardian #2: Abin? Abin Sur?
- Guardian #1: No, it's the Kryptonian.
- Guardian #2: We are the Guardians of the Universe.
- Guardian #1: Welcome to Oa, Superman. Unfortunately, your arrival confirms our worst fears. Abin Sur, Green Lantern of Sector 2814, is dead.
- Green Lantern: You sure about this?
- Superman: The Guardians called the lantern the battery. It's the source of the ring's power.
- Green Lantern: How does it work?
- Superman: You'd better figure it out.
- [seeing Sinestro approaching]
- Superman: And fast.
- Sinestro: Stand back.
- Superman: I'm afraid your friend is...
- Sinestro: Abin Sur was no friend of mine.
- [using his ring to x-ray Abin's ship]
- Sinestro: He hid the lantern, but he couldn't have hidden the ring. Where is it?
- Superman: I don't know what...
- Sinestro: [blasting him backward] The power ring. Give it to me.
- [blasting Superman again, then conjuring items with which to throw him around]
- Sinestro: You will give me the ring!
- Superman: [pulling up a tree by the roots] I don't know what you're talking about!
- Sinestro: [conjuring a saw blade to cut the tree in half] No?
- [conjuring shackles and blasting Superman backward again]
- Sinestro: You really don't have it. But I *will* find that ring. They won't stop me. They can't! How pathetic that Abin would entrust the ring to brutes like these.
- Perry White: There you are. I've been looking all over. Are you okay?
- Kyle Rayner: Uh, yeah, sure.
- Perry White: Well, you'd better be. I need drawings of the shuttle. Front-page spreads, cross-sections, burn areas, wing damage, the whole enchilada. Rayner, are you with me?
- Kyle Rayner: [distracted by the power ring] Uh, sure, chief. Front-page, enchilada.
- Perry White: Then what are you still doing here?
- [derisively, as Kyle leaves]
- Perry White: Artists.
- Abin Sur: [sending his power ring off on its mission] Must keep safe. Go, find another. Choose carefully. Choose well.
- [as it travels around Metropolis, it eventually ends up in the Daily Planet and hits Kyle on the side of the head]
- Kyle Rayner: Ow!
- [picking it up, he checks the stalls and sees they're empty]
- Kyle Rayner: That's weird. Someone's been eating Cracker Jacks.
- Sinestro: I could have been the greatest Green Lantern ever. That's why the Guardians were afraid of me! Why they took my ring away! They never imagined I would return to destroy them all.
- Perry White: Have you seen Kyle Rayner?
- Lois Lane: Yeah, chief. He was heading to the one place in this world even my credentials won't get me in.
- [cut to the outside of the men's bathroom]
- Lois Lane: No matter how many times I see this, I still get goosebumps.
- Clark Kent: Just a routine landing.
- Lois Lane: Yeah, right. How many times have you flown around the moon, Smallville?
- Jimmy Olsen: [taking pictures after Kyle stops a robber] Page one, for sure.
- Kyle Rayner: [dissolve to his cubicle at the Planet] No page one, huh?
- Jimmy Olsen: Not even the classifieds. But you're still a hero in my book.
- Kyle Rayner: Meantime, I'm drawing soap.
- Guardian #1: The Green Lantern Corps exists to promote order and justice throughout the universe. Recruits from all sentient interplanetary species have answered our call.
- Guardian #2: We have entrusted each Green Lantern with a great power. A power which all have used wisely. All but one.
- Superman: Sinestro?
- Guardian #1: When we determined that he was unfit to wield the power, we removed it.
- Guardian #2: But he found another source.
- Guardian #1: Abin Sur was not the first of his victims. And with each ring he destroys, Sinestro gains power.
- Guardian #2: No Green Lantern can defeat him alone. He needs you, Superman.
- Guardian #1: Help him. Help the Green Lantern.
- Sinestro: Give me the ring!
- Green Lantern: I can't get it off.
- Sinestro: I will. After your death.
- Green Lantern: Wait! Don't you want to talk first? You know, banter back and forth to show me your innate superiority?
- Sinestro: No.