The Ultraviolet Lantern Corps Is Bigger Than Anyone Could Have Imagined

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Justice League #3 by Scott Snyder, Jorge Jimenez, Alejandro Sanchez and Tom Napolitano, on sale now.

Geoff Johns changed everything we thought we knew about the Green Lantern mythos over a decade ago when he introduced the concept of an entire spectrum of light. Suddenly, the green power of will was just one cosmic force among a number of different colored Lantern Corps.

First, we were introduced to the Yellow Lanterns of Fear, and shortly afterwards we learned about Red for Rage, Blue for Hope, Violet for Love, Indigo for Compassion and Orange for Avarice. It turned the DC Universe’s cosmic scene upside-down in ways that we’re still feeling to this day, providing a jumping off point for creators in the future to explore the possibilities of an entire emotional spectrum of light.

That’s exactly what Scott Snyder and his collaborators are doing right now in Justice League, as Sinestro has unlocked the hidden power of the Ultraviolet Lantern Corps, one of the seven hidden forces of the universe locked away behind the Source Wall. The last issue of Justice League saw John Stewart forcibly recruited into the Ultraviolet Lantern Corps against his will and this week’s issue not only reveals the true potential of his new power set, but the origins of the new Corps, who their founder is and just how big their membership is.

Intergalactic Anthropology

Justice League #3 does something few comics set in the DC Universe have ever thought to, giving readers a flashback featuring a young Sinestro, prior to his induction in the Green Lantern Corps. As far as we've known, Thaal Sinestro’s entire life has been dedicated to either the Green Lanterns or his eponymous Yellow Lanterns, but Justice League #3 introduces us to a Sinestro who is already famous across the galaxy as an intergalactic anthropologist. It seems that prior to joining the Green Lantern Corps, Sinestro was somewhat of a spacefaring Indiana Jones, discovering lost cosmic forces and forgotten relics of long lost civilizations.

It was hinted in Justice League #2 that Sinestro had been searching for the power of the Ultraviolet Corps for a long time, and this week’s issue confirms it. More, it explains his classic purple and black costume's return, as it was something he wore because it was made of “ancient fibers described in lost tomes to channel unseen energy.” Our flashback scene with Sinestro is brief, but illuminating; counter to what we’ve come to expect from Sinestro, he was actually seeking to lock the unseen power away, not harness it for himself.

Unfortunately, fate got to him first as he was ushered into a whole new life as a member of the Green Lantern Corps, but he never forgot what his original mission was. But now, it has been calibrated to fit in with a new outlook on the universe only decades of experience could provide. Rather than trying to lock the power of the unseen light away, Sinestro has managed to harness it to his own ends, wielding it against the Green Lantern Corps’ leader John Stewart, whom he sent to attack the Justice League as the Ultraviolet Lantern.

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Shame. Shame. Shame.

While the currently understood Lantern Corps deal with emotional motivators such as Willpower, Rage and Love, the core drive of the Ultraviolet Lanterns is that of Shame which makes John Stewart an interesting target to be their first soldier. Over the past thirty years, John has been defined by one very bad mistake; he believed he could save the planet Xanshi alone but instead found the worldkilling bomb at the planet’s core to be made of a yellow material and was unable to stop it from destroying the alien world.

Stewart has been dealing with the fallout of Xanshi’s destruction for years. It’s always weighed heavily on his conscience, and this isn’t the first time a Lantern Corps has been able to manipulate those feelings in order to conscript John Stewart to their service.

During the “War of the Green Lanterns” story arc, the first four Earth members of the Lantern Corps were abandoned without their usual rings due to their corruption at the hands of Krona and Parallax, and were forced to temporarily join new Corps in order to fight back. Hal Jordan wielded the yellow ring of fear, Guy Gardner gave into the red power of rage, Kyle Rayner wore the blue ring of hope and John Stewart took on the indigo power of compassion, briefly joining the Indigo Tribe.

Using the power of the Indigo light, John was able to wield and redirect different powers within the emotional spectrum and was forced to use Black Lantern energy to kill the Parallax infected Mogo. The Living Planet recovered, but the responsibility for the destruction of another planet tormented John for a long time.

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Umbrax

As an Ultraviolet Lantern, John Stewart is able to not only weaponize his own darkest feelings, but those of the people around him also. It makes sense that the Ultraviolet Lantern Corps would be powered by Shame, as it’s the one emotion we tend to bury in the deepest parts of ourselves and refuse to acknowledge, just as Ultraviolet light cannot be seen though it exists all around us. John is able to use his new power to drain the Justice League of their shame and create a rampaging monster. It’s only thanks to the timely intervention of Cyborg that John is defeated and, ultimately, freed from the grip of the Ultraviolet energy.

After recovering from his ordeal, John explains to the Justice League what he learned about the Ultraviolet energy. He notes that after the destruction of Xanshi, he traveled the known sectors of the universe looking for a way to bring it back but instead found young Sinestro’s notes on the unseen light which took the form of a warning for it never be unlocked. According to those notes, the Ultraviolet Spectrum is actually a living phantom galaxy of planets absorbed into the Ultraviolet Corps, powered by a sentient black sun named Umbrax. Umbrax is able to travel the universe unseen and absorb worlds where self-destructive forces are strong among their civilizations.

Umbrax and the Ultraviolet light were locked away, but the recent destruction of the Source Wall, along with the discovery of the Still Force, allowed Sinestro to access it. And instead of locking it back away as his younger self would have done, he instead noted where it had gone and decided to see how things played out. Once free, Umbrax and its dark galaxy was drawn to the most self-destructive planet in the known DC Universe… Earth.

Now, the Justice League’s homeworld is the newest member of the Invisible Spectrum and our first look at the unseen light made manifest shows that, as the young Sinestro wrote, it is made up of dozens if not hundreds of worlds.

While the Justice League have enough on their plate with the Legion of Doom’s various plots, this one just rocketed to priority #1. Everything the individual members of the League are doing to learn more about the changes to the DC Universe is affected by Earth’s induction into the Ultraviolet Corps. What happens when Umbrax realizes it has access to The Totality, the most powerful raw energy within the DCU which has the power to either save the universe from its imminent destruction or hasten it to its end? Justice League promised big stories and so far it has more than delivered; the only question is, how can it get bigger than this?