Power Sources

I've realized something about Geoff Johns' Green Lantern mythos that is a tad bit disturbing. Well, I guess it's no less disturbing than anything else Johns has done. But it's certainly interesting.

If you read Green Lantern #46 (and who isn't reading Green Lantern these days?) you know that the power sources at the heart of the Star Sapphires' central power battery are (or rather were) the petrified bodies of Khufu and Chay-Ara.

Don't know who those people are? They were the original incarnations of Hawkman and Hawkgirl way back in Ancient Egypt. I don't know how or when the Zamarons got their hands on the bodies of those two lovers, but their position at the heart of the central violet battery makes a twisted sort of sense. They are a classic love story, and Johns did say that Hawkman and Hawkgirl would play an important role in Blackest Night.

Needless to say, none of this is what I found slightly disturbing. As weird as it is to have a couple of dead bodies serving as a power battery, it's not the first time. That's what kind of creeps me out. Do recall that the black battery is powered by the corpse of the Anti-Monitor. And it's not just that one, either. Atrocitus made the red power battery out of the corpse of Qull (the member of the Five Inversions that told the Blackest Night prophecy to Abin Sur).

Count that up: that's three out of eight batteries powered by dead bodies. This, of course, begs the question: are there corpses in the other batteries too? It's never been clear what was in the green battery, and of course the yellow, blue, indigo, and orange batteries are all mysteries.

So do they have dead bodies inside? Is the corpse of some hopeful chap whose luck finally ran out floating in the blue battery? Is the body of the most avaricious being in history locked inside Larfleeze's little lamp? Or are these bodies we've seen laying around just coincidences? I'd imagine not; Geoff Johns doesn't do coincidence...