The Green Lantern Corps may be the most famous and ubiquitous of the power ring-wielding forces in DC cosmology (known colloquially as the Lantern Corps), but they certainly aren’t the only ones around. Nor are they the strongest.
Others, like the Sinestro Corps (Yellow Lanterns) and Red Lanterns are just as storied while being twice as fierce. Where Green Lanterns fight with discipline and restraint, these Corps thrive on unleashing the very emotions the Guardians tried to suppress.
Of course, to qualify as a Corps, it has to be constituted by more than one member; the Orange Lantern Corps is an exception here, since it can theoritically be wielded by multi-members). Thus, the sole Gold Lantern Kala Lour — introduced in 2019 — and the sole Sorrow Lantern Nathan Broome, introduced in 2023’s Green Lantern Vol. 7 #13, don’t count.
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Orange Lantern Corps
Technically, the Orange Lantern Corps isn’t a Corps but a one man army. As the orange light of avarice, its power is allotted to Larfleeze alone. He is its one and only master and refuses to share the ring. If he does, the Corps would not survive due to infighting.
This possessiveness is baked into the light itself, and with it comes an insatiable hunger, nullified only near a Blue Lantern. Nevertheless, this Ring of Avarice is powerful. It lets Larfleeze steal the identities of those he kills, creating loyal orange apparitions, and even absorb green light constructs and rival magic.
It goes without saying that being the sole wielder of a ring puts the wearer at a quantitative disadvantage compared to other rings and Corps. In Larfleeze Vol. 1 #4, his own creations overpower and capture him at the Lodge of D’odens, despite his great strength.
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Star Sapphire Corps
The Star Sapphire Corps radiates the violet energy of love (which in the context of the ring and DC Canon, can mean heartbreak). It’s a real military force of women established by the Zamarons, the ancient sister species to Oa’s Guardians. Unlike Larfleeze’s Orange Lantern, the Star Sapphires fit the definition of an actual Corps.
Their violet power rings track the people wearers love across the cosmos, then wrap them in protective shielding. These rings can also encase enemies in crystal, effectively neutralizing them.
Literally altering minds and injecting love isn’t the only trademark of the Star Sapphire Corps; quick regeneration also belongs. During Blackest Night, young Star Sapphire Miri restores Kyle Rayner to life. The violet light is capable of fully overtaking its wielder as it did with Carol Ferris in Green Lantern Vol. 2.
Their vulnerability is emotional exploitation. Thus, a wielder’s instinct to protect loved ones can be readily manipulated as seen when Hal Jordan was used as bait against Carol Ferris in the Blackest Night.
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Indigo Tribe
The Indigo Tribe, led by Indigo-1, is a very secluded group of the worst criminals the universe can offer. To rehabilitate, cohabit and function, the group basically worships the concept of compassion, channelling said virtue through staff and rings. They have staff members who can mimic neighboring emotions of other power corps.
Indigo Tribesmen are also capable of healing from other people’s empathy, and even utilizing Death’s Black Light. This regeneration is more impressive than the Star Sapphire Corps’. In Blackest Night, it was potent enough to reverse death in an apocalyptic war.
Forcing compassion onto criminals who never consented to it is a vulnerability waiting to come to surface — and it has, in Green Lantern Vol 4. Plus, their small numbers do them a disservice as a fighting force.
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Blue Lantern Corps
The Blue Lantern Corps is a group of exiled Guardians (Ganthet and Sayd) who wish to spread hope. Theirs is a disciplined order specifically created for support under Saint Walker. With hope, the rage from Red Lanterns and fear from Yellow Lanterns is all but negated.
Blue light offers protection on its own, but its true power is unlocked alongside a nearby Green Lantern ring, amplifying willpower into a war-winning force. Unlike the more individualist Indigo Tribe, the Blue Lanterns operate as a genuinely coordinated military force. But hope is fragile, and their strength can collapse just as quickly as it surges.
In The New Guardians, the Blue Lantern Brother Shon gives up his faith halfway through the fight when the alien Reach attacks Odym. He drops his ring and to his doom, as he falls to his death, demonstrating how quickly their strength can fail.
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Red Lantern Corps
The Red Lantern Corps was founded on Ysmault by Atrocitus, who harnessed the rage that comes from a terrible loss. Red Lanterns are the opposite of Blue Lanterns: combat-ready the moment they’re given.
Red Lantern rings turn blood into malicious plasma that leaves their wielders like an animalistic pack of terrible force. This supposed lack of discipline does nothing to diminish their strength against defensively weak opponents; most don’t even bother forming constructs, favoring bare-handed or fire-based attacks instead. Although, unrestrained anger has its downsides in a tactical battle.
Placed beside Green Lanterns, they are arguably stronger: rage can override a willpower faster than hope can defend it. In Green Lantern Vol. 4, Hal Jordan’s fury at Sinestro killing Laira draws her vacant red ring straight to him, turning him into a Red Lantern on the spot. Red Lanterns are also immune to the Black Lanterns’ signature heart-ripping attack.
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Ultra-violet Corps
Of the major Corps in DC cosmology, the Ultraviolet Corps is a relatively recent addition, first appearing in 2018’s Justice League Vol. 4. Sourcing power from the sentient Umbrax, the Corps channels the unseen light of the Invisible Emotional Spectrum: humanity’s darkest, most self-destructive impulses.
Ultraviolet Lantern Corps’ oath of “By shield of day, and shield of night, We feed and grow, beyond all sight, Your darkest self shall be our knight, Wield the sword of unseen light!” explains what they’re all about. Armed with ring tattoos instead of actual, physical rings, they weaponize their victims’ darkest thoughts to unleash them on everyone nearby.
Far from the independent-wielding emotions of most Corps, the Ultraviolet Corps members are slaves to Umbrax. Exceptions exist, of course. Umbrax needs a conduit to act through; find a willpower strong enough and it breaks the bond, as was John Stewart’s case somewhere within Justice League Vol. 4’s opening arc.
Sinestro is another “but” to this general rule. In Justice League Vol. 4 #3, Sinestro found a way to bind and isolate the Ultraviolet power into himself using his original costume, allowing him to channel it without succumbing to its thrall.
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Sinestro Corps
The Green Lanterns weaponize will, the Red Lanterns weaponize rage, while the Sinestro Corps weaponize fear. They mirror the Green Lanterns closely — sectors of space, 7,200 rings, a central power battery, even a drill sergeant (Arkillo) — except instead of Guardians, they answer to an overlord in Thaal Sinestro.
Exiled to the antimatter world of Qward after abusing his ring to rule his homeworld Korugar, Sinestro forged the first yellow ring there and began recruiting those who could instill great fear. Sculpting his army around military discipline, Sinestro developed a strategy that could only be rivaled by few.
The yellow rings not only make fear a fatal weapon, its wielders draw power from Parallax itself (the same entity imprisoned in the power ring. During the Sinestro Corps War, his army almost destroys the Green Lanterns, taking control of Oa and Kyle Rayner.
Such was the destruction that the Guardians had to make new rules governing the use of lethal force. No other Corps had before challenged galactic order in a like manner and ferocity.
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Green Lantern Corps
The Green Lantern Corps is the largest, most disciplined and most famous of the DC galaxy’s Crops. It is an intergalactic police force composed of the Guardians of the Universe from Oa (creators of the Corps and the power ring) and the Corpsmen who are empowered by willpower and sworn to defend all sectors of space.
The power rings summon a seemingly infinite number of constructs, with the help of real training and a structured command. The ring’s only flaw is the Yellow Impurity, an old fear that is locked in the Central Power Battery.
As long as there is will, a Green Lantern’s power is unlimited. And, those who have conquered willpower have done extraordinary feats with the ring such as time travel, creating a sun from nothing (The Green Lantern #4) and even duplicating the ring itself.
In the Sinestro Corps War, the Green Lantern Daxamite, Sodam Yat proved this yet again. There ultimate willpower trumped ultimate fear as Sinestro’s Yellow Lanterns and their Yellow Battery are defeated in one blow by Sodam
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Black Lantern Corps
The Black Lantern Corps comes to reanimate the dead throughout the universe while gaining power at the expense of the emotional light of the living. At the helm is Nekron, the Lord of the Unliving and the personification of death itself. They cannot be destroyed by any single color, only vanquished when multiple Corps of light combine their power.
As if comanding dominion over other Emotional Spectrums isn’t scary enough, the Black Lantern Corps can also transform the dead into instruments of psychological warfare against the living. In Blackest Night, the Black Lantern Corps summon the dead Green Lanterns to life as weapons to be used against their loved ones.
As a Corps, the Black Lanterns have gained infamy as villains; of course they are, when Nekron and Darkseid steer things. But as a ring, the Black Lantern itself isn’t inherently corrupting. Hal Jordan, Roy Harper, Sinestro, and even Batman each wore and wielded such rings at different points without becoming the emotion-harvesting zombies like the rest of the Corps.
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White Lantern Corps
The White Light is above the whole Emotional Spectrum, and it is, in itself, life, from which all seven core emotions arise. When wielded briefly by Kyle Rayner, it brought the dead back to life, and even altered reality.
It can also reduce a foe, or even its own wielder, to dust instantly. Hal Jordan’s Blackest Night #7 transformations, the Entity destroying Hawkman and Hawkgirl in Brightest Day #18, and Kyle’s defeat of Nekron and the Black Lantern menace in Blackest Night #8 are just a few examples of its raw power throughout the comics.
It is very rare and fleeting, appearing only in moments of extraordinary crisis rather than settling permanently with any one being. No wielder has ever managed to hold onto it for long before its power moves on to someone else. And even after it has clinged to another, the ring still retains some form of influence over ex-wielders.
- Writer
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Dave Gibbons
- Penciler
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Patrick Gleason
- Inker
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Prentis Rollins
- Colorist
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Moose Baumann
- Letterer
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Phil Balsman
- Publisher(s)
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DC