Post by HoM on Sept 26, 2016 3:19:45 GMT -5
Previously, in GREEN LANTERN CORPS…
Due to the numerous traumatising experiences he’s lived through these last few years-- be it his death at the hands of MONGUL or his horrific resurrection thanks to the PREDATOR entity -- Green Lantern HANK HENSHAW’s power ring finally found him unworthy!
Not wanting to see his friend suffer, JOHN STEWART sent HANK to Jeq, a hospital world specialising in helping military personnel heal from their injuries. It’s here HANK met ALICE BRANT, aka DRESDEN, a demolitions expert and former squad mate of JOHN who experienced the horrors of Apokolips firsthand.
Just as HANK had a breakthrough with his doctor, all hell broke loose when the devastating intergalactic fortress known as War World materialised in orbit!
Meanwhile, back on Earth, GUY GARDNER and THAAL SINESTRO are searching for KYLE RAYNER, who vanished months ago-- along with nearly everyone’s memories of him ever existing!
On Oa, after a successful test run, a colony of Daxamites who were placed in the Phantom Zone after their exposure to lead by the mad Kryptonian XA-DU are about to be released from their exile thanks to a cure designed by XA-DU himself!
Welcome back to the ongoing adventures of the GREEN LANTERN CORPS!
Thousands of years ago on a world ravaged by the most catastrophic universe-spanning war since the rise of the Manhunters, a lone monster stood before his children, shaking his head in utter disgust.
The cliff overlooked the universe, the odd composition of the world allowing them to walk to the top of the world and nearly touch space itself. The skies were filled with war worlds, an entire sector of space filled with Ranx-engines, destructive machines capable of annihilating solar systems, the bodies of the universe’s heroes draped across their hulls.
“You are so weak it pains me to share a bloodline with you.” Mongul spat at the closest of the children, his young son, and then sneered. “Disgusting.”
Mongul stood at eight feet tall, thick bundles of golden muscles latched onto a frame that could shatter bodies with the slightest flick of his finger. His children, meanwhile, cowered before their father, but there was potential inside them, and that’s why these three had made it so far along in their lives. If they were weak, truly weak, he’d have broken their bodies and devoured what was left. Nothing wasted. Everything gained.
The twin girls looked at each other with grim, jealous expressions, while the lone son didn’t break eye contact with his father as he wiped the spittle from his face. The spawn of the yellow death. The progeny of Mongul. They had no names but their father’s. That was the way of his tribe, of his entire race-- before he slaughtered them to become the lone survivor. Children were grown directly from his genetic code. They were clone-spawn, tweaks made here and there in the artificial womb. No mother’s touch. Just the cold, hard touch of the mechanoid birthers that completed their father’s work.
“I am the Mongul who dragged countless sectors into an unending war. The Mongul who has slaughtered the best the Green Lantern Corps sent to bring me to heel,” he laughed, tatters of numerous Green Lantern costumes roughly hewn into a cape that he wore on his back.
The slaves that roamed the city the children grew up in came in useful for something. He looked up toward the skies, where areas of space burned in his name. “But right now, the scheming Martians cower before the bulbous headed overlords who claim to guard this universe, and they will unite to destroy me. To that end, there is only one choice… one decision left to be made…” He looked back down at his children and was almost surprised.
The girls had torn out the throat of their older brother, his crimson blood staining their lips, teeth and hands. They looked at their father, not with expectation, not with fear. They did what they were built to do. Was this not the way he’d raised them?
“Maybe we’ll make something of you yet,” said Mongul. He crushed his son’s head under his heel, putting the gibbering slab of meat and bone out of its misery. He continued to trudge on, back toward the citadel the children called home. “Remember your history. Waste not one drop nor one piece.”
His words were unnecessary. The girls had already started to devour the body of their murdered kin. As was the way of their people. They ate and they ate, not wasting a scrap of their still-warm brother. Nothing wasted. Everything gained.
“Are you sure this is a good idea, Gardner?”
Sinestro was not one to forget his history. The last time he’d been in the presence of the Justice Society of America, they’d been at war. Thaal had been under the control of the villainous Parallax, loaned out to the villains that propagated on this planet to spread seeds of chaos that the latter would foster down the line*.
Looking out from the waiting room’s windows, Guy shrugged at the question. “Best idea I’ve got. Look,” he turned his attention squarely on his colleague, “Kyle is missing, somehow scrubbed from the collective memory of the Corps, hell, of the universe. We’re at our lowest ebb ever since Evil Star managed to engineer all our rings turning off at once. We have the majority of those rings back, but bearers? Not yet. So we’re running on fumes, we don’t have a big gun, and I think the Society will be able to--”
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” said Pieter Cross, the JSA’s resident physician. “But I am afraid that your visit may not be worth anything. Green Lantern’s condition has not changed. He is still in a coma.”
Guy grimaced. “Damn. I had heard, but... can we still see him?”
Sinestro bristled. He didn’t to be in the presence of a man who so soundly trounced him, even if it was when Thaal himself was under the control of Parallax.
“Of course, Green Lanterns,” said Pieter.
The doctor beckoned the two men forward, and they journeyed through the JSA’s brownstone, descending until they reached the secure medical wing. The private room, away from the larger ward, was dimly lit, with Molly Scott, wife of Alan, aka the Golden Age’s Green Lantern, sat next to her husband, gripping his hand while she prayed under her breath.
His tone uncharacteristically soft, Gardner began to speak. “We’re sorry to interrupt, ma’am. I’m Guy, this is Thaal, we’re members of the--”
“I know who you are,” said Molly, sadly. “The Green Lantern Corps. My husband admired the work your friend did, the dark haired one. Harold, was it?”
“Hal’s retired,” said Guy. Behind him, Pieter excused himself, mouthing I’ll leave you to it, before exiting the room to return to the main medical area.
“Lucky. Most of my husband’s friends either fall in battle or their age catches up with them. We’ve been lucky, us baby boomers.” She managed a smile. “I always hated that label.”
“My ring detects an otherdimensional energy permeating your cells-- is that a side effect of being close to your husband’s ring?” asked Sinestro.
“We were caught in an explosion back in the 50s that’s kept us younger than most*,” corrected Molly.
“Mom?”
Everyone’s attention went to the door, where the young heroes Jade and Obsidian now stood.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot you were coming… my memory wanders sometimes,” said Molly. “Guy and… Thaal, was it? These are my children, Jennifer and Todd.”
“What are you doing here?” asked Obsidian. He eyed up Sinestro. “Hey, I recognise you--”
“These gentlemen are from the Green Lantern Corps, they hoped to see if your father had improved.”
“Yeah, yeah, I recognise the uniforms, but you--” Todd pointed at Thaal. “Where do I recognise you from?”
Resignedly, Molly stood and got in-between the two men. She patted Sinestro on the shoulder warmly, cordially, and the alien hero didn’t exactly know why. “Oh, Todd, hush now, your father fought this one a few years ago, when the government turned against the Justice League*. He was possessed, like you folks all are at one time or another. Remember when you and your sister were Nazis**?”
“Mom, it wasn't as simple as…” started Todd, but she shook her head. “...M’sorry, sir.”
“Please, it’s fine. These things happen.”
Guy, meanwhile, mouthed 'Nazi?!' from behind Todd, where no one but Sinestro could see.
“Have you tried your rings?” asked Jennie.
“Tried what?” said Guy, looking down at his hand and stepping back into the middle of the room.
“Using your rings to wake him up. I dunno. We’ve tried everything. There’s no magic word that’ll work, no medical marvel, no spell, so we try everything, all the time, and see if it sticks.”
“What happened to him, exactly?” asked Sinestro.
“The weakness in our father’s ring is wood, for whatever reason. There was an explosion and he was struck by a wooden beam*, his brain swelled up so bad they had to open his head up to relieve the pressure, and after that, his body went into this kind of… stasis. The trauma was so severe; we think the only thing keeping him breathing is the ring.”
“The ring,” said Sinestro, looking down at the perfect emerald band around Alan’s hand. “I wonder…”
Threads of energy began to move from Sinestro’s ring toward Alan’s.
“You’ll want to take a step back,” said Guy.
“What’s he doing?” asked Obsidian.
“Interfacing with the ring on your father’s--”
As the first line of emerald light briefly touched the surface of Alan’s ring, there was a massive flaring explosion that sent Thaal hurtling back, through the wall, and then skittering to a stop in the middle of the medical ring.
Above Alan Scott’s body a massive, clanking emerald construct manifested, the disparate pieces coming together to form an immense visual far beyond anything the two Green Lanterns present had ever witnessed. Stained green, it was a picture perfect projection of something that happened-- the emotional resonance ringing out from it convincing those present that what they watched had once occurred at some point in the past.
In it, in microscopic detail, a thousand worlds, a million worlds, all had something pulled from them as a growing, roiling, shape travelled through the galaxy, drawing whatever was being stolen from the worlds straight into its own mass. If planets got in the way of its path, the offending worlds were destroyed, until all you cold see was the straight line the seething, colourless mass travelled.
The vision seemed to pull back even further until you could see the make-up of the shape -- diamond hard and on fire-- as it hurtled toward the centre of the universe, the planet Oa.
As the comet neared, the Guardians of the Universe emerged from their Citadel and initiated a war that lasted for thousands of years. In the end--
“Alan! Alan!” Molly rushed to the side of her still vegetative husband and the construct snapped back into the his ring. As silence spread across the room, Jade and Obsidian tentatively checked to make sure his condition hadn’t worsened by the manifestation.
Guy was by Sinestro’s side just as Pieter checked on the GL, and the two Corpsmen were confused by what had just happened.
“It… didn’t… like… that,” said Sinestro, rubbing his wrist. There were burn marks from his ring finger down the back of his hand and wrist. “What exactly is on his finger?”
Gardner shook his head. “We may not know what it is, but it sure feels like it knows what we are.”
Hank Henshaw wasn’t in control. His body jerked and twitched as the neural web flashed and stabbed at his body, and the leaders of the invading force laughed as they watched him suffer.
“This is the ant that killed our father? The insect?” asked the scarred daughter of Mongul, the right side of her face a mass of contusions hardened by time and war. “Look at him dance.”
The woman beside her, her face untouched but her left arm replaced by a metallic prosthesis that was bigger and more vicious than it had any right to me, laughed and kicked Henshaw in the gut, causing him to cry out. He rolled to his side, so he could get a better look at them.
“Lords Mongul Fist, Mongul Scar,” gibbered one of the officers in their army. “We have begun pillaging medical supplies. Slave pens are filling with the patients and personnel. What are your orders?”
Lords? The women were identical in how terrifying they appeared, but with two distinct differences between them. The one with the arm was, he assumed, Mongul Fist, while the second, with her already ugly face disfigured further by the horrific scars across its right hand side, must have been Mongul Scar.
Mongul had children? Daughters?
“Access patient files, medical histories,” spat Scar. “Blackmail material. We leave this place scorched.” She looked at her sister, who nodded. Instant understanding between what Hank assumed were twins. “Leave us. Find what we need. We shall resolve this family matter alone.”
“Y-you can’t do this!” cried Dolchechk. “This is a safe--”
Mongul Scar growled and batted Dolchechk backwards, his ancient body bouncing awkwardly against the wall. He slumped over, a low level hiss leaving his lips. Something in him had broken.
“There is no safety. There is only terror,” mumbled Fist.
“So this is the man who our father hated more than anything,” growled Scar, looking across the room at Henshaw. Fist tapped something into a console embedded into her arm and the neural web deactivated, returning some semblance of control of Hank’s body. “The man who took his life.”
“W-what if I say I’m not?” asked Henshaw. No ring. No chance. Maybe irritating them wasn’t the best idea…
“Then you’d die a liar,” snapped Mongul Fist. “The genetic memory link we had with our father told us everything. We saw our father’s death-- it awoke us from our stasis! We’d been sleeping for so long, and now we know what we need to do. We need to make the entire universe suffer, just as our father intended!”
Genetic memory link? Stasis? Hank knew that the Guardians of the Universe imprisoned Mongul beneath the skin of Mars thousands of years ago*, but there was never any indication that he had kids. And if their bite was as bad as their father’s bark, then he was in for a fight
Before he could move to dodge, and before he could process her movement, Fist grabbed Hank and wrenched him upwards, so that his feet were dangling metres above the ground. As he struggled, his life choked out of him as her metallic digits rankled around his throat, he refused to scream. “We’ve been tracking you for months. A side project. And when we saw that you had been laid so low, we thought it best to end your suffering once and for all. A tender mercy.”
Hank’s thoughts swirled around him in a fog of red and green. This was it? He’d died so many times. Should have stayed dead numerous times on top of that. But if the Predator couldn’t end him, if Mongul, if everything that he’d experienced didn’t keep him down, why should this be the moment? Why should he let himself succumb now, after everything he’d lived through? In his head, a voice screamed, I refuse.
“I’m not… suffering…” slurred Hank.
“You will,” yapped Scar. “Into the belly of War World you’ll go. We’ll tie you into the pain matrices. Your agony will be piped into every room on the ship, so that all our new guests, our new slave force, can hear what happens when a great Green Lantern crosses the family Mongul.”
Hank shook his head, even as his head filled with the weight of being choked to death. “Not… anymore… not suffering… anymore…” His words started defiant, before transforming into a rasp, oxygen not immediately available to the dying man.
The ring had abandoned him for lacking will. But he refused to let himself die now. He refused to let the universe stub him out like a used up cigarette. He swung his legs up and wrapped them around the mechanical arm that held him tight. The angle was awkward, the pain magnified by the way his body contorted when it shouldn’t have. He grabbed the light fixture above his head with his free hand and wrenched it down, sparks of electricity flying. He jammed it into the circuitry that riddled Fist’s arm and she cried out, letting him go involuntarily.
“Damnation damnation,” she screamed, further sparks flying from the ancient machinery she wore.
“Don’t let him get away!” hissed Scar.
Mongul Fist swiped at Henshaw, catching the former astronaut in the side and sending him somersaulting to the floor. Mongul Scar took the initiative, dove at him, but Hank rolled further across the room, under one of the medical beds, and she skidded toward the wall nearby, cursing in an alien tongue Henshaw didn’t recognise.
Hank’s side was splitting with agony, and when he dabbed the source he could see red against the tips of his fingers. He’d been caught on one of the barbs on the edge of Mongul Fist’s mechanical limb, and a chunk had been taken out of him. Everything hurt, and with the pain came a clarity that he needed to power through.
Thank you, adrenaline rush, thought Hank, processing the chemical rush and moving with all the speed he could muster.
The door that led to the doctor’s office was just there, and if he-- the door swung open, and Alice Brant, known to her old war buddies as Dresden, became visible, restrained by a half dozen of the Monguls’ foot soldiers. She had put up a fight, her lip and nose was bloodied and there were darkening bruises around her eyes. When she saw him, half crawling, half running across the room, she didn’t blink. He was sure he looked as bad as her, the leaking he felt in his side now spreading down his leg. He was losing blood and his exit had been compromised.
“Stop running, murderer,” said Mongul Scar. “This planet is ours. This woman is your consort, is she not? If you want her to die quick, you’ll accept your fate.”
Not ‘if you want her to live. Not ‘if you want her to make it past this day’. No. Make it quick or make it slow.
Even with the lumbering animals that had their claws in her, she gave Henshaw the most defiant of looks, even as she could see the blood dribble out of him. Don’t you dare, not on my account, don’t you ever.
Hank felt something grow inside his chest, something he hadn’t felt in so long. He was angry. Angrier than pained. He’d let himself be ground down. Monster after monster taking a piece of him, taking something out of his ability to live. Subtracted from, again and again, and Hank ended up feeling like he was the absence of something, the absence of a life, but that wasn’t it. He was damaged. Damage is life. Life incurs damage. And you get on with it, and you fight past it, and you--
“No,” said Hank, finally. Understanding what that feeling in his chest was. He finally understood. “You don’t get to decide my fate.”
Mongul Scar laughed. “What choice do you have?” She looked around. The soldiers not holding Dresden had their weapons trained on him. In their eyes, they had his woman. They had his world. Every complex across the face of the planet was coming under attack. There was little resistance. The medical staff were there to heal; they weren’t trained to protect themselves from the likes of the Mongul scourge.
Willpower. Hank found it in himself for the first time in so long. The strung out, overextended trickle he’d survived on since coming back to the Green Lantern Corps after his imprisonment under Oa was nothing compared to this. He’d fought and he’d fought and now he’d found it.
“There’s always a choice,” said Hank.
In the residential area of the complex, in Hank Henshaw’s room, the lump of inertron that John Stewart had passed to Hank upon his arrival here began to shake. Thin cracks began to form across the face of it. The metal was X-Ray opaque, the scanners couldn’t see past it, and the Monguls wouldn’t have known what was inside if they knew to look.
Emerald light began to flow out of the cracks, and then without any more fanfare, Hank Henshaw’s Green Lantern ring shot out of the lump, out of the bedroom, across the complex and straight-- onto-- Hank Henshaw’s-- finger--
<Hank Henshaw of Earth. You have rediscovered the ability to overcome great fear. Welcome back to the Green Lantern Corps.>
Mongul Fist and Mongul Scar looked on in surprise. “Oh, no.”
Green Lantern once more, Hank Henshaw smiled and cracked his knuckles. “Oh, yes.”
Underground, toward the edge of the main city and far away from the Citadel used as their headquarters, was the Green Lantern Corps’ shipyard. It was here that any crafts they detained during their work were placed, or any visiting dignitaries would land prior to their escort to the Citadel itself.
Hundreds of Daxamites, pulled from the Phantom Zone and cured of the lead poisoning inflicted upon them by the mad Kryptonian scientist Xa-Du, were being loaded onto the ships that would return them to their homeworld of Daxam. Above them, in the launch control room manned by non-ring wielding operational staff, stood Sodam Yat and Katma Tui.
Yat broke the silence between them. “I’m, uh, almost surprised the cure worked. Xa-Du caused so much horror, and they’re able to go home. Those that survived his massacre, that is. Rao, it’s all so horrible, don’t you think?”
“If only we had realised what had happened sooner. The prostheses we’ve fitted your people with are top of the line, but if only we’d known…”
“And as ever, we did what we could. I wish Guy was here to see this. It was him who managed to get the word out, after all.”
“I'll be sending him a databurst soon, keep him in the loop. What scares me, or makes me curious, is that we couldn’t find anything troubling in the make up of the serum Xa-Du left behind. It was a means to an end. If he could cure the lead poisoning, he could apply the thinking to the Kryptonite poisoning. He was just…”
“I know, I know. I’m going to go with the Stel and Salaak, talk to Daxam’s elders about what happened. If there’s a lead cure, then maybe… maybe Daxam gets to be part of the universe again. No more fear of the unknown. Ugh. Did you hear what the First Elder said when Salaak told them what happened?”
“Unfortunately. ‘It served them right’,” recalled Katma. “You can’t win them all over in a day, Sodam. But the work we’ve done here, it’s part way to it.”
“I guess. Thanks for everything, Katma. You’re much nicer than Sinestro.”
“Everybody is,” said Katma, with a smile.
Green Lantern Sareek didn’t sleep very well, not since his powers manifested back on his homeworld. That was before the ring. Before the universe expanded in emerald. The Corps had allowed him to apply his God-given gift on a much larger canvas, and he was proud of his achievements. The latest had been communicating with the Daxamites, in the Phantom Zone, and drawing them back to the other side.
The bite mark on his arm, where some entity inside the ghost dimension had managed to get its teeth into him, hurt like nothing else. He had expected the pain to by transitory. There while he was bathed in the monochromatic light of the event horizon of the Phantom Zone, then gone by the time the portal closed.
But no. It hurt. It hurt so much.
“How are you feeling, Sareek?”
The Green Lantern rolled over in the bed he’d taken when Soranik Natu insisted he come in for observation. She’d never seen a Phantom Zone injury before, and the very concept terrified and amazed her.
“Cold, Lantern Natu. Colder than I’ve ever felt.”
Observing his shivers, Natu checked the dressing she’d constructed around Sareek’s wound. The wound festered slowly, his flesh pulsing as venom seemed to spread from the root of the bite outward.
“I’m not sure how this is possible, but there seems to be some kind of infection. I’m going to have to run more tests and we’ll need to drain it again.”
“I understand. I always thought I was somewhat impervious to the harm that could come from the spirit worlds, but this… is a sobering experiencing. I knew I was mortal, but…”
“It’ll be all right, Sareek. We have access to every medical database in the universe. We’ll figure out what’s ailing you and sort you out in no time.”
“In Brightest Day,” replied the injured Lantern, shuffling back on the bed so he was staring at the ceiling.
“So you think reclaiming you-- nnyyyaaaaa--”
Mongul Fist’s mechanical arm was torn from its moorings before she could finish her threat. Vital fluids and biomechanical liquid spewing, she screamed as Henshaw shattered it into pieces with a thought, then turned his attention over to Mongul Scar.
While this was going on, he’d sent lines of light under their feet and through the floor beneath the soldiers holding Dresden at gunpoint. Their weapons failed immediately. She elbowed one of her captives in the throat, pulverising his trachea-- or whatever this race’s equivalent was-- and rolled forward, siding with Hank and taking cover under the emerald shield he projected.
“Let me tell you the odds you have of getting out of here in one piece are,” said Henshaw.
“You’re just one man. One little, little man!” spat Scar.
“I’m so much more than that. I’m a Green Lantern. And right now--?”
Hank Henshaw raised his hands up and his ring strobed. Every stray thought was dismissed. He didn’t think about his past, or his future. He didn’t dwell on the Predator, or Mongul ‘Prime’. He didn’t think about his deaths or his lives or anything in-between. Instead, he thought one single, emerald thought, and he became a blindingly bright beacon that most had to turn away from to retain their vision.
Alice looked on in awe and wonder as he became a figure of pure intent and focus.
Across the surface of Jeq, any doctor, nurse, patient or visitor, was encased in emerald armour, the symbol of the Green Lantern Corps emblazoned across their chests. The alien forces trying to take them into captivity were shocked by this, some cried out and retreated-- they knew what that symbol meant-- others fired upon the changed, only for their weapons fire to land ineffectually against the shields surrounding those shrouded in the green light. Those kidnapped onto the alien ships, onto War World, were launched back to Jeq in viridescent escape pods, freed from their short-lived captivity.
Symbols strobed up and out. The surface of the planet was suddenly illuminated by a thousand-- ten thousand-- shimmering insignias that screamed Green Lantern Corps, and that wasn’t something the roaming marauders of War World were expected when they made planetfall.
“And right now, so is everybody else. Two options. One,” Hank held up a finger, “leave now and never come back, or two,” he held up a second finger, a mischievous smile on his lips, “feel our might.”
Mongul Fist clutched the seeping wound on her stump where the control circuitry for her prosthesis had been located, then kicked the shin of her sister roughly. “We can’t win a fight against a world full of them--”
“Tick tock,” pushed Henshaw.
“Activate mass transit circuits!” bellowed Scar, shaking her head. “This isn’t over, Hank Henshaw! Not by a--” The invading forces teleported off of Jeq, leaving debris and confusion.
“They’re gone; you drove them off!” said Alice. She looked down at her body, at the Green Lantern costume covering her like a suit of body armour. “Did you really--?”
Henshaw stumbled, taking a knee beside Dresden. She knelt down beside him as her costume vanished nearly as fast as it had appeared, then noticed how pale he looked, how much he was sweating, shaking, at the exertion he’d just undertaken.
“Jesus Christ, I feel like crap. Just… had to spread my power… across an entire planet… never done… that before…”
Henshaw passed out in Dresden’s arms.
Guy and Thaal exited the JSA’s brownstones to consider their next steps on their search for an ally capable of going toe-to-toe with Parallax. Alan Scott was comatose, his ring projecting odd constructs that they hadn’t fully deciphered yet when in contact with a Green Lantern power ring. Kyle Rayner was MIA with no clues as to where he’d ended up.
“…Who else is there?” asked Guy. They’d ended up in Central Park and were making their way across it at his behest, as he knew of a nearby bar that they could regroup in while building up a tab.
“The Guardians of the Universe might be capable of reining in their creation, but they left this plane of existence some time ago, along with the Zamorans*. The Red Lanterns are an x-factor, but we’re unable to see through the scarlet shield they erected around Sector 666*.”
“Plus, they hate us.”
“The enemy of my enemy. Parallax destroyed Sector 666. Murdered Atrocitus’ family and everything he ever knew. If there was ever a reason for them to join forces with us, it would be to strike Parallax and his… Effigies… down.”
Guy nodded. “I’ll contact Salaak, see if the Book of Oa has any other ideas. John’s spoken to the Justice League*, but we had all of Japan’s heroes last time we faced Parallax-- and they’re no joke-- but it didn’t do jack**.”
“Parallax is power. Insidious and ever-growing. On the same level as the Guardians themselves.”
Guy kicked at the ground, knocking a smattering of stray pebbles down the sidewalk. “Is this our plan then? Some kind of wild goose chase across the universe, looking for something powerful enough to take him down? A scavenger hunt?”
“If that’s what it takes. And if we can’t locate Kyle…”
Guy sighed. “God damn. It’s shit, isn’t it?”
Hank jerked awake, only to find himself surrounded by a number of doctors and nurses, as well as Alice, who sat in a chair beside him, asleep until he cried out.
“Hank, it’s okay! It’s okay!” Alice held onto his arm, as if letting go would see him float to the ceiling, but he found her touch comforting and he stopped thrashing about immediately. His ring was on his finger. He felt warm. He felt safe. He just didn’t know how he ended up in this bed, and why there were so many people looking at him through the glass walls that surrounded the room.
“What happened?”
Malco, head nurse of the facility, looked at the tablet she held in two hands, then ran a hand through her thick hair with a third. Her fourth arm was tucked behind her back. “We know very little about the relationship between ring-wielder and the power ring itself, but we believe you over-exerted yourself. Have you ever performed an act like that with your ring before?”
“No, no,” said Hank. He swung his legs around and out of the bed, but still felt out of sorts. Best not stand up just yet.
“I’m not surprised. You spread your power across every living behind on the planet. I felt what it was like to be a Green Lantern, for a few seconds at least,” said Malco.
“Where’s Doctor Dolchechk?”
Malco looked away, sadly. “The doctor doesn’t have much time left. The attack at the hands of the invaders damaged his internal organs. All we’ve been able to do is make him comfortable. He… wanted to see you when you were conscious. He’s holding on for you.”
Henshaw’s brow furrowed. He stood, shaky at first, but Alice supported him. He smiled and thanked her, and she laughed dismissively.
“You saved my life. Means you get some kudos from me. No need to thank me.”
After testing his legs for a few seconds, Hank was ready to walk unaided. Led by Malco and a contingent of doctors, the duo walked through numerous corridors until they reached a massive ward where only one bed was visible.
“Through here.” Malco stopped Alice entering after Hank. “He wants to speak to Lantern Henshaw alone.” She pushed a button and the window darkened, giving Hank and Dolchechk privacy.
“Th-thank goodness you’re awake, there isn’t much time,” said Doctor Dolchechk, his aged, ancient body shaking as Henshaw approached.
“The doctors say you’re dying, but my ring--”
“No! Not the ring. No. No thank you. I just… you’ve suspected it, I’m sure, and I know she has,” the doctor coughed, globules of cerulean fluid dribbling out his lips, “but young Alice didn’t survive the torture she experienced at the hands of the mad scientist that stripped her of her humanity. She didn’t make it back*. She… she begged your colleague, John Stewart, to put her out of her misery, and he did… but when he came here with Thomas, we found a remnant of her consciousness latched to his ring. Somehow…”
Hank’s eyes widened. “You… you talked about a precedent when we first met, about personalities being retained by the rings after people died*.”
“Y-yes. I misspoke, but planted a seed, I’m sure…” His body experienced a massive spasm as his faculties began to leave him, his eyes widening with understanding that he didn’t have long now. “Take… take my memories. Take them with you… you need… need to know…”
Dolchechk clamped his hand around Hank’s ring, and as Henshaw thought, I would if I could, emerald light flooded every part of the dying doctor, and when it was done, he died peacefully, the monitors buzzing one long, sorry tone until they turned themselves off.
<Personality profile stored within ring database // upload to Book of Oa??> buzzed Hank’s ring.
“What? Uh, not yet. No… there’s more to be done. Let’s hear what he has to say.”
An emerald projection of Doctor Dolchechk appeared above Henshaw’s ring: “I am so sorry that it has come to this. But the threat is very, very real. We weren’t to know what we had done when we bought Alice Brant back from the dead. The Alice Brant that is alive today is a psychic remnant placed within a clone body. She wears the skin she believes she should. Prosthesis in places. Artificial eyes. Lantern John Stewart accidentally took a full personality scan of her at the moment of her death, and through pure chance did we discover this when he arrived on Jeq. We were able to pour the immense amount of information that comes with an entire woman’s life into a bespoke clone body. This has never been done before--”
Hank ended the retelling. It could wait. Alice was alive. That’s all that mattered. She was more than just the sum of her parts, surely. And when he touched her last, when they spent the night together, she was more human than anybody.
Hank exited the ward and shook his head solemnly at Malco. She sighed-- a sad, heavy sigh-- and led the other medical staff into the room to deal with what came next. Henshaw held out his hand to Alice, and the two walked in the other direction, until they reached the surface of Jeq.
The damage done by War World was nearly undone. Henshaw checked his ring’s internal clock and realised he’d been unconscious for nearly an entire day. Wrapping the power of the Green Lantern ring across the bodies of every person on the planet wiped him out, and he would have to recharge his ring sooner rather than later.
“What are you going to do now?” asked Alice.
“I have unfinished business across the universe.”
“Well… that’s vague.”
“I let it all fall apart. When I had the ring this last time, I let it slip through my fingers. I was… riddled with cracks, and it all fell apart. I fell apart. I lost the ring. But not anymore. I’m back. I’m me. And I know that there’s twenty-four hours missing from my memory prior to my losing my ring*. Something shattered me. And it wasn’t just everything I was dealing with. I think something happened, and I need to figure out what. And I need to prove… to me. To everyone. That I deserve this ring.”
“So you’re going.”
Hank looked at Alice. “You don’t have to stay here. You could…”
“Go back with you? You were a good lay, but I’m not… no. Ha, I’m not gonna joke. I need to stay here for Tom. When he’s better, I’ll come home. And if it’s okay… if it’s okay with you, I’ll drop you a call. How does that sound?”
Hank leaned over and kissed Alice on the forehead. As he went to move back, she put her arms around his neck and pulled him back and kissed him deeply, fully, on the lips.
“I think I would like that, yeah,” said Hank, after they parted.
“Good. Stay safe out there, Spaceman.”
Henshaw cast his ring to the skies and flew away, headed to Earth, and whatever tomorrow may bring him…
NEXT ISSUE: John Stewart meets his deadliest enemy… himself! When a dimensional tear opens up and spits out a doppelgänger from an Earth polar opposite to our own, how will Green Lantern fare against… Power Ring?
Due to the numerous traumatising experiences he’s lived through these last few years-- be it his death at the hands of MONGUL or his horrific resurrection thanks to the PREDATOR entity -- Green Lantern HANK HENSHAW’s power ring finally found him unworthy!
Not wanting to see his friend suffer, JOHN STEWART sent HANK to Jeq, a hospital world specialising in helping military personnel heal from their injuries. It’s here HANK met ALICE BRANT, aka DRESDEN, a demolitions expert and former squad mate of JOHN who experienced the horrors of Apokolips firsthand.
Just as HANK had a breakthrough with his doctor, all hell broke loose when the devastating intergalactic fortress known as War World materialised in orbit!
Meanwhile, back on Earth, GUY GARDNER and THAAL SINESTRO are searching for KYLE RAYNER, who vanished months ago-- along with nearly everyone’s memories of him ever existing!
On Oa, after a successful test run, a colony of Daxamites who were placed in the Phantom Zone after their exposure to lead by the mad Kryptonian XA-DU are about to be released from their exile thanks to a cure designed by XA-DU himself!
Welcome back to the ongoing adventures of the GREEN LANTERN CORPS!
Thousands of years ago on a world ravaged by the most catastrophic universe-spanning war since the rise of the Manhunters, a lone monster stood before his children, shaking his head in utter disgust.
The cliff overlooked the universe, the odd composition of the world allowing them to walk to the top of the world and nearly touch space itself. The skies were filled with war worlds, an entire sector of space filled with Ranx-engines, destructive machines capable of annihilating solar systems, the bodies of the universe’s heroes draped across their hulls.
“You are so weak it pains me to share a bloodline with you.” Mongul spat at the closest of the children, his young son, and then sneered. “Disgusting.”
Mongul stood at eight feet tall, thick bundles of golden muscles latched onto a frame that could shatter bodies with the slightest flick of his finger. His children, meanwhile, cowered before their father, but there was potential inside them, and that’s why these three had made it so far along in their lives. If they were weak, truly weak, he’d have broken their bodies and devoured what was left. Nothing wasted. Everything gained.
The twin girls looked at each other with grim, jealous expressions, while the lone son didn’t break eye contact with his father as he wiped the spittle from his face. The spawn of the yellow death. The progeny of Mongul. They had no names but their father’s. That was the way of his tribe, of his entire race-- before he slaughtered them to become the lone survivor. Children were grown directly from his genetic code. They were clone-spawn, tweaks made here and there in the artificial womb. No mother’s touch. Just the cold, hard touch of the mechanoid birthers that completed their father’s work.
“I am the Mongul who dragged countless sectors into an unending war. The Mongul who has slaughtered the best the Green Lantern Corps sent to bring me to heel,” he laughed, tatters of numerous Green Lantern costumes roughly hewn into a cape that he wore on his back.
The slaves that roamed the city the children grew up in came in useful for something. He looked up toward the skies, where areas of space burned in his name. “But right now, the scheming Martians cower before the bulbous headed overlords who claim to guard this universe, and they will unite to destroy me. To that end, there is only one choice… one decision left to be made…” He looked back down at his children and was almost surprised.
The girls had torn out the throat of their older brother, his crimson blood staining their lips, teeth and hands. They looked at their father, not with expectation, not with fear. They did what they were built to do. Was this not the way he’d raised them?
“Maybe we’ll make something of you yet,” said Mongul. He crushed his son’s head under his heel, putting the gibbering slab of meat and bone out of its misery. He continued to trudge on, back toward the citadel the children called home. “Remember your history. Waste not one drop nor one piece.”
His words were unnecessary. The girls had already started to devour the body of their murdered kin. As was the way of their people. They ate and they ate, not wasting a scrap of their still-warm brother. Nothing wasted. Everything gained.
Issue Sixty-SIX: “The Heirs of Mongul”
HoM / ARTTEACH
JSA BROWNSTONE, NEW YORK CITY:
“Are you sure this is a good idea, Gardner?”
Sinestro was not one to forget his history. The last time he’d been in the presence of the Justice Society of America, they’d been at war. Thaal had been under the control of the villainous Parallax, loaned out to the villains that propagated on this planet to spread seeds of chaos that the latter would foster down the line*.
*Check out the DC2's 2007 mega-event, Justice League Vs America
Looking out from the waiting room’s windows, Guy shrugged at the question. “Best idea I’ve got. Look,” he turned his attention squarely on his colleague, “Kyle is missing, somehow scrubbed from the collective memory of the Corps, hell, of the universe. We’re at our lowest ebb ever since Evil Star managed to engineer all our rings turning off at once. We have the majority of those rings back, but bearers? Not yet. So we’re running on fumes, we don’t have a big gun, and I think the Society will be able to--”
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” said Pieter Cross, the JSA’s resident physician. “But I am afraid that your visit may not be worth anything. Green Lantern’s condition has not changed. He is still in a coma.”
Guy grimaced. “Damn. I had heard, but... can we still see him?”
Sinestro bristled. He didn’t to be in the presence of a man who so soundly trounced him, even if it was when Thaal himself was under the control of Parallax.
“Of course, Green Lanterns,” said Pieter.
The doctor beckoned the two men forward, and they journeyed through the JSA’s brownstone, descending until they reached the secure medical wing. The private room, away from the larger ward, was dimly lit, with Molly Scott, wife of Alan, aka the Golden Age’s Green Lantern, sat next to her husband, gripping his hand while she prayed under her breath.
His tone uncharacteristically soft, Gardner began to speak. “We’re sorry to interrupt, ma’am. I’m Guy, this is Thaal, we’re members of the--”
“I know who you are,” said Molly, sadly. “The Green Lantern Corps. My husband admired the work your friend did, the dark haired one. Harold, was it?”
“Hal’s retired,” said Guy. Behind him, Pieter excused himself, mouthing I’ll leave you to it, before exiting the room to return to the main medical area.
“Lucky. Most of my husband’s friends either fall in battle or their age catches up with them. We’ve been lucky, us baby boomers.” She managed a smile. “I always hated that label.”
“My ring detects an otherdimensional energy permeating your cells-- is that a side effect of being close to your husband’s ring?” asked Sinestro.
“We were caught in an explosion back in the 50s that’s kept us younger than most*,” corrected Molly.
*As seen in 2011’s DC2 Christmas Special, namely the story called, “Christmas Eve, 1951”
“Mom?”
Everyone’s attention went to the door, where the young heroes Jade and Obsidian now stood.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot you were coming… my memory wanders sometimes,” said Molly. “Guy and… Thaal, was it? These are my children, Jennifer and Todd.”
“What are you doing here?” asked Obsidian. He eyed up Sinestro. “Hey, I recognise you--”
“These gentlemen are from the Green Lantern Corps, they hoped to see if your father had improved.”
“Yeah, yeah, I recognise the uniforms, but you--” Todd pointed at Thaal. “Where do I recognise you from?”
Resignedly, Molly stood and got in-between the two men. She patted Sinestro on the shoulder warmly, cordially, and the alien hero didn’t exactly know why. “Oh, Todd, hush now, your father fought this one a few years ago, when the government turned against the Justice League*. He was possessed, like you folks all are at one time or another. Remember when you and your sister were Nazis**?”
* Justice League Annual #1
** All-Star Comics Annual #1
“Mom, it wasn't as simple as…” started Todd, but she shook her head. “...M’sorry, sir.”
“Please, it’s fine. These things happen.”
Guy, meanwhile, mouthed 'Nazi?!' from behind Todd, where no one but Sinestro could see.
“Have you tried your rings?” asked Jennie.
“Tried what?” said Guy, looking down at his hand and stepping back into the middle of the room.
“Using your rings to wake him up. I dunno. We’ve tried everything. There’s no magic word that’ll work, no medical marvel, no spell, so we try everything, all the time, and see if it sticks.”
“What happened to him, exactly?” asked Sinestro.
“The weakness in our father’s ring is wood, for whatever reason. There was an explosion and he was struck by a wooden beam*, his brain swelled up so bad they had to open his head up to relieve the pressure, and after that, his body went into this kind of… stasis. The trauma was so severe; we think the only thing keeping him breathing is the ring.”
*Justice Society of America #14
“The ring,” said Sinestro, looking down at the perfect emerald band around Alan’s hand. “I wonder…”
Threads of energy began to move from Sinestro’s ring toward Alan’s.
“You’ll want to take a step back,” said Guy.
“What’s he doing?” asked Obsidian.
“Interfacing with the ring on your father’s--”
As the first line of emerald light briefly touched the surface of Alan’s ring, there was a massive flaring explosion that sent Thaal hurtling back, through the wall, and then skittering to a stop in the middle of the medical ring.
Above Alan Scott’s body a massive, clanking emerald construct manifested, the disparate pieces coming together to form an immense visual far beyond anything the two Green Lanterns present had ever witnessed. Stained green, it was a picture perfect projection of something that happened-- the emotional resonance ringing out from it convincing those present that what they watched had once occurred at some point in the past.
In it, in microscopic detail, a thousand worlds, a million worlds, all had something pulled from them as a growing, roiling, shape travelled through the galaxy, drawing whatever was being stolen from the worlds straight into its own mass. If planets got in the way of its path, the offending worlds were destroyed, until all you cold see was the straight line the seething, colourless mass travelled.
The vision seemed to pull back even further until you could see the make-up of the shape -- diamond hard and on fire-- as it hurtled toward the centre of the universe, the planet Oa.
As the comet neared, the Guardians of the Universe emerged from their Citadel and initiated a war that lasted for thousands of years. In the end--
“Alan! Alan!” Molly rushed to the side of her still vegetative husband and the construct snapped back into the his ring. As silence spread across the room, Jade and Obsidian tentatively checked to make sure his condition hadn’t worsened by the manifestation.
Guy was by Sinestro’s side just as Pieter checked on the GL, and the two Corpsmen were confused by what had just happened.
“It… didn’t… like… that,” said Sinestro, rubbing his wrist. There were burn marks from his ring finger down the back of his hand and wrist. “What exactly is on his finger?”
Gardner shook his head. “We may not know what it is, but it sure feels like it knows what we are.”
JEQ, THE HOSPITAL WORLD:
Hank Henshaw wasn’t in control. His body jerked and twitched as the neural web flashed and stabbed at his body, and the leaders of the invading force laughed as they watched him suffer.
“This is the ant that killed our father? The insect?” asked the scarred daughter of Mongul, the right side of her face a mass of contusions hardened by time and war. “Look at him dance.”
The woman beside her, her face untouched but her left arm replaced by a metallic prosthesis that was bigger and more vicious than it had any right to me, laughed and kicked Henshaw in the gut, causing him to cry out. He rolled to his side, so he could get a better look at them.
“Lords Mongul Fist, Mongul Scar,” gibbered one of the officers in their army. “We have begun pillaging medical supplies. Slave pens are filling with the patients and personnel. What are your orders?”
Lords? The women were identical in how terrifying they appeared, but with two distinct differences between them. The one with the arm was, he assumed, Mongul Fist, while the second, with her already ugly face disfigured further by the horrific scars across its right hand side, must have been Mongul Scar.
Mongul had children? Daughters?
“Access patient files, medical histories,” spat Scar. “Blackmail material. We leave this place scorched.” She looked at her sister, who nodded. Instant understanding between what Hank assumed were twins. “Leave us. Find what we need. We shall resolve this family matter alone.”
“Y-you can’t do this!” cried Dolchechk. “This is a safe--”
Mongul Scar growled and batted Dolchechk backwards, his ancient body bouncing awkwardly against the wall. He slumped over, a low level hiss leaving his lips. Something in him had broken.
“There is no safety. There is only terror,” mumbled Fist.
“So this is the man who our father hated more than anything,” growled Scar, looking across the room at Henshaw. Fist tapped something into a console embedded into her arm and the neural web deactivated, returning some semblance of control of Hank’s body. “The man who took his life.”
“W-what if I say I’m not?” asked Henshaw. No ring. No chance. Maybe irritating them wasn’t the best idea…
“Then you’d die a liar,” snapped Mongul Fist. “The genetic memory link we had with our father told us everything. We saw our father’s death-- it awoke us from our stasis! We’d been sleeping for so long, and now we know what we need to do. We need to make the entire universe suffer, just as our father intended!”
Genetic memory link? Stasis? Hank knew that the Guardians of the Universe imprisoned Mongul beneath the skin of Mars thousands of years ago*, but there was never any indication that he had kids. And if their bite was as bad as their father’s bark, then he was in for a fight
*Green Lantern #22-23
Before he could move to dodge, and before he could process her movement, Fist grabbed Hank and wrenched him upwards, so that his feet were dangling metres above the ground. As he struggled, his life choked out of him as her metallic digits rankled around his throat, he refused to scream. “We’ve been tracking you for months. A side project. And when we saw that you had been laid so low, we thought it best to end your suffering once and for all. A tender mercy.”
Hank’s thoughts swirled around him in a fog of red and green. This was it? He’d died so many times. Should have stayed dead numerous times on top of that. But if the Predator couldn’t end him, if Mongul, if everything that he’d experienced didn’t keep him down, why should this be the moment? Why should he let himself succumb now, after everything he’d lived through? In his head, a voice screamed, I refuse.
“I’m not… suffering…” slurred Hank.
“You will,” yapped Scar. “Into the belly of War World you’ll go. We’ll tie you into the pain matrices. Your agony will be piped into every room on the ship, so that all our new guests, our new slave force, can hear what happens when a great Green Lantern crosses the family Mongul.”
Hank shook his head, even as his head filled with the weight of being choked to death. “Not… anymore… not suffering… anymore…” His words started defiant, before transforming into a rasp, oxygen not immediately available to the dying man.
The ring had abandoned him for lacking will. But he refused to let himself die now. He refused to let the universe stub him out like a used up cigarette. He swung his legs up and wrapped them around the mechanical arm that held him tight. The angle was awkward, the pain magnified by the way his body contorted when it shouldn’t have. He grabbed the light fixture above his head with his free hand and wrenched it down, sparks of electricity flying. He jammed it into the circuitry that riddled Fist’s arm and she cried out, letting him go involuntarily.
“Damnation damnation,” she screamed, further sparks flying from the ancient machinery she wore.
“Don’t let him get away!” hissed Scar.
Mongul Fist swiped at Henshaw, catching the former astronaut in the side and sending him somersaulting to the floor. Mongul Scar took the initiative, dove at him, but Hank rolled further across the room, under one of the medical beds, and she skidded toward the wall nearby, cursing in an alien tongue Henshaw didn’t recognise.
Hank’s side was splitting with agony, and when he dabbed the source he could see red against the tips of his fingers. He’d been caught on one of the barbs on the edge of Mongul Fist’s mechanical limb, and a chunk had been taken out of him. Everything hurt, and with the pain came a clarity that he needed to power through.
Thank you, adrenaline rush, thought Hank, processing the chemical rush and moving with all the speed he could muster.
The door that led to the doctor’s office was just there, and if he-- the door swung open, and Alice Brant, known to her old war buddies as Dresden, became visible, restrained by a half dozen of the Monguls’ foot soldiers. She had put up a fight, her lip and nose was bloodied and there were darkening bruises around her eyes. When she saw him, half crawling, half running across the room, she didn’t blink. He was sure he looked as bad as her, the leaking he felt in his side now spreading down his leg. He was losing blood and his exit had been compromised.
“Stop running, murderer,” said Mongul Scar. “This planet is ours. This woman is your consort, is she not? If you want her to die quick, you’ll accept your fate.”
Not ‘if you want her to live. Not ‘if you want her to make it past this day’. No. Make it quick or make it slow.
Even with the lumbering animals that had their claws in her, she gave Henshaw the most defiant of looks, even as she could see the blood dribble out of him. Don’t you dare, not on my account, don’t you ever.
Hank felt something grow inside his chest, something he hadn’t felt in so long. He was angry. Angrier than pained. He’d let himself be ground down. Monster after monster taking a piece of him, taking something out of his ability to live. Subtracted from, again and again, and Hank ended up feeling like he was the absence of something, the absence of a life, but that wasn’t it. He was damaged. Damage is life. Life incurs damage. And you get on with it, and you fight past it, and you--
“No,” said Hank, finally. Understanding what that feeling in his chest was. He finally understood. “You don’t get to decide my fate.”
Mongul Scar laughed. “What choice do you have?” She looked around. The soldiers not holding Dresden had their weapons trained on him. In their eyes, they had his woman. They had his world. Every complex across the face of the planet was coming under attack. There was little resistance. The medical staff were there to heal; they weren’t trained to protect themselves from the likes of the Mongul scourge.
Willpower. Hank found it in himself for the first time in so long. The strung out, overextended trickle he’d survived on since coming back to the Green Lantern Corps after his imprisonment under Oa was nothing compared to this. He’d fought and he’d fought and now he’d found it.
“There’s always a choice,” said Hank.
In the residential area of the complex, in Hank Henshaw’s room, the lump of inertron that John Stewart had passed to Hank upon his arrival here began to shake. Thin cracks began to form across the face of it. The metal was X-Ray opaque, the scanners couldn’t see past it, and the Monguls wouldn’t have known what was inside if they knew to look.
Emerald light began to flow out of the cracks, and then without any more fanfare, Hank Henshaw’s Green Lantern ring shot out of the lump, out of the bedroom, across the complex and straight-- onto-- Hank Henshaw’s-- finger--
<Hank Henshaw of Earth. You have rediscovered the ability to overcome great fear. Welcome back to the Green Lantern Corps.>
Mongul Fist and Mongul Scar looked on in surprise. “Oh, no.”
Green Lantern once more, Hank Henshaw smiled and cracked his knuckles. “Oh, yes.”
OA:
Underground, toward the edge of the main city and far away from the Citadel used as their headquarters, was the Green Lantern Corps’ shipyard. It was here that any crafts they detained during their work were placed, or any visiting dignitaries would land prior to their escort to the Citadel itself.
Hundreds of Daxamites, pulled from the Phantom Zone and cured of the lead poisoning inflicted upon them by the mad Kryptonian scientist Xa-Du, were being loaded onto the ships that would return them to their homeworld of Daxam. Above them, in the launch control room manned by non-ring wielding operational staff, stood Sodam Yat and Katma Tui.
Yat broke the silence between them. “I’m, uh, almost surprised the cure worked. Xa-Du caused so much horror, and they’re able to go home. Those that survived his massacre, that is. Rao, it’s all so horrible, don’t you think?”
“If only we had realised what had happened sooner. The prostheses we’ve fitted your people with are top of the line, but if only we’d known…”
“And as ever, we did what we could. I wish Guy was here to see this. It was him who managed to get the word out, after all.”
“I'll be sending him a databurst soon, keep him in the loop. What scares me, or makes me curious, is that we couldn’t find anything troubling in the make up of the serum Xa-Du left behind. It was a means to an end. If he could cure the lead poisoning, he could apply the thinking to the Kryptonite poisoning. He was just…”
“I know, I know. I’m going to go with the Stel and Salaak, talk to Daxam’s elders about what happened. If there’s a lead cure, then maybe… maybe Daxam gets to be part of the universe again. No more fear of the unknown. Ugh. Did you hear what the First Elder said when Salaak told them what happened?”
“Unfortunately. ‘It served them right’,” recalled Katma. “You can’t win them all over in a day, Sodam. But the work we’ve done here, it’s part way to it.”
“I guess. Thanks for everything, Katma. You’re much nicer than Sinestro.”
“Everybody is,” said Katma, with a smile.
OA:
Green Lantern Sareek didn’t sleep very well, not since his powers manifested back on his homeworld. That was before the ring. Before the universe expanded in emerald. The Corps had allowed him to apply his God-given gift on a much larger canvas, and he was proud of his achievements. The latest had been communicating with the Daxamites, in the Phantom Zone, and drawing them back to the other side.
The bite mark on his arm, where some entity inside the ghost dimension had managed to get its teeth into him, hurt like nothing else. He had expected the pain to by transitory. There while he was bathed in the monochromatic light of the event horizon of the Phantom Zone, then gone by the time the portal closed.
But no. It hurt. It hurt so much.
“How are you feeling, Sareek?”
The Green Lantern rolled over in the bed he’d taken when Soranik Natu insisted he come in for observation. She’d never seen a Phantom Zone injury before, and the very concept terrified and amazed her.
“Cold, Lantern Natu. Colder than I’ve ever felt.”
Observing his shivers, Natu checked the dressing she’d constructed around Sareek’s wound. The wound festered slowly, his flesh pulsing as venom seemed to spread from the root of the bite outward.
“I’m not sure how this is possible, but there seems to be some kind of infection. I’m going to have to run more tests and we’ll need to drain it again.”
“I understand. I always thought I was somewhat impervious to the harm that could come from the spirit worlds, but this… is a sobering experiencing. I knew I was mortal, but…”
“It’ll be all right, Sareek. We have access to every medical database in the universe. We’ll figure out what’s ailing you and sort you out in no time.”
“In Brightest Day,” replied the injured Lantern, shuffling back on the bed so he was staring at the ceiling.
JEQ, THE HOSPITAL WORLD:
“So you think reclaiming you-- nnyyyaaaaa--”
Mongul Fist’s mechanical arm was torn from its moorings before she could finish her threat. Vital fluids and biomechanical liquid spewing, she screamed as Henshaw shattered it into pieces with a thought, then turned his attention over to Mongul Scar.
While this was going on, he’d sent lines of light under their feet and through the floor beneath the soldiers holding Dresden at gunpoint. Their weapons failed immediately. She elbowed one of her captives in the throat, pulverising his trachea-- or whatever this race’s equivalent was-- and rolled forward, siding with Hank and taking cover under the emerald shield he projected.
“Let me tell you the odds you have of getting out of here in one piece are,” said Henshaw.
“You’re just one man. One little, little man!” spat Scar.
“I’m so much more than that. I’m a Green Lantern. And right now--?”
Hank Henshaw raised his hands up and his ring strobed. Every stray thought was dismissed. He didn’t think about his past, or his future. He didn’t dwell on the Predator, or Mongul ‘Prime’. He didn’t think about his deaths or his lives or anything in-between. Instead, he thought one single, emerald thought, and he became a blindingly bright beacon that most had to turn away from to retain their vision.
Alice looked on in awe and wonder as he became a figure of pure intent and focus.
Across the surface of Jeq, any doctor, nurse, patient or visitor, was encased in emerald armour, the symbol of the Green Lantern Corps emblazoned across their chests. The alien forces trying to take them into captivity were shocked by this, some cried out and retreated-- they knew what that symbol meant-- others fired upon the changed, only for their weapons fire to land ineffectually against the shields surrounding those shrouded in the green light. Those kidnapped onto the alien ships, onto War World, were launched back to Jeq in viridescent escape pods, freed from their short-lived captivity.
Symbols strobed up and out. The surface of the planet was suddenly illuminated by a thousand-- ten thousand-- shimmering insignias that screamed Green Lantern Corps, and that wasn’t something the roaming marauders of War World were expected when they made planetfall.
“And right now, so is everybody else. Two options. One,” Hank held up a finger, “leave now and never come back, or two,” he held up a second finger, a mischievous smile on his lips, “feel our might.”
Mongul Fist clutched the seeping wound on her stump where the control circuitry for her prosthesis had been located, then kicked the shin of her sister roughly. “We can’t win a fight against a world full of them--”
“Tick tock,” pushed Henshaw.
“Activate mass transit circuits!” bellowed Scar, shaking her head. “This isn’t over, Hank Henshaw! Not by a--” The invading forces teleported off of Jeq, leaving debris and confusion.
“They’re gone; you drove them off!” said Alice. She looked down at her body, at the Green Lantern costume covering her like a suit of body armour. “Did you really--?”
Henshaw stumbled, taking a knee beside Dresden. She knelt down beside him as her costume vanished nearly as fast as it had appeared, then noticed how pale he looked, how much he was sweating, shaking, at the exertion he’d just undertaken.
“Jesus Christ, I feel like crap. Just… had to spread my power… across an entire planet… never done… that before…”
Henshaw passed out in Dresden’s arms.
NEW YORK:
Guy and Thaal exited the JSA’s brownstones to consider their next steps on their search for an ally capable of going toe-to-toe with Parallax. Alan Scott was comatose, his ring projecting odd constructs that they hadn’t fully deciphered yet when in contact with a Green Lantern power ring. Kyle Rayner was MIA with no clues as to where he’d ended up.
“…Who else is there?” asked Guy. They’d ended up in Central Park and were making their way across it at his behest, as he knew of a nearby bar that they could regroup in while building up a tab.
“The Guardians of the Universe might be capable of reining in their creation, but they left this plane of existence some time ago, along with the Zamorans*. The Red Lanterns are an x-factor, but we’re unable to see through the scarlet shield they erected around Sector 666*.”
*Green Lantern #41
**After the events of ‘Scarlet Reign’ in Green Lantern #44-50
“Plus, they hate us.”
“The enemy of my enemy. Parallax destroyed Sector 666. Murdered Atrocitus’ family and everything he ever knew. If there was ever a reason for them to join forces with us, it would be to strike Parallax and his… Effigies… down.”
Guy nodded. “I’ll contact Salaak, see if the Book of Oa has any other ideas. John’s spoken to the Justice League*, but we had all of Japan’s heroes last time we faced Parallax-- and they’re no joke-- but it didn’t do jack**.”
*Last issue
**Green Lantern Corps #63
“Parallax is power. Insidious and ever-growing. On the same level as the Guardians themselves.”
Guy kicked at the ground, knocking a smattering of stray pebbles down the sidewalk. “Is this our plan then? Some kind of wild goose chase across the universe, looking for something powerful enough to take him down? A scavenger hunt?”
“If that’s what it takes. And if we can’t locate Kyle…”
Guy sighed. “God damn. It’s shit, isn’t it?”
JEQ, THE HOSPITAL WORLD:
Hank jerked awake, only to find himself surrounded by a number of doctors and nurses, as well as Alice, who sat in a chair beside him, asleep until he cried out.
“Hank, it’s okay! It’s okay!” Alice held onto his arm, as if letting go would see him float to the ceiling, but he found her touch comforting and he stopped thrashing about immediately. His ring was on his finger. He felt warm. He felt safe. He just didn’t know how he ended up in this bed, and why there were so many people looking at him through the glass walls that surrounded the room.
“What happened?”
Malco, head nurse of the facility, looked at the tablet she held in two hands, then ran a hand through her thick hair with a third. Her fourth arm was tucked behind her back. “We know very little about the relationship between ring-wielder and the power ring itself, but we believe you over-exerted yourself. Have you ever performed an act like that with your ring before?”
“No, no,” said Hank. He swung his legs around and out of the bed, but still felt out of sorts. Best not stand up just yet.
“I’m not surprised. You spread your power across every living behind on the planet. I felt what it was like to be a Green Lantern, for a few seconds at least,” said Malco.
“Where’s Doctor Dolchechk?”
Malco looked away, sadly. “The doctor doesn’t have much time left. The attack at the hands of the invaders damaged his internal organs. All we’ve been able to do is make him comfortable. He… wanted to see you when you were conscious. He’s holding on for you.”
Henshaw’s brow furrowed. He stood, shaky at first, but Alice supported him. He smiled and thanked her, and she laughed dismissively.
“You saved my life. Means you get some kudos from me. No need to thank me.”
After testing his legs for a few seconds, Hank was ready to walk unaided. Led by Malco and a contingent of doctors, the duo walked through numerous corridors until they reached a massive ward where only one bed was visible.
“Through here.” Malco stopped Alice entering after Hank. “He wants to speak to Lantern Henshaw alone.” She pushed a button and the window darkened, giving Hank and Dolchechk privacy.
“Th-thank goodness you’re awake, there isn’t much time,” said Doctor Dolchechk, his aged, ancient body shaking as Henshaw approached.
“The doctors say you’re dying, but my ring--”
“No! Not the ring. No. No thank you. I just… you’ve suspected it, I’m sure, and I know she has,” the doctor coughed, globules of cerulean fluid dribbling out his lips, “but young Alice didn’t survive the torture she experienced at the hands of the mad scientist that stripped her of her humanity. She didn’t make it back*. She… she begged your colleague, John Stewart, to put her out of her misery, and he did… but when he came here with Thomas, we found a remnant of her consciousness latched to his ring. Somehow…”
*Green Lantern #43
Hank’s eyes widened. “You… you talked about a precedent when we first met, about personalities being retained by the rings after people died*.”
*Green Lantern Corps #64
“Y-yes. I misspoke, but planted a seed, I’m sure…” His body experienced a massive spasm as his faculties began to leave him, his eyes widening with understanding that he didn’t have long now. “Take… take my memories. Take them with you… you need… need to know…”
Dolchechk clamped his hand around Hank’s ring, and as Henshaw thought, I would if I could, emerald light flooded every part of the dying doctor, and when it was done, he died peacefully, the monitors buzzing one long, sorry tone until they turned themselves off.
<Personality profile stored within ring database // upload to Book of Oa??> buzzed Hank’s ring.
“What? Uh, not yet. No… there’s more to be done. Let’s hear what he has to say.”
An emerald projection of Doctor Dolchechk appeared above Henshaw’s ring: “I am so sorry that it has come to this. But the threat is very, very real. We weren’t to know what we had done when we bought Alice Brant back from the dead. The Alice Brant that is alive today is a psychic remnant placed within a clone body. She wears the skin she believes she should. Prosthesis in places. Artificial eyes. Lantern John Stewart accidentally took a full personality scan of her at the moment of her death, and through pure chance did we discover this when he arrived on Jeq. We were able to pour the immense amount of information that comes with an entire woman’s life into a bespoke clone body. This has never been done before--”
Hank ended the retelling. It could wait. Alice was alive. That’s all that mattered. She was more than just the sum of her parts, surely. And when he touched her last, when they spent the night together, she was more human than anybody.
Hank exited the ward and shook his head solemnly at Malco. She sighed-- a sad, heavy sigh-- and led the other medical staff into the room to deal with what came next. Henshaw held out his hand to Alice, and the two walked in the other direction, until they reached the surface of Jeq.
The damage done by War World was nearly undone. Henshaw checked his ring’s internal clock and realised he’d been unconscious for nearly an entire day. Wrapping the power of the Green Lantern ring across the bodies of every person on the planet wiped him out, and he would have to recharge his ring sooner rather than later.
“What are you going to do now?” asked Alice.
“I have unfinished business across the universe.”
“Well… that’s vague.”
“I let it all fall apart. When I had the ring this last time, I let it slip through my fingers. I was… riddled with cracks, and it all fell apart. I fell apart. I lost the ring. But not anymore. I’m back. I’m me. And I know that there’s twenty-four hours missing from my memory prior to my losing my ring*. Something shattered me. And it wasn’t just everything I was dealing with. I think something happened, and I need to figure out what. And I need to prove… to me. To everyone. That I deserve this ring.”
*Green Lantern Corps #57-59
“So you’re going.”
Hank looked at Alice. “You don’t have to stay here. You could…”
“Go back with you? You were a good lay, but I’m not… no. Ha, I’m not gonna joke. I need to stay here for Tom. When he’s better, I’ll come home. And if it’s okay… if it’s okay with you, I’ll drop you a call. How does that sound?”
Hank leaned over and kissed Alice on the forehead. As he went to move back, she put her arms around his neck and pulled him back and kissed him deeply, fully, on the lips.
“I think I would like that, yeah,” said Hank, after they parted.
“Good. Stay safe out there, Spaceman.”
Henshaw cast his ring to the skies and flew away, headed to Earth, and whatever tomorrow may bring him…
Please take a moment and follow this link to let us know what you thought of this issue!
NEXT ISSUE: John Stewart meets his deadliest enemy… himself! When a dimensional tear opens up and spits out a doppelgänger from an Earth polar opposite to our own, how will Green Lantern fare against… Power Ring?