Week 7
One time Loyalties, all time traitor.
Name: Sinestro
Place of Birth: Korugar Space Sector 1417
Aliases: None
Relatives: Unnamed Father, Sister and Daughter
Occupation: Sinestro Corps Founder/Leader, former Green Lantern, former Anthropologist
Base of Operations: Qward, formerly Oa, formerly Korugar
Height: 6’7 - 198cm
Weight: 203Lbs - 92kg
Hair: Black
Eyes: Black
Group Affiliation: Sinestro Corps, Weaponers Of Qward, The Society, formerly Green Lantern Corps, Injustice League I, Secret Society of Super-Villains
First Appearance: Green Lantern II #7 (July-August 1961)
Powers, Abilities and Equipment: Sinestro was a master tactician and a superior combatant. Sinestro was fearless and had the ability to analyze and act on any given situation without hesitation. His primary weapon was his power ring, which is virtually identical to the power rings used by the Green Lantern Corps, except that it only utilizes the yellow range of the spectrum. Sinestros’ power ring was capable of doing almost anything he could imagine. Examples of its’ powers include flight, phasing, creating giant objects formed of energy, and force fields. Sinestro’s power ring could also counter the abilities of any Green Lantern’s power ring. Even though the ring still works off of the wearers willpower, the constructs are Fear based.
History:
A native of the planet Korugar in space sector 1417 (as the Guardians designate space), Sinestro's dedication to preserving order originally manifested in his previous career, an anthropologist specializing in reconstructions of ruins of long-dead civilization. One day while he was on one such site, a Green Lantern named Prohl Gosgotha crashlanded into the site, injured and apparently dying. He quickly gave his ring to Sinestro, just in time for Sinestro, who barely even understood what the ring could do, to defend himself from the Lantern's pursuer, a yellow-clad Weaponer of Qward. However, Sinestro had to destroy the very ruins he had spent loving care restoring, to crush the Qwardian. Afterward, Gosgotha turned out to still be alive, and asked for his ring back to keep him alive long enough to get help. Sinestro, knowing this would mean not being a Green Lantern himself, instead allowed him to die and took over his post, the Guardians unaware of his actions.
His desire for order did well by him in the Corps, and initially led him to be considered one of the greatest Green Lanterns. As the years passed, he became more and more fixated upon not simply protecting his sector, but on preserving order in the society of his home planet no matter the cost. Eventually he concluded that the best way to accomplish this was to conquer Korugar, and to rule the planet as a dictator.
When Hal Jordan joined the Green Lantern Corps, Sinestro was assigned to be his instructor. Jordan was horrified at his new mentor's totalitarian methods, though Sinestro maintained that his iron-fisted rule was necessary to protect his people from alien forces. During his training, Jordan helped Sinestro repel an attempted invasion of Korugar by the alien warlords known as the Khunds. When Jordan called for help from the other Green Lanterns, Sinestro's dictatorship was exposed and he was forced to appear before the Guardians for punishment. Katma Tui, the leader of a Korugarian resistance movement who felt that Sinestro's "protection" kept her people from growing as a society through contact with other alien races, was recruited as his replacement in the Corps. Though Katma Tui eventually grew into one of the most respected Green Lanterns, she and the rest of Korugar initially resisted her appointment to the Corps; due to Sinestro's actions, Korugar had come to consider the symbol of the Green Lantern Corps an emblem of terror and oppression, similar to the swastika of the Nazi regime on Earth.
For using the power of the Green Lantern to instill fear rather than combat it, the Guardians banished Sinestro to the antimatter universe -- a counterpart to the "real" universe made up of "negative matter" -- in particular, the alien world of Qward, the Antimatter counterpart of the Guardians' homeworld Oa, ruled by a race of warriors and scientists known as the Weaponers of Qward, who bore a fierce hatred of the Guardians and all Green Lanterns. By exiling Sinestro to a world ruled by evil beings who specifically hated him as a Green Lantern, the Guardians hoped to humble him. Their attempt at punishment would be a major miscalculation, however. Sinestro believed himself to have been wronged by his former masters, and now hated them just as much as the Weaponers did. Through their mutual hatred of the Guardians, Sinestro and the Weaponers became allies, with the Weaponers offering to help Sinestro gain revenge on the Guardians and the Corps.
Creating a yellow power ring for Sinestro to use, the Weaponers sent him back to the "positive matter" universe to seek his revenge. Sinestro quickly became the Green Lantern Corps' most powerful nemesis, partially due to a weakness in their power rings that prevented them from directly affecting the color yellow. Despite this, skilled Green Lanterns like Jordan, Sinestro's most hated enemy, always found ways to defeat him.
Before the Guardians took a leave of absence from their universe to attempt mating with their female counterparts the Zamarons, they constructed an inescapable prison for Sinestro and thousands of others on Oa. However, Sinestro's cunning prevailed once again and he managed to free himself through the mental manipulation of the Mad God of Sector 3600. Now wielding nearly unlimited power, Sinestro murdered entire star systems until he was finally subdued by the Green Lantern Corps of Earth. Now guilty of multiple acts of genocide, Sinestro was put on trial again by the assembled membership of the Green Lantern Corps. Finding him guilty, they condemned him to death and executed him, but Sinestro managed to cheat death itself by sending his essence into the Central Power Battery, and shut it down. While in the Battery, he also made a startling discovery about the ancient weakness to yellow within the Green Lantern's light.
Hal Jordan entered the Battery to desperately try and restore the powers of his fellow Lanterns, and ultimately defeated Sinestro, whose spirit was condemned to remain trapped inside the Central Battery, powerless, for eternity. Yet Sinestro had earned an even greater personal victory: the so-called "Yellow Impurity" turned out to be a sentient entity known as Parallax, the living embodiment of fear. Thanks to Sinestro's actions, Parallax had successfully infected Jordan's mind, leaving the so-called "greatest Green Lantern" vulnerable to fear for the first time in his life... and setting up Sinestro's ultimate triumph.
In the meantime, the return of the Guardians resulted in the Corps being reestablished. The newly restored Corps would be short-lived, however, thanks to the inadvertent efforts of the alien warlord Mongul and Hank Henshaw, a cyborg who was at the time impersonating Superman. As part of their ultimately thwarted plot to transform Earth into a new version of Mongul's interstellar fortress Warworld and gain revenge on Superman, Mongul and the Cyborg used several nuclear devices to completely destroy Coast City, California -- Hal Jordan's home -- and everyone living in it. Driven mad with grief by the destruction of his city and the Guardians' apathy towards his plight, Jordan's previously indomitable willpower was shattered. Parallax was thus able to possess him completely and push him towards a homicidal rampage that wiped out most of the Guardians and left scores of Green Lanterns dead or maimed, as Parallax sought to absorb the Central Power Battery's energies into his being.
Sinestro was freed by the Guardians from the Central Power Battery and sent to stop Jordan, only to have his neck snapped by him after the battle. While that appeared to be
what happened, the Guardians actually extracted from the Battery a construct created by Parallax with Sinestro puppeteering the creature's creation with his Qwardian ring from within it. Parallax promptly finished off the Green Lantern Corps by absorbing the Central Power Battery's energies into himself. With the Battery destroyed, Sinestro escaped and went into hiding as he watched Jordan become what Sinestro once became: a traitor and a murderer reviled by his friends and his allies. He also becomes obsessed with Kyle Rayner after Ganthet gave him his power ring, knowing that his plan to end the Green Lantern Corps' legacy has failed.
During the Wonder Woman Lifeline storyline, an imperfect duplicate of Sinestro was created by an artificial intelligence based on the son of scientist Doctor Julian Lazarus, who was attempting to bring his son back after being responsible for the accident that killed him. The AI based on the child had already created a short-lived copy of Barry Allen, and subsequently created a copy of Sinestro based on an old video tape of the villain. Although lacking Sinestro's tactical genius, the boy's random use of Sinestro's powers resulted in the destruction of at least two skyscrapers and a bridge, and he would have killed Wonder Woman were it not for the intervention of a disguised Hercules. The program went on to create a duplicate of Doomsday before it was shut down for good.
Sinestro eventually revealed the charade of his 'death' when Kyle Rayner discovered the existence of Parallax and revealed it to Green Arrow and the Justice League. Nearly killing the two heroes, Sinestro was stopped by the newly resurrected Hal Jordan, who reclaimed his ring and was purged of Parallax's influence. The two fought to a draw, with Sinestro escaping to the antimatter universe when his ring was damaged by Hal during the fight.
Sinestro later appeared in the miniseries Villains United, where he captured Lady Quark for the Secret Society of Super-Villains. Sinestro had been a member of the group in the past. Here he plays a major role in the Society's massacre of the Freedom Fighters, who are investigating the meeting place of other villains, but walk into an ambush. Sinestro begins the fight by blowing a hole through the chest of the second Black Condor, killing him instantly. He then defeats Uncle Sam, leaving him for dead.
After the Battle of Metropolis, Sinestro retreated to the antimatter universe. Here, he encountered the Anti-Monitor and embraced the doctrine of spreading fear. With the Green Lantern Corps restarted with the return of Hal Jordan, Sinestro has decided to found the Sinestro Corps, offering yellow power rings and a role in the Corps to the most feared and savage warriors of the universe. The size and scope of this new organization has yet to be revealed but stands to be a major threat for the Green Lantern Corps in the near future. He is also revealed to have masterminded the death of Kyle Rayner's mother by having the sentient virus Despotellis invade her as part of a plot to break Kyle's will so that he can become Parallax's latest host.
As the Sinestro Corps continue to attack Green Lanterns across space, Sinestro himself returns to Korugar to confront his successor, Soranik Natu. Sinestro defeats her, but spares her life, calculating that this will force her to stay on Korugar to fulfill her responsibilities as "the Savior of Korugar." Sinestro then returns to Qward to join the battle occurring there, and demands to know where Jordan is.
Sinestro, upon returning to Qward, confronts Earth's Green Lanterns, and upon their escape, follows them toward Earth: the Sinestro Corps' real target. Hal Jordan calls for backup, and upon their arrival, the Sinestro Corps begin attacking Earth. Sinestro reveals to Hal, Guy, and John, that he intends to turn Earth into the new homeworld for the Sinestro Corps, and the site of the new Coast City into a mass graveyard.
Though the Sinestro Corps is set back, they are not truly defeated. By enacting new laws--including giving the Green Lanterns the ability to kill--the Guardians have played into what Sinestro claims is his overall goal. Now the Green Lanterns spread fear by being unchecked. Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner beat Sinestro in hand-to-hand combat. Following the finale of The Sinestro Corps War, Sinestro is depicted in the custody of the Guardians, imprisoned in Oa's Sciencells where he learns from Hal Jordan that he has received a death penalty. Despite his personal defeat, Sinestro claims victory, as loyalty to the Green Lantern Corps. Sinestro's overall goal through his war was to groom his former corps for a more active, forceful role in the universe. With the enactment of the corps new laws and the approval of lethal force, the Green Lantern corps will inspire fear, creating the same effect as the Sinestro Corps: order through fear.
With the hunt for the members of the Sinestro Corps becoming one of the Green Lantern Corps' highest priorities, many of those who wield yellow power rings have been incarcerated in Oa's sciencells, with their power rings stored in the large chamber that houses the entire detention facility. Sinestro has been shown to have chewed a very large hole in his finger, and he used his blood to paint the insignia of the Sinestro Corps on his cell window. All Sinestro Corps members followed his example, with the result of thousands of emblems across the cosmic jail. Interestingly, when Sinestro formed his insignia from blood, the power rings stationed on Oa seemed to react violently, threatening to break free of their confines.
Although he has been sentenced to death and incarcerated for an indefinite period, no execution date had been set for Sinestro. Atrocitus, the first Red Lantern and Abin Sur's killer, has also become fixated on ending Sinestro's life. In the "Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns" Special , Sinestro is being taken back to Korugar for his execution but a group of Sinestro Corps members attempt to free him. The escape is marred when Atrocitus and the Red Lanterns attack both sides. In the midst of the battle, a Blue Lantern named Saint Walker tells Hal Jordan that Sinestro's survival is crucial in order to stop The Blackest Night.
After being taken to Ysmault, he is nailed to a cross to await his execution at the hands of Atrocitus. However unlike the guardians, who preferred a quick execution, Atrocitus wishes to make Sinestro suffer greatly by taking his revenge on everthing he has ever cared about. His targets include Korugar, and Sinestro's previously unknown and hidden daughter.