The Green Lantern and his fellow Corpsmen are some of the greatest champions of good in all of DC Comics’ lore, and their vaunted Power Rings are often considered to be the most powerful weapons in the universe.

But every weapon has a weakness, and there are more than a few vulnerabilities that supposedly keep the Green Lantern from being too overpowered – but not all of these vulnerabilities stand up to his emerald will.

12 The Original G.L. Ring Couldn’t Work Against Wood

When he first wielded the power of the Starheart and donned the mantle of the Green Lantern, Golden Age icon Alan Scott’s ring had one specific vulnerability: it couldn’t affect wood. A somewhat quant weakness compared to today’s superheroic limitations, this still gave the green Lantern trouble against perennially present foes like the undead best, Solomon Grundy, a hulking zombie infused with the wood of the swamp from whence he came.

Ultimately, it was revealed that this limitation stemmed from Scott’s subconscious belief that he couldn’t affect the material, and Alan soon reasserted his status as one of DC’s strongest legends. But this information didn’t reveal itself until after the original Emerald Guardian spent years with this self-imposed Achilles’ heel.

11 They Can Only Make Green Constructs

It’s well known that the Green Lantern’s ring can create just about anything that its can envision using the green energy of will. While this one-color setting isn’t exactly a life-threatening limitation – and could originally be circumvented by Abin Sur’s ring – it does make stealth operations that much more difficult for the Green Lantern Corp, and naturally, Hal Jordan has found a way around it.

With his new Lantern ring detached from Oa’s Central Power Battery, it was revealed in Green Lantern #3 by Jeremy Adams, Xermánico, and Romulo Fajardo Jr. that the titular Lantern’s ring can once again create constructs of all colors by adjusting the constructs to refract light differently.

10 Their Constructs Are Weak To Sonic Attacks

A lesser known but no less deadly weakness of a Green Lantern ring is its vulnerability to vibrational and sonic-based attacks. Sufficiently powerful sonic blasts are capable of shattering Green Lantern constructs – either by sheer force or by disorienting the Lantern himself – and as such, put the Emerald guardians at somewhat of a disadvantage against any sound-based opponents.

A staple member of the Green Lantern Rogues’ Gallery, the villainous Sonar and all those who share his name have used their sonic technology exploit this specific weakness as an ever-present thorn in the sides of Oa’s Earth-based champions. But the Green Lanterns always find a way to overcome.

9 Red Lantern Energy Dissolves Green Lantern Constructs

A fan-favorite Corps of the Emotional Spectrum, the Red Lanterns of Rage have a major advantage over their emerald adversaries in that their own crimson energy is capable of dissolving the G.L.’s energy constructs and those of any other rival Corps. Taking the form of an acidic, explosive plasma, the Red Lanterns’ viscous vitriol serves as its wielders’ manifested rage and can burn through practically anything in its path, even within the cold vacuum of space.

A sufficiently willful Green Lantern can create constructs’ sufficiently durable against a Red Lantern’s assault, but not indefinitely – making each and every red Lantern a potentially life-ending threat should they come to blows.

8 The Ring Doesn't Work Against Yellow

The Green Lantern Ring’s most famous weakness is by far its vulnerability to the color yellow. Referred to as the Yellow Impurity, this Silver Age weakness was eventually retconned during Geoff Johns’ iconic run on the Green Lantern series as the result of the fear entity called Parallax’s imprisonment within the Central Power Battery on Oa.

Representing all Fear throughout existence, the Yellow Impurity can be overcome so long as a Green Lantern can accept and overcome their own fear. These days, it’s rarely a consideration for veteran of the Corps, but the wielders of the yellow Rings of Terror still present a unique danger to the DC Universe’s Emerald Guardians.

7 The Green Lantern Requires Consistent Charging

Incredibly powerful or not, the Green Lantern Power Ring is still a piece of technology, and as such, it needs to be charged every now and then. Upon the Corps’ initial debut, the Power Rings required a full charge every twenty-four hours using the sacred green lantern Oath.

After the fall of the Corps and the debut of Kyle Rayner, this rule was altered with the last surviving Green Lantern now forced to charge his ring only once its battery depleted rather than every twenty-four hours. Since Corps’ return following Green Lantern: Rebirth by Geoff Johns, Ethan Van Sciver, and more, this new charging protocol is the norm – making it more important than ever for a Green Lantern to watch how much power they’re using.

6 The Ring Can Totally Kill Its

The primary directive of a Green Lantern Ring is to protect its , but they can occasionally present as much of a threat to their wielders as any outside opposition. During their prototype stages, the first batch of Green Lantern rings lacked many of the safeguards they now have in place, with a capable of overloading their Ring with willpower and destroying themselves in the process.

It's also been shown in Batman #45 that a Lantern with sufficient willpower can use their Ring to take their own life when an alternate, Jokerized Hal Jordan wills it so. Luckily, this is rarely a consideration for most Lanterns, but it does prove just how dangerous these weapons really are.

5 A Green Lantern Requires Concentration & Imagination

A routine facet of the Green Lantern Ring is its need for intense concentration and creativity in order to use it to its fullest. In this sense, the Ring is only as powerful as its Green Lantern, and should a Green Lantern become unfocused – or should their concentration be disrupted by their adversaries – their constructs won’t be strong enough to maintain.

Imagination is just as important as concentration, as each Lantern must vividly imagine whatever they wish to create. The actual creativity of these constructs can vary from Lantern to Lantern, but it’s not the shape of the constructs that matter so much as it is the wielder’s dedication to its viridian verisimilitude.

4 The Green Lantern Relies On The Emotional Spectrum

The true power source of a Green Lantern – and all the Lantern Corps of the DC Universe – is the Emotional Spectrum. Comprised of the emotions of all sentient beings throughout the cosmos, this Spectrum is incredibly powerful, but it’s not infallible. And should the Spectrum be sufficiently disrupted, the abilities of all Lanterns’ will follow suit.

Any Green Lantern fully cut off from the Emotional Spectrum is essentially rendered powerless, but that’s not necessarily the worst thing for the cosmos. After all, the glut of Lanterns across all colors have led to a depletion of the Spectrums reservoir and threatened to destroy the universe on more than one occasion, and it’s only a matter of time before it happens again.

3 Green Lantern Rings Must Be Worn

One major vulnerability for so powerful a weapon is the fact that a Green Lantern Ring must actually be worn for it to be of any real use. A borderline sentient A.I., the Ring is capable of acting on its own on occasion in order to seek out new s or return to its former master, but a Lantern cannot will it to create a construct without physically wielding the Ring itself.

Should a Green Lantern’s finger be severed, that Lantern will then be essentially powerless until they are able to place the ring elsewhere on their physical form – otherwise, a Green Lantern ring will remain little more than an emerald alien accessory.