WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Far Sector #9 by N.K. Jemisin, Jamal Campbell, and Deron Bennett, on sale now.
There’s no shortage of Green Lanterns throughout the DC Universe. From the most popular Lantern, Hal Jordan, to the Torchbearer, Kyle Rayner, fans have been introduced to more Lanterns than they can sling a ring at. With thousands of members patrolling the cosmos in the prime continuity, let alone the endless variations spread throughout the Multiverse, it’s rare for any Lantern to find themselves alone in any combat situation.
However, the Green Lantern of Far Sector, the Corps’ newest recruit, Sojourner Mullein, had made a habit of getting herself in over her head without any of her fellow Emerald Knights to watch her back. While she'll join Earth's Justice League in the upcoming DC Future State event, she's still finding her way through alien territory on her own for the moment.
Born in Brooklyn, Sojourner “Jo” Mullein, both a former soldier in the U.S. Army and former NYPD officer, serves as the lone Green Lantern for the City Enduring, a highly advanced world so far from Oa and the Guardians that it may not even have a sector number. Inhabited by the winged Nah, the artificially intelligent species known as the @At, and the carnivorous plant-creatures known as the keh-Topli, the City is home to 20 billion citizens, almost entirely devoid of emotion thanks to the Emotion Exploit.
A mandatory method of emotion suppression through a biocybernetic code written into the DNA of the population, the Exploit was born when the Trilogy races saw their anger as what led to the downfall and decimation of their original homeworlds. They developed the Exploit to suppress all emotion, allowing them to rebuild their collective society as one of cold logic and reason, making the City’s first murder in 500 years, and Jo’s investigation of it, all the more shocking.
Far Sector #9 finds the Green Lantern further unraveling the mysteries surrounding this investigation without the aid of her power ring, with its charge depleted after a confrontation with the A.I. assassins who killed a councilor in the previous issue. Following a tip from Marth, a member of the City’s council, Jo learns from her assistant, the sentient A.I. CanHaz, about the Feelsnet. Essentially the City Enduring’s equivalent of the dark web, the Feelsnet acts as an exchange for all sorts of contraband, including homegrown memes -- treated as currency in the City -- and the emotion-inducing narcotic used to create them: Switchoff.
Unlike other ring slingers, Mullein’s ring never has to be charged by a standard-issue power battery. Self-replenishing, it endows Jo with many of the powers associated with a Lantern, albeit with the disadvantage of needing days to recharge once depleted. With her ring slowly recharging, Jo investigates another of Marth’s leads and winds up in a rural area known as Platform Solid Ground, where she finds an unmarked facility patrolled by armed soldiers.
Knocking out an ill-prepared guard who ambushed her, she takes his armor for herself, using it to infiltrate the facility right under the noses of its security personnel. As she continues into the facility, she realizes that its “residents” are more like inmates, being forced to generate high profile memes and currency in inhumane conditions. Now, trapped, powerless and without any backup or any way of freeing the facility’s unwilling prisoners, Jo finds her back against the wall with the clock ticking until she’s discovered.
While most Green Lanterns are chosen based off of their ability to overcome great fear, the purpose of Jo’s induction was to test the capacities of one’s ability to live with great fear—one who can come to terms with fear and fight through it. And it looks like that capacity is going to be sorely tested if she plans on making it out of this facility in one piece.