Alpha Lantern
The Alpha Lanterns are a group that features in Green Lantern.
Contents |
History
Origin
The Alpha Lanterns were cybernetic beings that were created by the Guardians of the Universe who saw the need for an internal affairs division for their Green Lantern Corps. This came in light after the Sinestro Corps War when the Book of Oa had been changed to include new rules which allowed the Green Lanterns to use lethal force against their enemies. To better control the use of this new power, the Oans selected a number of Green Lanterns with the honor of being bonded with cybernetic technology derived from the Manhunters in order to better their functionality. At least six officers were chosen for this new duty which included Boodikka, Chaselon, the Green Man, Krakken, Varix and John Stewart. Stewart, however, was uncomfortable with the idea of enforcing the new laws and rejected the offer much to the disapproval of the Guardians. Despite this setback, the other five agreed to take part in the cosmic surgery needed to transform them into cybernetic Alpha Lanterns where they had enhanced abilities such as the power to drain the energy from a Green Lantern. (Green Lantern v4 #27) Their first official mission saw them being deployed against Laira Omoto after she had killed Amon Sur for the murder of Ke'Haan's family. Laira had been suspended from active duty as a result of murdering the Sinestro Corps member Amon Sur. Boodikka personally stripped her of her rank, ring and badge. It was the decree of the Guardians that Laira be returned to her home planet of Jayd. (Green Lantern v4 #28) Boodikka was later sent on a mission to reprimand Green Lantern Harvid for his failure to capture the Sinestro Corps member Haasp the Hunter. Harvid pleaded his case to Boodikka, citing that Haasp was his brother, but Boodikka warned him that if she felt his loyalty to the Corps was in question, she would have him suspended. She was then sent to Sector 1414 to investigate the disappearance of several starships as well as the missing Green Lantern of that sector. She later encountered her former comrades in the Blood-Sisters of Bellatrix who were responsible for a number of criminal acts and delivered them to the Guardians for judgment. (Green Lantern Corps v2 #21)
During the Final Crisis, a Special Operations Alpha Lantern Unit was dispatched to Earth to investigate the death of the New God Orion. (Final Crisis v1 #1) The Green Man, Boodikka and Varix were sent to secure the crime scene while Kraken was assigned the task of analysing the remains. She went to the Hall of Justice where the Justice League of America had been keeping Orion's body locked in stasis. Kraken concluded that Green Lantern Hal Jordan was responsible for Orion's death and placed him under arrest. On Oa, Kraken accused Jordan of being a host to one of the New Gods of Apokolips, which was deemed infallible by the Book of Oa. However, Honor Guard Lanterns Kyle Rayner and Guy Gardner, Jordan's fellow Earth Lanterns, revealed that all communication with Earth was cut off and that Kraken herself was a host. The Guardians dismissed this as impossible. To their horror, Kraken then revealed that she was a host to Granny Goodness, and made a move for the Central Power Battery and injuring a Guardian in the process, but she was stopped by Hal Jordan. Though the Battery was undamaged and Jordan was cleared of all charges, the incident no doubt shook the Guardians; their primary fail-safe against the Blackest Night had proven fallible. (Final Crisis v1 #5)
During the Blackest Night, the Black Lantern Corps emerged into the cosmos with the Guardians of the Universe captured by one of their fallen comrades. At this time, the Black Lanterns began to attack Oa and sought to claim the Central Power Battery. Around this time, the Alpha Lanterns attempted to take leadership of the Green Lantern Corps where they claimed that only they could lead the Green Lanterns. However, Salaak showed a recording from the Guardians that designated himself as Clarissi who was meant to lead the Corps in times when the Guardians were again and after him it fell to the Illustres Honor Guard. This caused the Alpha Lanterns to stand down and fall in line with the other Green Lanterns. (Green Lantern Corps v2 #40)
Afterwards, the Guardians once again attempted to rebuild their Green Lantern Corps. In this time, the Alpha Lanterns were secretly subverted by Hank Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman, as part of his new agenda. Their first act was the establishment of Sector House Prime on Green Lantern Stel's homeworld of Grenda whilst at the same time they began bolstering their numbers by forcibly converting rookie Green Lanterns into new Alpha Lanterns cyborgs against their own will. One of the first to undergo this process was the Rookie Lantern Hraalkar who was kidnapped in the night by Varix and underwent cosmic conversion surgery to become a member of the Alpha Lantern Corps. Whilst attempting to locate his comrade, Rookie Lantern Glibberquip uncovered the conspiracy but the Alpha-Lanterns set their sights on turning him into one of their own as well. (Green Lantern Corps v2 #48) When Grenda went silent and without communication, Green Lantern Stel went to investigate but never returned nor reported back. Alpha Lantern Boodikka requested for the Guardians to order John Stewart to assist her in tracking down Stel due to the human's military expertise. Stewart and Boodikka clandestinely landed on Grenda's surface, where they discovered first the unauthorized Sector House and later a partially disassembled Stel along with Horoq Nnot, Green Lantern of Space Sector 885, who was being prepped for the conversion process. When Green Lanterns Ganthet, Kyle Rayner, and Soranik Natu also came investigating, they were betrayed by the new Alpha Lantern Horoq Nnot, who began draining their Power Rings. Meanwhile, John Stewart had been captured by the Alpha Lanterns and was being prepped for the conversion surgery. Ganthet managed to attack Sector House Prime providing a distraction in order to allow Kyle Rayner to escape with John Stewart. This came at the price of Ganthet's capture and his Power Ring was drained of its energy by the Cyborg Superman. (Green Lantern Corps v2 #52)
Following this chain of events, the Cyborg Superman revealed the true intention for his subversion of the Alpha Lanterns and luring Ganthet to Grenda. He had been informed that the knowledge of the Guardians was capable of reversing the cosmic surgery that turned the Alpha Lanterns into cyborgs and thus restore them to their original form. Thus, he intended to use this process as a means of restoring his own humanity and intended to use Ganthet to accomplish this goal. Ganthet, however, explained that the creation of the Alpha Lanterns had been done after he had departed the Guardians of the Universe thus he was unaware of what they had done to create them. But Hank Henshaw did not want to hear this response and instead ordered one of the Alpha Lanterns to kill himself which he did despite Ganthet's plea. The Cyborg Superman forced Ganthet to perform operations on the Alpha Lanterns in order to restore their organic forms. These experiments were filled with peril and every time Ganthet failed; Henshaw killed one of the Alpha Lanterns as a motivational factor for the former Guardian. The Alpha Lanterns continued their duty of protecting Henshaw whilst Ganthet was working on removing one of their integrated Power Battery's in order to return them to some semblance of their former life. At which point, a mass of over one billion native Grendans began converging on Sector House Alpha just as Ganthet had completed the procedure. This forced the Cyborg Superman to emerge and stem the rapidly approaching tide of Grendans with his mind whilst his Alpha Lanterns were swiftly defeated by Hannu. During this time, Alpha Lantern Boodikka had been freed from the Cyborg's control after her Power Battery was damaged and she was later repaired by John Stewart thus allowing her to turn against Alpha Prime. In the resultant battle, Henshaw's body was destroyed and he attempted to possess Alpha Lantern Boodikka but her willpower was strong enough to seemingly finally destroy the Cyborg's mind thus freeing the Alpha Lanterns Corps from his control. Afterwards, the repairs were conducted on the freed Alpha Lanterns in order to allow them to once again feel emotions and return to their service to the Guardians of the Universe. (Green Lantern Corps v2 #52)
In the shadows, the Guardians had secretly decided that their attempts at policing the cosmos had failed and intended to destroy the Green Lantern Corps in order to replace them with the Third Army. To partly achieve this goal, they allowed the Alpha Lanterns to gain access to footage to show that John Stewart had killed fellow Lantern Kirrt during the Keepers invasion. This led to them arresting Stewart and creating a public trial to determine his sentence. The act, however, alienated the Alpha Lanterns from the Green Lantern Corps who had come to resent the actions of the cyborgs. This trial was allowed to continue with John Stewart being held guilty with him being kept at a Sciencell but Guy Gardner rescued him with the aid of fellow Green Lanterns. Together, they battled the Alpha Lanterns who were single minded in their pursuit of punishing the guilty. As a result, the two Lanterns used scavenged Manhunter parts to create a force to battle the Alpha Lanterns with the rest of the Corps attacking the cyborgs. This led to the Alpha Lanterns using their control over the power batteries to drain them of their energy. However, one of their number known as Varix did not believe in the harsh punishments of his comrades and turned against them. Whilst disabled, the newly freed Stewart and Gardner proceeded to destroy the Alpha Lanterns with Varix terminating himself as he believed he along with his comrades had disgraced the Green Lantern Corps. Despite their actions in the Alpha War, the bodies of the Alpha Lanterns were interned within the Crypts of the Green Lanterns but were shown prior to their transformation in order for them to be remembered what they used to be instead of what they had become. The destruction of the Alpha Lanterns had pleased the Guardians as it removed another impediment to their plans at unleashing the Third Army.
Overview
Creation of one of these cyborgs required cosmic surgery whereby the body of the subject was turned into a mechanical being with the technology derived from the Manhunters. The core of an Alpha Lantern included a Power Battery with a direct link to the Central Power Battery. This meant that they required no Power Ring and their power was far greater than that of an ordinary Green Lantern. Beneath their faceplates was also a device commonly seen amongst Manhunters which was used to drain the Emotional Spectrum energy from a Lantern. Thus, Alpha Lanterns were able to drain the energy from any Lantern as well as cut a Green Lantern from the green light.
Their greater connection to the Power Rings allowed them to consult visual logs stored within the rings of the entirety of the Corps. This allowed them to replay events in order to determine guilt of an offender and the Alpha Lanterns were able to gather data from all 7200 rings which were able to be projected onto viewscreen constructs. An added ability was the capacity to remotely shut down Manhunters within range of an Alpha Lantern.
This involved the implantation of Manhunter technology in them that turned them into cyborgs. (Green Lantern Corps v2 #21) An aspect of their new forms allowed them to initiate self-repair systems and reboot cybernetic components after facing damage. (Green Lantern Corps v2 #22)
One feature that was added onto their systems was a Manhunter counter-measure that overrode their functional programming and deleted their memory banks causing their primary programs to shut down. (Green Lantern Corps v2 #21)
Due to their nature, they had no need to rest or recharge and did not show remorse for any action ordered by their superiors. (Green Lantern Corps v2 #21)
The Alpha Lanterns were based within their own structure on the planet Oa that served as their headquarters as well as a detention facility. This was the Chamber of the Alpha Lanterns that was a tall tower where the cyborgs gathered in order to consult and determine their next course of action. Should any Green Lantern be detained, they were kept in this tower for added security in order to prevent any rescue from their comrades.
Members
- Chaselon :
- Boodikka :
- Green Man :
- Varix : male member who participated in the Alpha War where he turned against his comrades which allowed the Green Lantern Corps to destroy the cyborgs. As the last Alpha Lantern, he terminated himself as he saw that he along with his cybernetic brethren had disgraced the Green Lanterns with their actions.
Notes
- The Alpha Lanterns were created by Geoff Johns and made their first appearance in Green Lantern v4 #27 (March, 2008).
- Grant Morrison in an interview on CBR said: "We wanted an FBI for the Green Lanterns, It became clear we needed an internal affairs for the GLC. Geoff took it and ran with it and made it this really creepy thing, it’s great."
In other media
Video games
- In DC Universe Online, the Alpha Lanterns made an appearance in the setting of the MMORPG video game where they served as allies of the heroes and Green Lantern Corps.
Appearances
- Green Lantern v4: (2008)
- Green Lantern Corps v2:
External Link
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