5 Green Lanterns Who Went From Cosmic Heroes to Dangerous Villains

Lanterns has been a rousing success for the DCU with its incredible True Detective-style depiction of DC Comics’ premier cosmic heroes. With thousands of members from countless alien worlds all wielding mighty Power Rings, the Green Lanterns are the ultimate peacekeeping and law enforcement organization in the DC Universe. However, as with any law agency, the Green Lantern Corps can find itself victim to those of its own members who become corrupted and drunk on power. Some of the most well-renowned Green Lanterns renounced their oaths to use their power to turn into all-powerful villains hellbent on conquering the universe and killing anyone who gets in their way.

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The Guardians of the Universe created the Green Lantern Corps to protect the universe from evil’s might. However, several Lanterns have become the very evils they were meant to fight against.

5) Alpha Lanterns

As the Manhunters show, the Guardians of the Universe meddling with cybernetics and artificial intelligence rarely ends well. Hoping to create Green Lanterns that were driven only by willpower without any emotions to hold them back, the Guardians created the Alpha Lanterns. Selecting five Lanterns, Boodikka, Green Man, Chaselon, Kraken, and Varix, the Guardians turned them into powerful cyborgs who were merged with their Power Batteries. Although the Alpha Lanterns were made to bring corrupt Green Lanterns to justice, their cybernetic bodies left them vulnerable to hacking. This weakness revealed itself when Cyborg Superman took control of the Alpha Lanterns and had them attack their Green Lantern comrades. And although the Alpha Lanterns were soon cured of their mind control, they would eventually become corrupted of their own accord. The Alpha Lanterns’ obsession with culling all defiance within the Green Lantern Corps led to them unfairly arrest and threaten to kill hundreds of innocent Lanterns. Only by Varik having a change of heart were the Alpha Lanterns defeated and destroyed.

4) Tomar-Tu

Tomar-Re was one of the finest Green Lanterns in the Corps, and after his death his ring and legacy were passed down to his son, Tomar-Tu. Like his father, Tomar-Tu served the Corps valiantly for decades and was a close friend of the Lanterns of Earth like Hal Jordan and John Stewart. However, that all changed when Tomar-Tu was sent to apprehend Romat-Tu, a Sinestro Corps member and infamous mass murderer from his home planet. When Romat-Tu bragged that he’d escape prison to kill more children, Tomar-Tu snapped and murdered him. After Tomar-Tu’s crime was exposed and he was arrested, he found himself worthy of a new powerful cosmic weapon: the Darkstar Armor. Tomar-Tu embraced the armor and joined the new Darkstar’s mission to dispense lethal justice across the universe and take over the Green Lanterns’ role as the guardians of the cosmos. Tomar-Tu may have been a great Lantern, but his rage caused him to dishonor his father’s legacy.

3) Dawnbreaker

Given Batman’s infinite willpower, it’s unsurprising that a Green Lantern Ring would find him worthy of its power. However, in the twisted world on Earth -32 of the Dark Multiverse, Bruce Wayne uses the ring’s power to become a monster. In this nightmarish universe, when Bruce’s parents are murdered in Crime Alley by Joe Chill, a Green Lantern Ring arrived and inducted the newly made orphan into the Corps. Taking the ring, Bruce immediately used its power to hunt down and to seek to get revenge on Chill. Despite the ring’s no-kill protocol, Bruce’s overwhelming willpower managed to override the safety measure, which allowed him to vaporize Chill. Afterward, the darkness within Bruce’s soul corrupted the ring’s power, and he became the lethal protector of Gotham. When the Guardians of the Universe and the entire Green Lantern Corps tried to stop Bruce’s murderous rampage, he slaughtered them all. Taking on the name Dawnbreaker, this malevolent version of Batman became an integral member of the Dark Knights.

2) Hal Jordan

Few heroes in comics have a more infamous fall from grace than Hal Jordan. When Cyborg Superman destroyed Hal’s home, Coast City, the hero’s grief and guilt left him vulnerable to the living embodiment of fear, Parallax. After possessing Hal, Parallax drove him insane. Desperate to gain the power necessary to restore Coast City, Hal begged the Guardians to help him. When they refused, Hal declared war on the entire Corps. Having completely given in to Parallax’s corruption, Hal committed one of the worst atrocities in DC Comics history by slaughtering thousands of Green Lanterns who once considered him a friend. Hal’s descent went even further when he tried to recreate the universe in his own image. Although Hal eventually sacrificed his life and purged himself of Parallax’s influence, the genocide of the Green Lantern Corps was a massive status quo shift, with countless beloved heroes slain by someone who was once considered to be the greatest of all Green Lanterns.

1) Sinestro

Hal Jordan’s fall to villainy may be legendary, but even that character arc is nothing compared to the original corrupt Green Lantern: Sinestro. As the archenemy of not just Hal, but the entire Green Lantern Corps, Sinestro’s descent into villainy forever changed the DC Universe and showed how even a Lantern could fall to the dark side. Once considered the finest Lantern the Corps had ever produced as well as Hal’s mentor, Sinestro’s lust for power and control eventually led to him using his ring to conquer his homeworld and establish himself as its supreme ruler. When the Guardians took away Sinestro’s ring, he worked with the Weaponers of Qward to craft a new ring powered not by willpower, but by fear. With the first Yellow Lantern Ring, Sinestro waged war against the Green Lantern Corps and even created his own Corps made up of the most terrifying killers and monsters in the universe. Sinestro stands as the ultimate symbol of the corrosive nature of power and how peacekeeping can quickly turn into tyranny if left unchecked.