Green Lantern/Characters/Sinestro Corps

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Emotion: Fear
Leader: Thaal Sinestro

Base of Operations: Korugar (formerly Qward)

Entity: Parallax

The Sinestro Corps are fueled by fear the way Green Lantern rings are fueled by willpower and their powers are very similar, including flight, constructs and communication. Whereas the Green Lanterns seek to bring order to the universe by promoting justice, the Sinestro Corps want to rule the universe through fear.

Since Sinestro was drafted back into the Green Lanterns, his corps have gone rogue without his rule to keep them in line. When Sinestro discovered that they had taken over his home planet of Korugar, he forcibly disbanded them, and most of the Corps were captured or killed in the aftermath.

  • Ax Crazy: Well over half the team is comprised of violent, unstable psychopaths.
  • The Dreaded: To be part of the Sinestro Corps, you need to be able to inspire great fear.
  • Egocentric Team Naming: They could have been called the Yellow Lantern Corps, but it was named the Sinestro Corps instead.
  • Galactic Conquerors
  • Green Lantern Ring: Yellow power rings work pretty much exactly like their green counterparts, with the addition of being able to sense their opponents' fears and project them as energy constructs.
  • I Know What You Fear: Sinestro rings can materialize a victim's fears out of energy.
  • Psycho Rangers
  • Shout-Out: You can find a Xenomorph and a Predator and many others in group shots.
    • And fitting, to boot: where else would horror movie monsters find a home than the Corps of Fear?

Notable Sinestro Corps Members

Thaal Sinestro

Homeworld: Korugar

Sinestro was a former Green Lantern who carried out his oath through the use of tyranny. When exposed, Sinestro was brought in by Hal and imprisoned in the Battery. There, he made contact with Parallax, a living yellow parasitic embodiment of fear. Years later, after his plot against Hal Jordan had run its course, he retreated to the Anti-Matter universe and built a Yellow Power Battery, making him the first to harness one of the new colors to form a Corps.

Arkillo

Homeworld: Vorn

Sinestro's right-hand man and most loyal supporter. Arkillo was the first being Sinestro chose to join the Sinestro Corps, and he quickly proved his worth as a leader and taskmaster. The hulking, ogre-like alien is the Corps' main drill sergeant and overseer of the ring forges. After the Sinestro Corps War, when Sinestro was imprisoned on Oa, Arkillo led the faction that remained loyal to him; he challenged the usurper, Mongul, for control of the Corps, but lost and had his tongue ripped out as punishment. Following Sinestro's return, Arkillo resumed his old duties.

Arkillo was off with the New Guardians when the Corps went rogue and Sinestro disbanded them, and was incredibly angered at Sinestro's apparent betrayal. The Weaponer provided him with a new (albeit likely flawed) battery, and Arkillo now serves no one but himself and the Yellow Light.

  • Ax Crazy: When you piss him off.
  • Badass: Sure, he lost to Mongul II in the end, but the fact that he was able to hold his own against him is pretty impressive. So is repeatedly being able to go toe-to-toe with Kilowog.
    • Oh, he's upped the ante even further. When the New Guardians encounter Invictus, a terrifyingly powerful archangel, what does Arkillo do? He charges right at him and decks him. Oh, and keep in mind that Invictus was otherwise curbstomping the rest of the New Guardians. And yet, in spite of all that, Arkillo is STILL going toe-to-toe with him. If this doesn't cement him as one, I don't know what does.
  • Berserk Button: If you either mention Mongu-er, the M-word around him or ask about his necklace, he'll kill you on the spot. No questions asked.
  • Deadpan Snarker: For a being who's generally a violent brute, sarcasm is surprisingly common from him.
  • The Dragon: Sinestro's right-hand man.
  • Drill Sergeant Nasty: If you fail his tasks in any way, shape, or form, he'll devour you then and there.
  • Evil Counterpart: To Kilowog, the Green Lanterns' drill instructor and fellow hulking alien. They dueled twice in the Sinestro Corps War.
  • Flying Brick
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Fail his tasks and he'll devour you on the spot.
  • Jerkass: He's a complete asshole to pretty much everyone in the Corps save Sinestro and Lyssa Drak.
  • Lightning Bruiser
  • Memetic Badass: Considered this in-universe by his men, who simultaneously fear and revere him.
  • The Speechless: After his run-in with Mongul. Saint Walker eventually healed him.
  • Super Strength: Even without his ring.

Bedovian

Homeworld: Unknown

A mysterious being resembling a hermit crab, Bedovian usually drifts through space, emerging from his shell only to feed. He was recruited by the Sinestro Corps, as their sniper. It was noted by Lyssa Drak that unlike the others, he did not have to train to conquer his own fears, as the centuries of isolation within his shell had numbed him to all emotion.

He was defeated in battle by John Stewart, who managed to figure out where he was and snipe him back. He survived, and in the Blackest Night, his greatest contribution to the war was to shoot the zombie Anti-Monitor in the head and destroy him.

Despotellis

Homeworld: Unknown

A sentient virus recruited into the Sinestro Corps. Even before joining the Sinestro Corps, Despotellis was a genocidal maniac, having killed over three-fourths of the beings in Space Sector 119. Sinestro used Despotellis to murder Maura Rayner, using her death to break her son Kyle's will to make him susceptible to possession by Parallax. During the Sinestro Corps War, Despotellis infected Guy Gardner, but it was defeated by his counterpart in the Green Lantern Corps, the sentient smallpox virus Leezle Pon, whose partner Despotellis had killed. Despotellis is currently in custody on Oa.

Karu-Sil

Homeworld: Graxos III

Born on a harsh jungle world, Karu-Sil was orphaned by a rival tribe. She was soon taken in by a small pack of predators, eventually thinking of herself as one of them and mutilating her mouth to look more like them. Eventually, a Green Lantern found her and killed her "fathers", thinking they were threatening her, and she was institutionalized until her yellow ring found her. She's now constantly accompanied by yellow constructs in the form of her pack.

Kryb

Kryb kills parents she views as unworthy and takes their baby children as her own, keeping them in the cage growing out of her back. Since joining the Sinestro Corps, she has begun targeting the children of Green Lanterns.

Lyssa Drak

Homeworld: Talok VII

The Keeper of The Book of Parallax, she records the history of the Sinestro Corps in its pages. Her past is unknown, but she is incredibly loyal to Sinestro and her leader obviously trusts her with their group's greatest secrets. She also supervises the final test for membership: a potential recruit is locked in a Fear Lodge, a sealed box of absolute darkness, with an uncharged power ring. If they can overcome and master their own fears, they can ignite their ring and escape. Failure means death from thirst, starvation, suffocation, or suicide. She noted with interest the example of Bedovian mentioned above, and she unexpectedly gave Amon Sur a bit of encouragement by reading to him the tales of the others before him.

She was arrested and imprisoned on Oa, but broke free from her cell during a prison riot. While searching for her book, she found the mysterious Book of the Black, only for the Guardian known as Scar to trap her within it. During Brightest Day, Krona freed her and recruited her for his plans.

Parallax

Homeworld: Qward (originally Earth)

The Fear Entity--the embodiment of the Yellow Light, given life and strength from the fear of every sentient being. It was born when early life experienced fear for the first time. The Guardians bound it on Maltus eons ago, until it was released by Larfleeze. Eventually, the Guardians ended Parallax's reign of terror by trapping it in the Central Power Battery on Oa, where it stayed for countless ages until everyone, even the Guardians themselves, forgot about its existence. Parallax was the Yellow Impurity that prevented Green Lantern rings from affecting the color yellow.

Like Ion, Parallax can possess a living host, but it either dominates them completely or subtly manipulates their actions. Hal Jordan was its best-known host, through whom Parallax destroyed the Green Lantern Corps and nearly remade the entire universe. During the Sinestro Corps War, Parallax possessed Kyle Rayner for a brief time.

Ranx the Sentient City

Homeworld: Ranx

One of the most powerful of the Sinestro Corps, Ranx is an interstellar city the size of a moon. Its origins are unknown, but it is said to be as old as the stars. The circuitry running through it allows it to be aware of every activity on its surface, and it can manipulate its own landscape and gravity, similar to Mogo. Ranx's only inhabitants were criminals and drifters, but it developed a grudge against the Green Lanterns for attacking it and taking them away. The other Sinestro Corps members used Ranx as a base and training ground, similar to Mogo and the Green Lanterns.

An ancient prophecy decreed that Ranx would destroy Mogo, but Sodam Yat defeated it and blew it up. Ranx has survived shutdowns and destruction before, and it may rise again.

Other Sinestro Corps Members

  1. Sinestro's version is "Burn like MY power"