WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Green Lantern: Blackstars #1, by Grant Morrison, Xermanico, Steve Oliff and Steve Wands, on sale now.
The newly published Green Lantern: Blackstars #1 gives readers their first look into a newly reimagined world in which the Green Lantern Corps does not exist. Instead, the Blackstars rule the universe as an intergalactic security force that seeks to establish peace and order through authoritarian measures.
Grant Morrison introduced the new big bad of the current Green Lantern storyline, Controller Mu, in his Liam Sharp's previous series, The Green Lantern. Running for twelve issues, the series culminated in Mu and the Blackstars rewriting the nature of reality using the Miracle Machine. Careful readers will note that Morrison took inspiration from 1968's Adventure Comics #367, in which the original Controllers were conceived as a rebellious branch of the Green Lanterns' commanders-in-chief, the Guardians of Oa. The Controllers originally created the Blackstars, then called the Darkstars, as well as the Miracle Machine, which grants its user any conceivable wish. Now, Morrison has brought back the device using Hal Jordan and his ring as power sources.
Controller Mu is the latest and deadliest threat to be born out of this extraterrestrial line of beings, a mad king who has cultivated a loyal following of zealous acolytes and who has now reached his ultimate goal in reshaping the Green Lantern Corps to follow his own warped brand of peacekeeping. Hal Jordan had previously infiltrated the Blackstars at the Guardians' orders in order to sabotage their plans, but The Green Lantern #12 revealed that, unbeknownst to Hal, Mu was manipulating him in order to utilize his energy for the Miracle Machine and turn the Green Lantern Corps into Blackstars.
Hal Jordan, now calling himself Parallax in a nod to his previous evil incarnation, joins forces with another elite Blackstar member, the Cosmic Vampire Countess Belzebeth, to track down the universe's most vicious agents of chaos and force them to convert to the Blackstar order. They travel to Oa, which exists as a burned-out husk of a planet and where the Guardians had used their last remaining power to imprison a host of extra-dimensional nightmares. Hal and Belzebeth, however, set the Lovecraftian creatures free, sparing them their lives if they pledge allegiance to the Blackstar order and help to construct new worlds out of their dying planet. Commander Mu thus sees his perverted but idealistic vision of angels and demons working alongside each other to establish peace come closer to fruition.
The Blackstars also take aim at Warworld, which Belzebeth says she has promised to give to Commander Mu as a personal gift. Readers get a sense of Belzebeth's violent ambition and jaw-dropping power when she obliterates Warworld and brings its leader, and long-time DC villain, Mongul to his knees. She also chillingly promises Mongul that Warworld will only exist as a mercurium-plated trophy in Mu's physical restructuring of the universe.
Mu now rules over his newly created planet, the center of a world that is utterly at peace but also under the Commander's total control. He has seemingly limitless power, and with Belzebeth's ability to turn sentient beings into Blackstars, coupled with Hal Jordan's dominant will, the Blackstars set their sights on earth.