Tuesday, June 14, 2011

My Green Lantern Bothersome Question and Answer

With the new movie Green Lantern coming out, it raised a long time question of mine.

Why does the Green Lantern that crashes on Earth need a spaceship? Abin Sur, the alien that gives his ring to Hal Jordan is the only Green Lantern that seemed to use a spaceship. All other Green Lanterns just fly around the universe with the power of the ring.

It seems he was told his ring would fail him and cause his death, thus he started to rely on other things, which actually lead his ring to fail him. Moral of the story: never listen to people who predict the future. :)

The answer via wikipedia.org

Spaceship

The question was raised of why Abin Sur needed a ship, but in the Green Lantern Origins serial, it is stated that out of paranoia of the prophecy of his destruction, he navigated the cosmos in a ship filled with weapons, not trusting the powers of his ring, as the prophecy stated that his ring would fail him when he needed it most.

Pre-Crisis explanation

In the story "Earth's First Green Lantern," Jordan revealed that he wondered that himself and asked his ring to explain.

The ring told the story of how Abin Sur discovered a parasitic energy being species that fed on sentient beings' "I-factor," a substance that enabled inventiveness, attacking civilizations and stalling their development. Sur captured them to stop their destruction, but one of their number had escaped and vowed to free his brethren. To do so, he tracked down Sur's planet and created a disaster to force him to appear to stop it. Since Sur did not mask himself, the being recognized him immediately and followed him to his home. As Sur neglected to charge his ring before going to sleep, he was unable to stop the being from taking control of him.

With the being in control of his body and about to force him to go and free his fellows, Sur tricked the being into thinking that he would not be able to do so because the ring would be low on power after the trip there while in reality the ring's charge is purely time based. The being decided to have Sur take a ship to the destination, but before leaving, Sur managed to get a hold of his invisible power battery. On the ship, Sur piloted the ship and waited until he moved into a green colored planetary radiation belt which allowed Sur to charge his ring without the being noticing. Thus armed, Sur battled and captured the being. However during the fight, the ship wandered into Earth's radiation belt. With his ring useless, Sur lost control of the battered ship and crashed. Mortally wounded, Sur sought out his replacement and drew Jordan to him.

According to Jordan, this account prompted him to keep a secret identity as a security precaution and to carefully navigate around Earth's radiation belts.

Post-Crisis explanation

In Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #2 (1986) story "Tygers", writer Alan Moore answered the question with a story of how the hero once visited Ysmault, a prison planet for an ancient race of demons, the Empire of Tears, vanquished millennia ago by the Oans. He was on a rescue mission and felt he could not wait for instruction from the Guardians.

While there, Abin Sur met a demon named Qull of the Five Inversions, a humanoid with a gaping mouth in his chest and a tongue-shaped head, crucified by three glowing spikes topped with the symbol of the Green Lantern Corps. This unholy messiah predicted the hero would die when his power ring ran out of energy at a critical moment, while he was fighting an opponent or unprotected in hard vacuum. Abin Sur, worried by this prophecy, began using a starship for interstellar voyages, as an additional safeguard.

A decade later, fleeing his enemy, his spaceship collided with a girdle of yellow radiation around Earth that rendered his starship and his power-ring useless within moments. Had he relied on his ring alone, he realized, he might have tested the planet's magnetosphere before rashly entering it. Thus, while Legion may have wounded him, it could be argued that it was Qull that was actually responsible for Abin Sur's death, having sown the seeds of doubt in the Green Lantern's mind.
[edit] Green Lantern: Secret Origin
Main article: Green Lantern: Secret Origin

In the Secret Origins arc (Green Lantern vol. 4), Abin Sur's final fate was tweaked again to incorporate elements of the Parallax impurity. Still forced to use a starship due to his growing fear of impending death, Abin Sur dies while escorting Atrocitus, another prisoner of the Empire of Tears to Earth in his search for the Black Energies foretold to bring on the Blackest Night. Atrocitus successfully manages to free himself and Abin Sur is left to choose between a crash landing on Coast City, or a riskier one in the desert nearby. Abin Sur chooses sacrifice, and lands in the desert. He dies of his wounds after warning Sinestro, still a loyal Lantern at the time, and designating Hal Jordan as his successor.

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