Black Lantern Corps
The Black Lantern Corps are an organization that features in DC Comics.
Contents |
History
Origin
The Black Lantern Corps were undead constructs that were tied to the absence of the Emotional Spectrum with links to Nekron. In the beginning, the darkness had been in existence long before the birth of the universe until during the dawn of time it was banished by the white light of creation. Even though the darkness failed to fight back the white light, it caused the white light to splinter into the Emotional Spectrum. (Blackest Night v1 #3)
The origins of the Black Lantern Corps was deeply rooted into the magical prophecies of the Five Inversions of the Empire of Tears. After their imprisonment on their home world of Ysmault, its members remained trapped by the victorious Guardians of the Universe who sentenced them to remain on that planet. At one point, the Green Lantern Abin Sur arrived on that world forbidden to the Green Lantern Corps in order to rescue a crashed civilian ship. It was there he met the Five Inversions where Qull told Sur of his death and the death of the Corps by telling him the prophecy known as the Blackest Night. Later, Abin Sur once again broke the Guardians ban on Ysmault and journeyed to it in order to learn more about the Blackest Night prophecy. Despite Atrocitus telling them not to say more, Abin Sur managed to capture the red skinned demon and take him to the ship in order to find the vessel that contained the Black that would bring about the death of all life. The ship arrived on the planet Earth where Abin Surs fear of dying led to his ring constructs weakening and freeing the prisoner Atrocitus. His escape led to severe damage to the ship which crashed and mortally wounded the Green Lantern. Free on Earth, Atrocitus himself sought to claim the host of the Black through a Cosmic Divining Rod and use its power to destroy the Guardians. Through his blood magic rituals he learnt the being was a Human known as William Hand but before he could accomplish his goal, the Green Lanterns Hal Jordan and Sinestro captured him. (Green Lantern v4 #34)
Blackest Night
After the Sinestro Corps War, Superman-Prime hurled the Anti-Monitor into space, who then crashed on an unknown planet and was encased within a Black Central Battery by an unknown being. (Green Lantern v4 #25)
While being transported to prison, Black Hand experienced a sudden power surge that kills his captors. Xander roamed the desert, hearing a voice instructing him to reclaim the souls of characters who were reanimated. (DC Universe v1 #0) Hand murders his family and commits suicide. The Guardian Scar arrives, and creates the first black power ring, which reanimated Black Hand. She revealed that Hand is the physical embodiment of death, and serves as the avatar of the Black Lanterns and embodiment of their corps along with being herald of their master. (Green Lantern v4 #43) Hand later dug up Bruce Wayne's corpse, removing his skull, and recited the Black Lantern oath for the first time. Soon after, black power rings descended upon the universe and begin reviving the deceased as Black Lanterns that attack both the heroes and the villains of the DC Universe. It was then claimed by the Power Battery that was located in Space Sector 666. (Blackest Night v1 #0)
Once the power meter was filled, Scar proceeded to transport the Black Central Power Battery to Coast City, and the true mastermind behind the Black Lanterns is able to step into the main DC Universe: Nekron. (Blackest Night v1 #4)
Celsius and her Doom Patrol came to be resurrected as members of the Black lantern Corps. They were charged with ripping out the hearts of those emotionally affected by their resurrection, gathering their emotions and using them to help Nekron return and end life in the universe. Celsius looked forward to exacting revenge on Chief, reflecting that he'd manipulated people to achieve her goals, but her Doom Patrol rejected everything he stood for, giving her team choices and hope. The Corps arrived on Oolong Island, the newly reformed Doom Patrol's headquarters, and Celsius attacked Chief, and told him he no longer got to manipulate her emotionally. She froze his legs, and shattered them, telling the helpless Chief that they would be together forever in death, even though he was never there for her in life. Black Lantern Tempest took out Elasti-Girl, and Lanterns Negative-Woman and Cliff Steele attacked Negative Man and Robotman. Robotman was disconcerted by fighting with his human body. Negative Man combined his negative being with Negative Woman’s, forming a new version of Rebis, and it destroyed her. The sentient black hole who was a friend of the Chief’s came to rescued him whereupon Caulder along with the Oolong Island Science Squad were in agreement that they needed to get the Lanterns off the island. Chief commanded the Doom Patrol to lure the Lanterns to I.Q.’s Boom Tube based gateway, and he teleported them away. I.Q. told Chief he was cold-blooded for sacrificing his team to save Oolong. (Doom Patrol v5 #5)
The team assaulted the Black Central Power Battery with the opposite results intended. Nekron is strengthened and able to recruit living characters reanimated from death to his Black Lantern Corps. Although the seven Corps representatives attempted to summon aid by recruiting temporary deputies until the rest of their Corps arrive - Ganthet joins the Green Lantern Corps, Barry Allen joins the Blue Lanterns, Lex Luthor is inducted into the Orange Lanterns, the Scarecrow joins the Sinestro Corps, the Atom joins the Indigo Tribe, Mera joins the Red Lanterns, and Wonder Woman is saved from her Black Lantern identity to join the Star Sapphires - they are nearly thwarted when Nekron digs up the Entity, the first life in the universe, and attempts to kill it. (Blackest Night v1 #5) After Sinestro attempts and fails to merge with the entity similar to Hal's bond with Parallax - Sinestro powering the entity with his ego rather than his will to survive - Hal takes control of the Entity himself, noting that the heroes still chose to return to life even if Nekron gave them the opportunity. With this behind him, Hal merges with the entity and frees the reanimated heroes from Nekron's hold, creating the White Lantern Corps in the process, and subsequently reanimates Black Hand and the Anti-Monitor to deprive Nekron of his tether in the living world and his power source respectively. The White Lanterns used the power of the White Light to finally vanquish Nekron and the threat of the Blackest Night passed with the Black Lanterns disintegrating along with their power rings. (Blackest Night v1 #8)
Brightest Day
Though seemingly destroyed, an aspect of the Black Lanterns returned within Firestorm when his dark undead persona emerged - claiming the name Deathstorm. (Brightest Day v1 #10) Torturing the two hosts of the Firestorm Matrix, Deathstorm later traveled to the White Lantern Power Battery where he corrupted it. Whilst initially he intended to destroy it in order to kill all life in the universe, a voice came and commanded him not to do so. Instead, it ordered Deathstorm to bring it an army in order for it to command the power over life itself. With those words said, the White Lantern Power Battery in conjunction with Deathstorm created undead Black Lanterns of the 12 reanimated heroes and villains who had been reborn at the end of the Blackest Night. (Brightest Day v1 #11) After Deathstorm steals the White Lantern, he, along with Firestorm, are transported to Qward in the Anti-Matter Universe by the Anti-Monitor, revealed to be behind the returns of the 12 Black Lanterns. However, they are all destroyed when Ronnie and Jason teamed up, thus allowing Ronnie's labor to be accomplished and for him to be returned to life by the White Entity. (Brightest Day v1 #22)
Following Black Hand's suicide to escape being inducted into the Indigo Tribe once again, a Black Power Ring emerges from his corpse, reviving him as a Black Lantern once again, although this did not restart the Blackest Night, possibly because Nekron was imprisoned in the Dead Zone at the time. Black Hand returns to Earth and reanimates his family and various dead in the graveyard around his house, but Hal Jordan and Sinestro were able to defeat these "zombies" by detonating Sinestro's old yellow power battery. They are unaware that the Book of the Black has stated that Hal Jordan will be the greatest "Black Lantern" in the beyond. (Green Lantern v5 #12) When trapped in the Dead Zone and deprived of his ring, Hal contemplates suicide as it was the only means to harnessing the power of the remaining Black Lantern ring and using it to escape the Dead Zone and stop the First Lantern. (Green Lantern v5 #18)
Overview
Their purpose was said to be extinguishing the light of life in the universe. (Green Lantern v4 #43)
Upon finding a host, the ring generated black tendrils that rooted themselves into a corpse and made them impossible to remove by physical force. (Blackest Night v1 #3)
The only means of destroying a Black Lantern was by combining the lights of the Emotional Spectrum thus restoring the white light of creation and bringing an end to the Black Lanterns. Once the ring was destroyed, the Black Lantern's body went inert and returned to being a corpse. (Blackest Night v1 #3)
The oath of the Black Lanterns was:
- "The Blackest Night falls from the skies."
- "The darkness grows as all light dies."
- "We crave your hearts and your demise."
- "By my black hand-- the dead shall rise!"
Members
- Black Hand : a male human called William Hand who was destined to be the incarnation of the Black and the embodiment of the Black Lantern Corps as well as the herald of its master. (Green Lantern v4 #43)
- Martian Manhunter :
- Elongated Man :
- Ronnie Raymond :
- Abin Sur :
- Arin Sur :
- Hal Jordan :
- Krona :
Notes
- The Black Lantern Corps was created by Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis, and Ethan Van Sciver where they made their first appearance in Green Lantern v4 #25 (January, 2008).
- During his initial creation of the new Corps, Johns drew from information he had collected on light while taking physics classes. With the Corps of the emotional spectrum personifying life, he knew that this Corps would need to represent death. Black being an absence of light, he chose Black Hand as the leader of the Corps both for the character's name and also because of how much he enjoyed revamping villains while writing for Flash. Like the other members of the Black Lantern Corps, Johns wanted to take a different approach in his portrayal of Black Hand. Whereas other villains may have a particular motivation, Hand is meant to be depicted as a character who is clearly insane and whose presence makes others uncomfortable. [1]
Alternate Versions
- In Tales from the Dark Multiverse: The Death of Superman v1 #1 (2019), an alternate reality was shown to exist within the Dark Multiverse showed a universe where the Black Lantern Corps dominated the cosmos. This was because Sinestro refused to share the power from the white ring thus leading to the heroes being killed and the Black Lantern Corps scouring reality of all life.
In other media
Video games
- In Injustice: Gods Among Us, though not appearing in the game itself a number of the player characters had Black Lantern skins available to them as alternate costumes.
- In Injustice 2, the Black Lantern Corps again did not appear in the fighting video game but appeared as palette skins for Green Lantern.
- In DC Universe Online, the Black Lantern Corps were introduced into the MMORPG setting.
- In DC Legends, Black Lanterns appeared as antagonists in the iOS video game where the dead became Reanimated Lanterns that had the symbol of the Black Lanterns and served Nekron.
Appearances
- Green Lantern v4: (2008)
- Green Lantern Corps v2:
- Blackest Night v1:
- Green Lantern v5:
- Tales from the Dark Multiverse: The Death of Superman v1:
External Link
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