Green Lantern Corps: Recharge
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Green Lantern Corps: Recharge was a five-issue, monthly comic book miniseries that was published by DC Comics from September 2005 to March 2006. The series was written by Geoff Johns and Dave Gibbons and illustrated by penciler Patrick Gleason and inkers Christian Alamy and Prentis Rollins. The first issue, which was cover dated November 2005, was published on September 21, 2005. The series starred several members of the Green Lantern Corps, a fictional intergalactic police force in the DC Comics universe, and was a follow-up to the miniseries Green Lantern: Rebirth, which had been published earlier in 2005.
A monthly ongoing Green Lantern Corps debuted in June 2006, the first such monthly series since 1988.[1]
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[edit] Backstory
In 1994, DC Comics decided to do away with Hal Jordan, who had been the Green Lantern of Earth since his first DC Comics appearance in 1959, and replace him with a new character to carry on the Green Lantern legacy, Kyle Rayner, in the hopes of attracting new readers with a younger character. The storyline, which culminated in Green Lantern #48 (January 1994), involved Hal Jordan descending into madness following the complete destruction of his home town (Coast City) by the villain Mongul and becoming the villain Parallax. Jordan went on a rampage, destroying the Green Lantern Corps. This provoked outrage among fans, and in 2005, Jordan was redeemed and resurrected in the miniseries Green Lantern: Rebirth, in which it was revealed that Parallax was actually a demonic parasitic entity that fed on fear, and that possessed Jordan, leading to his apparent criminal actions. Rebirth and the subsequent new Green Lantern monthly series returned Jordan to the status of the “star” Green Lantern of Earth. It also returned former GL Guy Gardner to the ranks of the Green Lanterns. Green Lantern Corps: Recharge (along with the miniseries Rann/Thanagar War, which was published shortly after Rebirth and before Recharge), may have been produced at least partially to address concerns over what Kyle Rayner’s and Guy Gardner’s places in the DC universe would be.
[edit] Synopsis
The story begins with Tarkus Whin investigating Star 196 in his assigned sector of space, on his first day as the Green Lantern of space sector 1417. As he does so, the star becomes unstable and contracts into a black hole, pulling him in. Although he is killed, his ring escapes the black hole to seek a replacement.
Meanwhile, the Guardians of the Universe, the overseers of the Corps, have summoned Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner to Oa, the Guardians’ headquarters planet, amidst a massive recruitment drive of 3,600 new GL recruits. Among the new recruits are Korugarian neurosurgeon Soranik Natu, who receives Tarkus Whin’s ring. Because of Korugar’s unfortunate history with the Corps, which includes enslavement by the rogue Korugarian Green Lantern Sinestro, and the death of fellow Korugarian Katma Tui (whom Natu refers to as “The Wicked” and “The Lost”, respectively), Natu initially refuses the ring, but reluctantly takes it to save the life of her patient, and is immediately brought to Oa, but leaves soon thereafter. Two other recruits are plucked from opposite sides of the Rann/Thanagarian War, the Rannian soldier Vath Sarn, and the condemned Thanagarian saurian Isamot Kol.
Ganthet, the leader of the Guardians, announces to his fellow overseers that Green Lanterns have been killed recently without warning by the sudden and unusually frequent manifestation of black holes. Ganthet also warns them that the Rann/Thanagar War has spread beyond those two empires, and may eventually affect Oa and the Corps. Another Guardian reports that Dr. Natu has now gone missing herself. Natu finds herself in an unidentified location devoid of light and filled with spider web-like objects, and a dead Green Lantern hanging from one of them.
Gardner, who is dismayed to learn that he is to help train the new recruits, which the vain Green Lantern sees as little more than babysitting, particularly in light of the high esteem in which they hold Kyle Rayner, whom they refer to as the “Torch-Bearer,” decides to leave Oa. Head trainer Kilowog implores him to stay, telling him they have over 300 recruits to train, and are looking for nearly 6,900 more. He ominously informs Gardner that the Guardians are warning that the whole universe is about to change.
In Sector 2261, the sentient planet and Green Lantern Mogo reports to Oa that a Thanagarian fleet has appeared in his orbit to replenish their resources, with a Rannian fleet expected to follow, and requests assistance. Rayner and Gardner are sent to Mogo, along with Green Man and the robot Stel, where they successfully repel the combined fleets. They then take a brief respite on Mogo, where Rayner sees images of his slain girlfriend Alex, and then the missing Soranik Natu, who their rings indicate is being held somewhere in Sector 2828, the Vega star system. The pact between the Psions of Vega and the Guardians restricts Green Lanterns from journeying to that system, but Rayner and Gardner disregard the pact, and head for Vega. Green Man and Stel refuse to violate the pact, and remain behind.
Meanwhile, new recruits Vath Sarn and Isamot Kol are given temporary badges and assigned to the edge of their native system in Sector 2682, to divert ships away from Star 38, which has shown signs of instability. Kol is slow to adapt to Corps protocols, questioning his orders, instigating conflict with Sarn, whom he still sees as an enemy from the war, and even threatens an Okaaran hospital ship that fires upon him after refusing to change course from the star. The star eventually goes nova, and the two new recruits valiantly attempt to pull the ship from the ensuing black hole, but are sucked in. Kilowog arrives to pull the hospital ship to safety before diving into the black hole to search for Sarn and Kol, who find themselves in an unidentified nest of some sort, with a horde of spiders approaching, and the skeletons of the creatures’ previous victims beneath their feet. Kilowog arrives to assist Sarn and Kol in fighting off the creatures. Escaping from the planet into outer space, the three Lanterns encounter what appears to be a mechanical planet resembling a Dyson Sphere.
On space station in a rogue orbit, a group of Vegan bounty hunters are being rebuked by their leader, who is upset at the apparent deaths of Tarkus Whin and Soranik Natu. Another, a staff-wielding female named Fatality, wants the Lanterns for herself, because, she argues, their kind destroyed her homeworld. The leader points out that she shared his Darkstar bounty, and that this claim is his.
Rayner and Gardner arrive at a planet in the Vega system, where they find Natu being held prisoner at a low-level organic recycling facility by a group of unidentified aliens. Attempts to translate the aliens’ language with their rings fails, as the aliens’ language is not in the rings’ database. The Lanterns also find the corpse of Tarkus Whin. Natu shows no signs of life, and her power ring is missing, but with a burst of green light from her eyes and mouth, she immediately comes to life, and regurgitates her ring. She tells Gardner and Rayner that as she was returning to Korugar, she was haunted by thoughts of Tarkus Whin, because the rites of death are sacred on Korugar. Her ring took her to the black hole that had been star 1417.196, which sucked her in, despite her caution in remaining beyond its event horizon. She found herself at an unknown location devoid of light, and found Tarkus’ corpse. Sensing that his killers were coming for him, and realizing that Tarkus’ ring obviously was not able to protect him, she decided to swallow her ring and order it to slow her vital processes and store her lifeforce within itself, so that she would appear to be another lump of organic waste to the spider-like creatures that took her. Her brain functions minimal, she remembered ordering to send rescue signals when it was safe, and to respond to nearby power rings. She vaguely remembered floating in space before being manhandled by the bounty hunters.
After she uses her ring to create a funeral pyre for Tarkus Whin, Rayner and Gardner convince her to honor his memory by keeping the power ring he died for. Conjuring a Green Lantern uniform for herself without the Lantern emblem, she departs with Rayner and Gardner with the intention of reporting back to Oa for training, the three are ambushed by the bounty hunters Bolphunga the Unrelenting, Fatality, and Dag. They flee, and after hearing a signal from Kilowog, run into the mechanical planet Kilowog encountered.
It turns out that the mechanical planet is the nest for the Spider Guild. They locate Kilowog, inside the Nest, who tells them that Sarn and Kol went exploring through the ventilation ducts where the large Kilowog could not go, in order to glean information on the inhabitants of the Nest. The two former soldiers find the Nest’s command center, and a group of cloaked humanoid arachnids assembled around floating holographic map of the galaxy. Sarn realizes that the lines connecting the various black holes that have been forming to the Nest are subspace conduits, and that the network of black holes is a subspace web through which the Spider Guild is collapsing stars in order to store their energy, with the webs acting as organic filters for the excreted waste, which serve as nutrients for the young spiders.
Kilowog, Rayner, Gardner and Natu blast their way out of the conduits and reunite with Kol and Sarn, and the six Lanterns battle both a horde of mechanical spiders, as well as the bounty hunters, who arrive to attack them. Natu, who is the most inexperienced as a Lantern, falters amid the battle, her fear making it difficult for her to overcome the Parallax Fear Anamoly that prevents untested Lanterns from affecting anything yellow in color, but because the other five Lanterns’ rings are nearly depleted, she manages to encase the six of them in an energy sphere that they use to retreat the Nest and return to Oa. They realize that Oa’s sun is the Guild’s next target, but are attacked again by the bounty hunters. Their rings mostly depleted, their situation seems dire, but they are saved by Green Man and Stel, who arrive on the scene, as the six are no longer in Vegan territory.
The group then receive an urgent Code Zero alert, which Rayner explains is for when Oa itself is under attack. An immense Spider fleet emerges right out of the Oan sun, which, as the Guardians’ chief GL administrator, Salaak, reports to Ganthet, is showing the same signs of instability that preceded the other stars collapsing into black holes. Most of the new GL recruits have yet to overcome the Parallax Fear Anomaly, and are ineffectual against the Guild’s Golden Spider Machines. Although an urgent Code Zero call has been put out to all Lanterns, Ganthet laments that there are so few experienced ones that the reconstruction of their Corps came too late, and all hope is lost.
In the midst of the battle, however, Earth Green Lanterns Hal Jordan and John Stewart arrive to assist in the battle, and soon after, so do Rayner, Gardner, Kilowog, Sarn, Kol, Natu, Green Man and Stel. Salaak is upset not only that the group exited faster-than-light velocity so close to Oa, in violation of Corps regulations, but also that Gardner assumes a position of authority in directing his fellow Lanterns. Gardner insists to Salaak that Kilowog’s ring is the only one that can summon the rest of the Corps, which Kilowog then does, summoning all GL’s to Oa’s Central Power Battery. As the rest of the Corps arrive, Gardner directs all of them to act as one, in recharging their power rings simultaneously, in the hopes that their solidarity will help the new recruits’ overcome the Parallax Fear Anomaly. After doing this, Gardner directs the entire Corps to focus not on the spiders or their invading drone ships, but on firing on Oa’s sun in order to first stabilize it, and then to feed enough energy back to Vega in order to destroy the Guild’s nest. Salaak sees Gardner’s assumption of authority as mutiny, but Kilowog vouches for him, and every member of the Corps then fires their power ring in unison at Oa’s sun. While the spiders continue to attack, taking out some Green Lanterns, the sun is slowly stabilized, overloading the Guild’s subspace web, and both the sun and the Guild Nest is destroyed.
In the aftermath of the Corps’ victory, the Guardians’ fear retribution from the Psions for intruding into the Vega system. Ganthet adds that they must work to fortify their damaged planetary citadel, and suggests that it may be time to make the universe afraid of them. Salaak informs Gardner that the Guardians are pleased with the exceptional qualities he has displayed, and are promoting him to Lantern #1 of the Corps Honor Guard, but that for his incursion into Vega, usurping of command, and disrespect of his superiors, his home leave has been cancelled for one year. Rayner defends Gardner, saying that he was in full agreement with Gardner, and goads Salaak into punishing Rayner in kind.
Natu helps mend some injuries, and when the question is asked of what they will do now that Oa’s sun is gone, Sarn answers that they will follow orders, trust and believe. Natu adds that the Corps’ wounds will be healed, and eventually, the Corps will be stronger than ever.
[edit] Trivia
- Soranik Natu is referred to as "Somanik" Natu on Page 28, panel 1 of issue #1.
- Although Star 38 is initially indicated to be in Sector 2682 on Page 4 of issue #2, it is later referred to as Sector 1099.381 on Page 10 and Sector 1099 on Page 21.
- Tarkus Whin’s assigned sector is identified as Sector 1417 on Page 1 of issue #1, but as Sector 1471 by Guy Gardner on page 12 of issue #3.
Elvis can be seen as one of the Green Lanterns, when they all fire their rings at once.
