War of Light

The War of Light is a conflict that features in DC Comics.

History

Origin

The War of Light was an intergalactic conflict that erupted in the universe.

In the years to come, Abin Sur would meet his fate: transporting Atrocitus to Earth to locate the source of the Black, Abin Sur was mortally wounded when Atrocitus escaped his confines. Crashing his ship in the desert outside Coast City, his ring selected Hal Jordan as his replacement. Hal would be mentored under Sinestro, who helped him defeat Hector Hammond, a scientist who gained telepathic and telekinetic abilities when he was exposed to a radioactive meteorite in Abin Sur's ship. Sinestro and Hal would soon reimprison Atrocitus, as he was attempting to kill young William Hand, the future criminal known as Black Hand and foretold source of the Black. But Hal, with the help of Katma Tui, would later expose Sinestro's order on Korugar as instilling fear into the Korugarans. Sinestro would be expelled from the Corps and banished to Qward, and Katma was selected to be the new Green Lantern of Sector 1417. In Qward, Sinestro met the Anti-Monitor and formed a Qwardian Power Ring, which used yellow energy, actually the yellow light of fear of the emotional spectrum. As time went on, two other Earthmen were recruited into the Corps, John Stewart and Guy Gardner. John and Katma would grow close, and eventually marry. But Hal would not know much peace. His lover, Carol Ferris, was selected to be the bearer of the Star Sapphire Gem, a parasitic crystal which contained the violet light of love, cultivated by the Zamarons, who left Oa eons ago over the Guardians decision to suppress emotions. The gem took over Carol and caused several psychological problems for her, culminating in the murder of Katma Tui. Carol's relationship with Hal was never the same.

In time, the Anti-Monitor would eventually try to consume the multiverse, but the Green Lanterns, along with the heroes of Earth, destroyed him in an event known as the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Sinestro was captured and placed within the Central Power Battery. Within the Battery, Sinestro awakened Parallax, the yellow impurity in the Central Power Battery, and directed him toward Hal. When the Cyborg Superman and Mongul I destroyed Coast City in an attempt to tarnish the legacy of Hal's late comrade Superman, Parallax finally gained a real foothold in Jordan. It guided Hal to destroy the Green Lantern Corps, fighting his fellow Green Lanterns along the way, including his former trainer Kilowog and an energy replica of Sinestro. Finally, Jordan absorbed the energy in the Central Power Battery, killed all the Guardians save Ganthet, and freed Parallax, who suppressed Ganthet's memories of him. Seeking someone to keep the green flame burning, Ganthet selected Kyle Rayner to became the last Green Lantern. His initial acquiring of the ring brought Kyle some grief, as his girlfriend, Alexandra DeWitt, was murdered by Major Force, who was sent by a rogue government agency to steal the ring. Hal was later able to briefly overcome Parallax and die restoring the sun and becoming the host of the Spectre. After absorbing the remaining Green energy in the sun, coupled with a temporary merging with Ion, Kyle recharged the battery and restored the Guardians and Kilowog to life.

Soon afterward, Kyle learned the truth about Parallax, and Ganthet sent Kyle to reclaim his body while he moved to separate Parallax from Hal. At the same time, Parallax was gaining control over the Spectre, and he disintegrated Black Hand's right hand after he tried to steal an old power ring Hal had left with his old friend Green Arrow. Soon, the Spectre revealed Parallax's presence to Hal, who suppressed both minds, while Kyle Rayner told what he had discovered to Green Arrow. Sinestro then attacked Kyle and Green Arrow, to prevent them from informing the other heroes of Earth as Parallax planned to destroy the planet. However, Parallax's revelation was his undoing. Now that he was aware of Parallax, Jordan, with the Spectre's help, separated himself from Parallax, and was restored to life by Ganthet. After driving off Sinestro, Hal, Kyle, John, Guy, and Kilowog defeated Parallax and reimprisoned him in the Central Battery. Deciding that it was time, Ganthet aged the Guardians to adulthood and set about restoring the Green Lantern Corps. At the same time, Black Hand and Hector Hammond were experimented on by the Kroloteans, an alien race which tried to accelerate evolution. The Kroloteans gave Hand the ability to absorb the lifeforce of others to restore his severed hand, while Hammond's ability to speak was restored. Sinestro, however, bided his time and waited.

War of Light

Following the Infinte Crisis, the multiverse was reborn, and the Anti-Monitor with it. On Qward, Sinestro and the Anti-Monitor worked to build the Sinestro Corps, a force which would bring order to the universe by instilling fear. At the same time, the Cyborg Superman, now Grandmaster of the Manhunter Cult, learned of the multiverse. He was captured following Biot's destruction, and interrogated by the Guardians. Ganthet and another Guardian, Sayd, believed that the Blackest Night was coming to pass, but the Guardians exiled them from the Council. Kyle, who had been rebonded with Ion, was captured, separated from Ion, and made a host for Parallax. Hal Jordan and his fellow Earth Lanterns, Guy Gardner and John Stewart, went to Qward to rescue him, but were forced to leave with Ion. Knowing the prophecy, Sinestro allied with Ranx and the Children of the White Lobe, launched an attack on Mogo under his lieutenant Arkillo. Kilowog lead a counter-force, including a rookie Sodam Yat. Succumbing to fear, the Guardians rewrote the Book of Oa and authorized the Green Lanterns to use lethal force against the Sinestro Corps, which had been Sinestro's goal all along. Informed of their new abilities, a number of Green Lanterns began slaughtering the panicking Sinestro Corps, while Sodam Yat managed to destroy Ranx. The Sinestro Corps targeted Earth, but Jordan was able to free Rayner, and Parallax was imprisoned in the batteries of the Earth Lanterns by Ganthet and Sayd. The two told the Lanterns of the Blackest Night, then departed. During the battle, the Anti-Monitor was challenged by the Guardians, but he managed to burn one of the Guardians during their battle. He was injured when Stewart and Gardner threw Warworld, carrying the Qwardian Central Power Battery, on the Anti-Monitor, who was caught in the explosion. Superboy-Prime then betrayed the Anti-Monitor, and threw him across the universe. After the battle of Earth, Ganthet and Sayd decided to form the Blue Lantern Corps, which would aid the Green Lanterns by harnessing the blue light of hope. The Anti-Monitor landed on an unknown planet in Sector 666, where he was contained by an unknown force and placed with a Black Central Power Battery.

The cosmic multi-factional conflict known as the War of Light formally escalated when the Alpha Lanterns, acting under the strict legal decree of the Guardians of the Universe, executed the captured Green Lantern rogue Sinestro on the prison world of Oa. This high-profile execution instantly shattered the fragile intergalactic truce, prompting the immediate mobilization of the Red Lantern Corps under the absolute command of the vengeful entity Atrocitus. Armed with blood-magic rituals and a burning rage, the Red Lanterns launched a brutal, direct ambush against the Green Lantern transport escort fleet in the deep sectors of space, systematically slaughtering the guards to abduct Sinestro for their own torturous execution. Simultaneously, the newly formed Blue Lantern Corps, powered by the emotional spectrum of pure hope, emerged from the remote world of Odym to intervene in the growing chaos, attempting to soothe the volatile rage of the Red Lanterns with their soothing blue constructs. The early weeks of this cosmic era were defined by widespread structural damage to interstellar trade routes as the colored lights of the emotional spectrum began violently clashing across multiple star systems. (Green Lantern v4 #36)

The geopolitical landscape of the universe fractured entirely as the separate emotional factions began aggressively fortifying their sovereign home sectors, leading to a state of permanent total war across the galaxy. The Star Sapphires, operating from their ancestral planet of Zamaron, launched a series of high-stakes containment operations, utilizing their violet crystal structures to forcibly encase and psychologically brainwash captured Yellow Lanterns into adopting the ideology of universal love. This domestic enforcement program drew the immediate, violent retaliation of the Sinestro Corps vanguard, who launched a massive, coordinated planetary counter-offensive that systematically shattered Zamaron's primary defensive networks. Meanwhile, on Earth, the individual light signatures began to manifest in localized skirmishes, as the rogue Guardian Scar covertly manipulated the administrative protocols of the Green Lantern Central Power Battery to systematically weaken Oa's orbital defense grids from within, driving the universe closer to absolute demographic collapse. (Green Lantern v4 #42)

Following the end of the Sinestro Corps War, the Guardians, under the leadership of the increasingly militant Scarred Guardian, began to take steps they deemed necessary to prevent the Blackest Night. They extended the lethal force authorization to be used against all enemies of the Green Lantern Corps. Additionally, the Guardians established the Alpha Lantern Corps, an internal affairs force which would investigate the Green Lanterns. Although the Guardians said that those who accepted would have to leave behind their former lives and accept technological modifications to mainline them to the Book of Oa, they did not reveal the extent of their transformation: the Alpha Lanterns were modified to have aspects of the Manhunters, and their emotions were completely supressed or stripped. Their first action was to expel Laira of Jayd over her murder of Amon Sur, which leads into becoming a member of the Red Lantern Corps. Unknown to the other Guardians, the Scarred Guardian had been corrupted by the Anti-Monitor's touch, and was now seeking to join the power behind the Black to bring about the Blackest Night. To that end, she assigned Ash to locate the Anti-Monitor's corpse, and Saarek to commune with the Anti-Monitor's spirit.

At the same time, Qwardian rings continued to seek out new bearers. One of these was Mongul II, the son of the Mongul who destroyed Coast City. He decided to take advantage of the power vacuum following the imprisoning of Sinestro and Parallax, and began a campaign to take control of the Sinestro Corps. Aware of the rings, the Guardians dispatched a team under Kyle Rayner and Guy Gardner to send the rings to Oa. Kyle and Guy's team encounter Mongul on Ater Clementia, the homeworld of the Black Mercies, a type of plant Mongul I had used on Superman years earlier. Mongul underestimated the Green Lanterns, and was partially digested by Mother Mercy, the mother of the Black Mercies. Unknown to the Lanterns, Mongul fled, raiding the ship of newlywed couple Kered and Miri Riam, where he killed Kered. Meanwhile, other Sinestros were attempting to spread fear by targeting the Lanterns families. Guy, Kyle, and Soranik Natu helped to neutralize the Quintet, a group of Sinestro Corps siblings attacking other families of Green Lanterns. At the same time, Rayner and Natu, who were growing closer, were drawn into KT21, Matoo and Amnee Pree's search for the Sinestro Kryb, who was murdering Green Lanterns and kidnapping their children. In the run up to the event known as the Final Crisis, Black Hand was being transported to another facility when he experienced a sudden power surge. In an explosion, Hand was transported to the unknown planet in Sector 666, where he soon met the power behind the Black Battery.

Overview

In appearance, the War of Light was a galactic conflict that erupted using the power of the Emotional Spectrum.

The War of Light was a vast and catastrophic conflict that erupted across the emotional spectrum, engulfing the cosmos in a series of battles between the various Lantern Corps, each powered by a different aspect of emotional energy. The war began as tensions escalated between the Green Lantern Corps, which wielded willpower, and the Sinestro Corps, fueled by fear, but soon drew in the Red Lanterns of rage, Blue Lanterns of hope, Star Sapphires of love, Indigo Tribe of compassion, and the Orange Lantern of avarice. (Green Lantern v4 #50)

The battlefields stretched from the neutral sectors of space to sacred worlds such as Okaara, Zamaron, Odym, and Ysmault, as each Corps sought dominance or survival, driven by conflicting philosophies and the unstable equilibrium of the emotional spectrum. The Guardians of the Universe struggled to contain the conflict, even as prophecy foretold a greater darkness on the horizon. Massive casualties were inflicted as ring-bearers clashed in planetary sieges, orbital ambushes, and deep-space engagements. The war devastated numerous systems, collapsing planetary alliances, destabilizing cosmic trade routes, and annihilating multiple ring-forging infrastructures. Civilizations unaligned with any Corps were often collateral damage, caught between unpredictable surges of emotion-driven energy warfare. The conflict foreshadowed the emergence of the Black Lantern Corps, hinting at an even darker age to come. (Green Lantern v4 #50)

Details of the War of Light were mentioned in an ancient prophecy from the Book of Oa that said that the seven colors of the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum would be harnessed and used by the seven Lantern Corps, heralding the Blackest Night.

Participants

• Anti-Monitor :
• Sinestro :
• Hank Henshaw :
• Parallax :
• Ganthet :
• Hal Jordan :
• John Stewart :
• Guy Gardner :
• Kyle Rayner :
• Atrocitus :
• Larfleeze :
• Carol Ferris :
• Indigo-1 :
• Mongul :

Notes

• The War of Light was created by Geoff Johns, Ethan Van Sciver, Peter Tomasi, Ivan Reis and Dave Gibbons where it made its first appearance in Green Lantern v4 #25 (January, 2008).

Appearances

• Green Lantern v4: (2008)

External Links

• DC Database Entry

This article is a stub. You can help Multiversal Omnipedia by expanding it.