Characters in comic books frequently have multiple origin tales and other incarnations. Batman and Superman, for example, had a slew of other forms, some of which were downright evil. In other darker versions, Superman, the emblem of hope and the pinnacle of good is turned into plain evil. The beacon of hope can be devastating at times, with the ability to bring the planet to an end.
Superman has dominated or defeated cosmic creatures and multiverse threats on numerous occasions, and in today’s video, we’ll discuss his confrontation with the yellow Lantern force of dread. Superman used the yellow lantern ring’s power to morph into the God Of Fear on two occasions: in Superman comics, 2016 issue 29, and in Injustice Gods Among Us, published from January 2013 to September 2016.
In both scenarios, Superman gained an excessive level of power and defeated a slew of powerful superheroes. In today’s video, we’ll look at the two legends in which Superman used the power of the yellow lantern to become the God of Fear.
SUPERMAN VS PARALLAX: SUPERMAN DC REBIRTH STORYLINE
In the DC Rebirth story arc, as shown in Superman comics issue 29, published in 2016, Superman dominates the yellow Lanterns power for a brief amount of time. Written by Keith Champagne, the story begins with a young boy playing games on his mobile in front of an abandoned building, LexCorp gardens. The game he is playing shows living creatures on the screen in the real world.
He follows the guide to catch his new animal and enters the building. The boy notices a small creature with a yellow shine and thinks it to be one of the new characters from his mobile game. He takes the creature in his hands, introduces himself as Zee, and promises to take care of him. Moments later, a scream is heard from the building. Two weeks later, Superman is seen to be hovering with despair as each night, a new kid has been disappearing, and he has no clue about it.
He stops by the spot where details of the missing children are pasted on the wall, surrounded by their respective parents. The parents ask Superman if he has found any leads about their missing children, but Superman replies no. With their hopes wretched and worries piling up, one of the parents tells Superman that all that will happen is the next day, there will be another set of parents whining on the spot, and a new poster will be stuck on the wall. Superman gives them his word and soars high up to find the missing children.
Meanwhile, Zee, who the yellow creature has possessed, is seen to be on the bed of a little girl. The girl is petrified on seeing him and asks him to leave or else she would shout. To this, the possessed kid said that he had been doing worse to the parents of the children who shouted and goaded her to follow him. As he was walking across the street with a little girl, Superman spotted them and offered them help.
He asked them to come with him to take them back to their parents but Zee denied and blasted off Superman with his powers. Superman got up and froze the child with his breath, but it did not help as the Yellow spirit corrupting the children had shifted to the little girl, and then she too blasted away Superman. Zee is freed and the power again shifts back to him. With glowing eyes and an evil smile, the kid walked up to Superman and asked him to join them, followed by another blast. The two children leave while Superman is struggling to get up from the last attack.
With the help of a few police officers, Superman gets up and soars up in the sky to find the missing children. He tries to sense any form of yellow light energy, which leads him to an abandoned building. He tears the door open and hears the same voice as he had heard from Zee.
The voice tells him that he can sense fear in Superman as he tries to follow the voice. He soon enters a room where all the children are hanged by the yellow light energy and Zee is in the middle waiting for Superman. Superman challenges the entity to stop hiding behind innocent young children and face him to which the same yellow creature but this time gigantic in size crawls out of Zee.
The creature is none other than Parallax, the living embodiment of fear. They both exchange blows and Parallax tries possessing Superman which he fails. But Parallax being evil uses his powers to hurt the retrained children. Superman gives up the fight and asks Parallax to take him and leave the rest of the kids to which Parallax agrees and possesses him becoming the God Of Fear.
However, Sinestro arrives and demands Superman to hand over Parallax. Sinestro had earlier defeated and captured Parallax, but there is a huge power gap between the two with Superman’s body. Sinestro is seen to be hammered on the ground by Superman.
The two are then teleported to the planet Qward with their warriors aiming their weapons toward the God Of Fear. The fight begins and Superman burns many of the soldiers before being taken down by Sinestro. Superman is then taken to the core of the planet and restrained by Sintestro’s constructs. Sinestro tries to exorcise Parallax out of Superman’s body by exposing Superman’s fears. His fear of losing his family, transforming into doomsday, and not being there to save people all ravage his mind and body.
Lyssa Drak stops Sinestro by advising him to take off his ring as Parallax is afraid of him, but Sinestro mistakes her to be possessed by Parallax and traps her in his yellow bubble of fear. He is then attacked by a soldier of Qward in whom Parallax was hiding. Parallax then shifts from body to body until he tries to reach up to the planet’s surface and escape. Sintsro and others follow him while Superman is left to die. Superman uses his heat vision to destroy Sintestro’s constructs and escapes.
Meanwhile, the battle with Parallax isn’t going well for Sinestro and Superman catches him during his fall to the ground. Superman asks Sinestro to stand and faces off Parallax himself Parallax swallows him, which was Superman’s intention. Inside his body, Superman finds a yellow Lantern ring and traps Parallax inside it promising that it would not be given to Sinestro.
Sinestro asks Superman for the ring but with his glowing red eyes, Superman asks him to try and take it from him indicating that he is not going to give up the ring. Sinestro leaves the planet with Lyssa Drak leaving and Superman advises the weapons of Qward to discard Sinestro’s authoritarian rule over them and stand up for themselves. With this, the event of Superman becoming the god of fear comes to an end
SUPERMAN MEMBER OF THE YELLOW LANTERN CORPS: INJUSTICE GOD AMONGST US STORYLINE
The Injustice: Gods Amongst Us is a DC comic book series serving as the prequel to the video game of the same name. Written by Tom Taylor and Brian Buccellato, the plot takes place in an alternate reality where the Joker had tricked the Man of Steel into killing his own wife and being born child. The event rewires Superman’s mind and he becomes completely authoritarian. He forms a Regime with his allies while Batman forms an insurgency out of the remaining Superheroes and villains to resist Superman and his Regime.
Superman’s actions have caused disturbances on the planet and have made new allies like Sinestro and his Yellow Lantern Corps. Back in Oa the Guardians are concerned about the power shift on Earth and Superman’s actions. Hal Jordan is brought in to Oa and questioned but seeing Hal taking Superman’s side the Guardians ask him to take them to Superman to which he resists and manages to escape from Oa to inform Superman.
Hal returns to Superman and informs him about the soon to arrive Guardians and the Green Lantern Corps. Our story begins with Injustice: Gods Amongst Us issue 19 where we see Guy Gardener come on Earth before the rest of the Guardians and trying to talk to Hal before Sinestro blasts him with his Yellow Lantern ring. However Ganthet arrives and fights back Sinestro. Carol was also present there and Guy saves her from the conflicts which makes Hal infuriated. He attacks Guy leaving Carol to fall. Hal catches Carol but the Guardians, annoyed by Hal’s take on the matter, take away his Green Lantern ring for which now both Carol and Hal are falling. Sinestro throws a Yellow Lantern ring at Hal.
Left with no option Hal takes it and becomes a part of the Yellow Lantern Corps. Hal saves Carl while Ganthet leaves for Superman who is fighting the other Green Lanterns in space. Ganthet reaches Superman and blasts him with his power. The blast was so intense that Superman is seen to fall back into the Earth’s atmosphere only to be further attacked by Bruce’s Batplane.
He attacks it with his heat vision and then Black Canary comes into action, screaming at the top of her voice at Superman. Previously Superman had killed Green Arrow, with whom Black Canary was madly in love, and ever since then she has been waiting to get her revenge on Superman. Superman Catches his ears in pain, but Black Canary grabs him and screams in front of his face. She screams with everything she has got, making blood spurt out of Superman’s ears. Superman punches her and she gives it back with a kick.
She shoots Superman with a kryptonite bullet but shows mercy as she had promised Bruce. However, in the fight between the Green and Yellow Lantern Corps, a lot of Yellow Lanterns were taken down with their rings floating in search of a wearer and just when Black Canary is about to leave one of the Yellow Lanterns rings flies upto Superman. “Kal El of the planet Krypton, you have the ability to instill great fear “ : Superman is chosen by the Yellow Lantern’s power.
He wears and becomes a yellow lantern or the God Of Fear. He makes his first construct of a tong and takes out the Kryptonite bullet that Black Canary had shot. He shoots his laser from his eyes and through Black Canary’s body. Black Canary still had a trick up her sleeve. All this while she was wearing contact lenses which broadcasted everything, thereby exposing the true nature of Superman to the world. Superman does not care much as he flies upto Ganthet and pushes him along with Mogo into the sun. Superman keeps the ring till Wonder woman after recovering from a coma persuades him to give up the mantle of fear.
Conclusion
The two instances are different yet enough to conclude how dangerous the Man of Steel can become under the influence of fear. While he stood along with his moral code in the first one, he certainly created quite a mess in the Injustice storyline. Mogo, a living planet who is also one of the strongest represtators of the Green Lantern Corps is thrown into the sun and that too with Ganthet, a Guardian whose powers are divine and huge. The Injustice animated movie encompasses around the same plot but the part where the God Of is omitted which was kind of sad though.