In 1985-1987, Alan Moore wrote three short Green Lantern stories for DC. All three were about various Green Lanterns who were not the major characters starring in the books at the time, allowing Moore to come up with whatever crazy sci-fi stories he wanted. Recently Geoff Johns and Dave Gibbons have latched onto Moore’s stuff, making them very important works to the current Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps titles. Johns’s backup story about Sinestro Corpsman Despotellis is a straight riff on the Mogo story, the villains from Tygers have all been introduced, Mogo has been given a recurring role in Green Lantern Corps, and the prophecy told to Abin Sur is starting to occur.
The three stories have recently been collected (along with For the Man Who Has Everything and Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, considered to be some of the best Superman stories ever told, and seminal Joker story The Killing Joke) in the DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore trade paperback. 4ColorHeroes also has the original issues for sale at reasonable prices.
Scans Daily has copies of all three stories if you want to read them: Tygers, from Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual 2 is here, and Mogo Doesn’t Socialize and In Blackest Night are here, from Green Lantern 188 and Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual 3, respectively. I’m probably going to pick up the trade paperback at some point, but the scans serve as a nice preview of Moore’s mainstream stuff.
While I was poking around Scans Daily, I also found this post showing how a one panel throwaway scene in Green Lantern 22 references a story from eleven years ago. None of this is stuff you had to know to follow the plot, but I love that the creators are going back through the older books and picking out these little gems.