New Guardians #1

Oh! There's Kyle!

New Guardians doesn't tell us when in the New 52 timeline it occurs. It doesn't say NOW or TEN YEARS HENCE or SIXTEEN YEARS AGO or LAST CONTINUITY or anything that explains anything. But Ganthet has a pony tail so it either takes place before Green Lantern #1 or long enough after Green Lantern #1 for Ganthet to regrow his ponytail. But all of the other Guardians who cut off his pony tail seem to be dead. So that means this takes place either before all of the Guardians were reborn as babies or, again, long enough after Green Lantern #1 for Ganthet to regrow his pony tail.
Ganthet has one last power ring to give up and it looks like it's going to end up in Kyle's hands. And since Guy Gardner mentions Kyle in Green Lantern Corps, this comic must take place in the past. A past that old readers probably recognize but I can barely remember except in bits and pieces.

After Ganthet gives the ring to Kyle, the comic gives us a Present Day notation and changes locales to Space Sector 422. Thanks for that! Good job, Tony Bedard, making a bold proclamation about the history of the Guardians of Oa and the creation of the Kyle Green Lantern but not giving us a time stamp for it. Way to weasel out of your responsibility to DC Continuity!

Jonni DC, Continuity Cop says, "Well, I guess I can't fine you for this. But I've got my eye on you!"

With Kyle being chosen like this, it's looking more and more like Superman was actually killed by Doomsday in this continuity as well. I guess it make sense. Batman apparently died and came back, so Final Crisis seems to be canon. I'm starting to suspect DC hasn't changed anything except the numbers on the front of the books! And Firestorm!

Off in Sector 422, we see that Sinestro, the grand and empathic chap he is, has created his rings so that they can decommission an active Sinestro Corps member whenever the ring finds a better replacement. Boy, that should keep everyone on their toes! Or whatever piece of alien physiology acts like a toe.

But then we see a Red Lantern who suffers the same fate. So it must be a general ability of the rings. But didn't Sinestro make the Yellow Rings himself? Maybe he just took credit. Or maybe I'm mistaken and should be checking Snopes for Sinestro's Ring.

A rash of decommissionings happens across the universe to all of the various colored Lanterns. All of the replacements seem to be in Earth's sector so the Lantern Rings head off to LanternCon 2011. Probably in Geneva. Um, I mean San Diego! I channeled the wrong kind of nerd there for a second.

Oh, I guess it's in New York!

For some reason, a bunch of rings have malfunctioned (or are functioning properly?) and have chosen Kyle Raynor as their Lantern. So Kyle Raynor has just become the Rainbow Lantern!

Except that awesomeness doesn't happen at all. Instead the comic ends with a great big brawl about to happen.