i wouldnt say Alan scott was lesser known. Just more old school.
He's the original Green Lantern, period.
I met his creator on 3 occasions before he died and believe me, he never intended for Alan to end up the way he is now.
(I can imagine his son isn't crazy about the changes, either...)
I accept that the 52 Alan Scott is another version of the character BUT he's not the original Green Lantern character. He's a badly thought-out revamp by a writer who has a mixed past history and a political agenda which is not a great recipe for long-term success...
And by the way, for a company that's wanting to introduce "ethnic diversity" (plug in in your favorite, politically correct cause into an existing character but make sure you completely destroy the legacy first!) into its line, the worst thing they could have done beyond bringing back Vibe ("DC's Dazzler") is making a gay character with "
flaming green" powers!
The decision to do this was all at the behest of the writer of the new "Earth-2" comic book, James Robinson. Robinson hasn't had a great track record lately writing comics but he is a big rights advocate even at the expense of introducing controversy where it doesn't belong and retconning characters instead of creating new ones.
The E-2 retcon is dumb to begin with because it does away with so much rich DC History...
DC doesn't have a World War II era anymore and all these characters who were mentors and teachers for the JLA-era and beyond are now being recast as contemporaries....
... and if people thought the original JLA costumes were bad (I disagree-- they're classic Golden Age designs), the new Jim Lee-crew designs are godawful and "very 1990s". The worst aspects of the Image-style super characters are scribed all over those designs.
I'd hope for a return of common sense to the way DC heritage is handled but you shouldn't expect it with the knuckleheads in charge right now... and unfortunately, many fans are still collecting this swill because "they have to keep their collections intact!"
You have to go off the official DC sites, btw, to read ANY criticism of editorial and the direction DC is taking now. You just won't find it on those sites and many of the news sites that depend on DC news script releases (Comic Book Resources, Newsarama, etc.). "Everybody" seems to think 52 is a great way to restart/reboot an ENTIRE comic book publishing line!