Kid Lantern: Origin
In another life, young Wally West dreamed of leaving his problems behind by running with the Flash. With just a slight change, he instead dreams of flying away to the stars with Green Lantern. His parents try their best to “bring him down to Earth”-- or at least, that’s how they justify it-- but Wally is encouraged not to lose hope by his beloved aunt Iris. Several years later, he will discover that his father has secretly been a member of the Manhunter cult since before Wally was even born. But that's a story for another day.
When Iris is assigned to interview Carol Ferris, the new acting-CEO of Ferris Aircraft, Wally begs her to take him with her to Coast City in the hopes of seeing his favorite superhero in person. Wally meets Hal Jordan and quickly takes a liking to the cool pilot, who claims to also be a fan of Green Lantern. Wally tells Hal that his greatest wish is to be Green Lantern's partner, even for just one day.
Carol offers to take them all to lunch after the interview. As they're leaving the restaurant and walking back to the car, they happen across a bank-robbery in progress-- the latest in a wave of attempted robberies committed by random people with no prior criminal history who all claim they weren't in control of their actions. The robber runs down the street with a bag full of money but Hal tackles him before he can escape. Hal easily wins the ensuing fistfight, until a second robber bashes him over the head and pulls a gun on him while he’s lying dazed on the ground. Thinking quickly, Wally grabs a wrench from the back of a nearby truck and uses it to open a fire-hydrant. The spraying water knocks down both crooks, allowing Hal to disarm and restrain them until the police arrive. Hal gratefully tells Wally that he "owes him one."
Early the next morning, Wally and Iris are shocked when a duplicate of Green Lantern's ring flies into their hotel room. It tells them that Green Lantern needs a partner for the day and that Wally has been chosen as the most worthy candidate. Wally eagerly puts on the ring and transforms his pajamas into a child-sized Green Lantern uniform, complete with mask. They meet up with Green Lantern himself and, after being shown that the ring automatically shields its wearer from harm, Iris agrees to let Wally spend the day with his hero. For Wally, it's a literal dream come true.
They patrol the city, working together to stop a few crimes and prevent several accidents and disasters. Wally asks if they can go to space, but is interrupted when an alarm goes off at another bank. Green Lantern and Wally arrive to find that this time, to their dismay, the attempted robbers are none other than Iris and Carol. They safely contain the two women until the mysterious force controlling them wears off, then vouch for their innocence to the police.
Green Lantern and Wally decide to investigate, but as soon as they leave the bank, Green Lantern suddenly changes his mind and tells Wally to go back to the hotel to wait for Iris. Realizing that something suspicious is going on, Wally plays along but continues to follow Green Lantern at a distance. The hypnotized Green Lantern leads Wally to the lair of a supervillain calling himself the Puppeteer, who is revealed to be the mastermind behind the crime wave. Wally is attacked by the Puppeteer’s giant robot, but Green Lantern’s legendary willpower allows him to break free of the villain’s mind-control and leap to his young ally’s aid. The two ring-slinging heroes bring the Puppeteer to justice and ensure that his victims are declared innocent of any wrongdoing they committed while under his control.
Though the team-up was only supposed to last one day, Green Lantern is so impressed that he decides to let Wally keep the duplicate ring and become his partner on a more permanent basis. In return, Wally promises to never use the ring for personal gain and to keep both of their identities secret. Green Lantern then removes his mask, revealing that he and the cool pilot Wally befriended the day before are one and the same.
Carefully avoiding any details that might connect her nephew to Green Lantern’s new sidekick, Iris writes the article that introduces the world to “Kid Lantern.” For the next few months, between school and flying out to Coast City for training and missions with his mentor, Kid Lantern uses his ring to help people and solve problems around his hometown. He gets to meet several other superheroes he has admired for years-- including the Flash, who Wally is shocked to learn is actually Iris's fiance, Barry Allen. But that's a story for another day.
Wally has his first run-in with Sinestro after the renegade ex-Green Lantern captures Hal and imprisons him on the planet Qward. As soon as Hal is transported across dimensions to the Antimatter universe, the connection between his and Wally's rings is severed. Unfortunately, Kid Lantern happens to be flying when his ring suddenly vanishes, causing him to plummet helplessly to the Earth below. He is saved by the Guardians and brought to Oa.
The Guardians decide to grant Wally a unique ring of his own, which is colored blue instead of green. Although the new ring is weaker overall, it can synergize with any nearby Green Lantern ring to make them both much more powerful together than they would be apart. It also lacks any weakness to the color yellow, making it the perfect counter to Sinestro’s yellow power ring. Kid Lantern uses his new ring to free Green Lantern and they easily defeat Sinestro. Wally is inspired by this incident to create a new costume for himself.
With his new, more iconic costume and special blue ring, Kid Lantern soon becomes a founding member of the Teen Titans alongside several other young heroes: including his adopted cousin Roy Harper (Speedy, sidekick of the Flash) and Dick Grayson (Robin, sidekick of Green Arrow). But that's a story for another day.
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The concept of Wally as Kid Lantern comes from Flash/Green Lantern: the Brave & the Bold #2, which is also the source of both the image at the top of the post and the one that I edited directly above. This story’s plot also takes inspiration from Green Lantern Vol. 2 #13 (Iris is assigned to interview someone in Coast City), The Flash Vol. 2 #62 (ten-year-old Wally uses a fire-hydrant to save his favorite superhero), Green Lantern Vol. 2 # 1 (the Puppeteer-- called the Puppet-Master in this issue-- hypnotizes people into committing crimes for him), Green Lantern Vol 2. #18 (Hal is captured by Sinestro and taken to the Antimatter universe), and The Flash Vol 1. #135 (Wally's costume change).
The blue ring is obviously a reference to the Blue Lantern Corps. Within the fiction of this AU, the Blue Lanterns were based on Wally (who changes his moniker to Blue Lantern at around age 20) in the same way that the Sinestro Corps and Star Sapphire Corps were based on preexisting characters.
The rest of the sidekick swaps are based around what would make their superhero aliases "make sense". Speedy actually has super-speed as the sidekick of the Flash. Robin, whose name and costume were inspired by Robin Hood, is the sidekick of Green Arrow. And although she wasn’t mentioned, Batgirl is the first and most iconic sidekick of Batman.
I’ve been slowly making my way through some of the comics, but there’s still so much out there that I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface. As such, most of my knowledge of the source material comes from the DC Wiki and TV Tropes. If anyone wants to expand on this idea, or take the basic concept and go in a different direction with it, etc, please feel free.
