Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, with art by Montos.
Existing site character portrait; this is not a War Journal cover.
A complete run with a short prologue and epilogue
Commitment: twelve main issues, three short backup chapters, and an epilogue. Read the John Stewart backups in Green Lantern (2023) #1–3, then Green Lantern: War Journal #1–12, then the War Journal epilogue in Green Lantern (2023) #15. You do not need to interleave every Hal Jordan chapter to follow this route.
Volume 1: Contagion collects the backups from Green Lantern #1–3 and War Journal #1–6.
Volume 2: The Builder collects War Journal #7–12 and the epilogue from Green Lantern #15.
The two collections therefore supply the route without purchasing three full prologue issues and a full epilogue issue separately. This series has finished: DC labels #12, released August 21, 2024, as its final issue.
What you need to know about John
Prerequisites: John is an architect, a former Marine, and a veteran Green Lantern. Those three perspectives matter here: he can build, fight, and take responsibility for other people. His earlier Corps stories enrich the contrast, but the opening establishes his attempt to return to civilian life and the danger that interrupts it. DC's profile supplies that basic background.
For readers who want the immediately preceding John-focused run, Green Lantern (2021) and The Emerald Knight are useful context. They are optional preparation rather than a requirement to read decades of Lantern history. War Journal belongs to the main DC continuity of Dawn of DC; an important visitor comes from another universe, which does not make John's whole series an alternate-world story.
Family, construction, and cosmic horror
The starting tension is intimate: John wants a life at home, while Caolán Shepherd, a younger Lantern from another universe, seeks a version of him remembered as a great protector and builder. A contagious threat makes those expectations impossible to keep at a distance. The story places the scale of John's reputation beside the demands of caring for people close to him. DC's #1 description lays out this collision.
John's mother Shirley is central to the human stakes. Shepherd and the Revenant Queen connect those stakes to the wider cosmic conflict. Montos' art gives the run its distinctive mixture of domestic scenes and unsettling transformations. A useful question to carry through it is what “building” means when the things John wants to preserve are relationships and lives rather than physical structures. That is an interpretive reading cue, not a claim that all of his powers follow a single new rule.
Spoilers: the later family's role and final arc
The second collection expands the role of Ellie, the sister John has tried to bring back, and makes Shirley's survival part of the cosmic stakes. The final issue brings John Henry and Natasha Irons into the defense of Shirley and Metropolis against Star Shroud, while John faces Olgrun and the Old Gods. These are developments disclosed by DC's linked The Builder and #12 descriptions. Read the Green Lantern #15 epilogue after the numbered finale rather than treating #12 as the last page of this reading route.
Continue by interest
For John's beginning, visit Hard-Traveling Heroes and its inclusion of Green Lantern #87. For a separate complete science-fiction mystery, try Far Sector. For the franchise after this run, use the dated current-era guide; the later Corps series is its own launch, not War Journal #13.
Scope: the completed War Journal run and its bookends. Collection contents and status checked November 4, 2026.
Artwork credits (1 image)
Credits refer to the illustrations shown here. Open a record for sources, adaptations and unresolved details. Some artwork and source pages contain story spoilers.
John Stewart — Dark Nights: Death Metal #4 (2020), Stanley “Artgerm” Lau John Stewart variant cover, cropped detail. Stanley “Artgerm” Lau (cover art and colors).
Books & collectibles
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