Many people are fascinated by the genesis of the cosmos, and some spend their entire lives looking for these ultimate truths. Krona, a Guardian of the Universe who has made it his life’s goal to discover the truth of their origins, is one such entity. Krona was a great immortal being driven by his thirst for knowledge who caused a lot of trouble for the Guardians of the Universe in his pursuits for knowledge.
This character was created by John Broome and Gil Kane and originally appeared in the Green Lantern Comics in 1965. Krona’s primary objective is to find the truth, and anyone who gets in his way is annihilated. Let us have a look at his backstory and see where this all-powerful being came from!
The Notorious First Appearance
Krona made his first appearance in the Green Lantern Comics titled ‘Secret Origins of the Guardians’ [Volume 2, #40]. The story begins on Earth-Two, a parallel dimension with similar workings as those on Earth-One. As Alan Scott, the Green Lantern of this Earth goes about his usual day, he comes across an emergency involving a deadly meteor.
Scott tries to wield his ring to deflect the meteor but is surprised to find that the ring appears to be malfunctioning. Convinced that something is amiss, he decides to visit Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern on Earth-One. As the two superheroes reunite, Hal suggests that they try to get the ring itself to recap the situation. As the ring relays the past, it reveals that the root cause of the problem was not a meteor.
The story goes into flashback as the ring narrates the story of a different race called the ‘Oans’ that walked the Earth billions of years ago. The Oans were immortal beings with immense power and the ability to control things with their minds. One such powerful Oan was known as Krona, a scientist obsessed with the workings of the universe.
He even creates a machine to learn more about the beginning of the universe’s existence. The Oans warn him of the legend which states that trying to find the truth about their origins will destroy their universe, but he pays no heed and goes ahead with his plan.
However, this leads to a series of events that destroy his machine and unleash evil creatures that wreak havoc among the Oans. They blame Krona for single-handedly disturbing the peace, who refuses to give up on his research for their origins.
The Oans decide that Krona cannot be contained and turn him into a formless being made of energy. They send him to circle various universes for eternity, and the Oans also create the Green Lanterns to serve as guardians against the evil creatures accidentally created by Krona.
The Oans gave the Green Lanterns powers in the form of rings, and this same ring further tells the superheroes that the meteor spotted was actually Krona. Since Krona is still trying to free itself, he has used all his might to convert his energy into heat that looks like a meteor. When Scott tried to stop him from using the ring, Krona used direct contact to load his energy into Scott’s power ring where he now resides.
Krona is quite a mastermind, as he devises a plan to lure Scott into visiting his home universe, Earth-One. It was Krona who enabled Scott’s ring to malfunction, knowing that the Green Lantern would visit Hal on Earth-One to discuss the phenomenon.
Now that Krona is back in his territory, he regains his powers and goes right back to his experimental work, and begins constructing a new device. Meanwhile, The Green Lanterns contact the Oans, who have become ‘Guardians of the Universe,’ and they are already aware of Krona’s escape.
Krona’s experiments once again begin to create discrepancies in the universe, as rivers start overflowing, clouds start to form whirlpools, and the environmental balance is thrown off. Krona even tricks the Guardians into visiting Earth-One themselves. He also messes with the minds of these Guardians, who now demand that Hal steps down as the Green Lantern.
Krona also takes over Alan Scott’s entire being and visits the Guardians in his disguise. Now that he has a physical form, Krona uses his powers to their full extent and traps the Guardians under his influence, while Hal reappears in a disguised form. Though Krona overtook Alan’s being, he could not control his spirit, which contacted Hal for assistance.
Enraged by the fact that Hal managed to locate him, Krona uses the power ring to set a shield between them. With no one to stop him, Krona returns to his original physical form and reveals that he created a new power ring that will help him escape to Earth-Two.
Meanwhile, Alan’s spirit contacts Hal through the power ring and updates him about Krona’s plans. He guides Hal to Krona, and the superhero uses all his power to launch an attack on the villain. With Alan’s help, Hal manages to overpower Krona by switching power rings with Alan and breaking through Krona’s shield.
The two engage in combat, and Krona ends up defeated. The Guardians, too, snap out of his control and altogether turn Krona into energy again. This time, they decide to banish him to a far-off orbit that does not lie anywhere near any universes and get rid of him once and for all.
The Dark Origins
Krona was one of the Oans from the Malthusian race, and he was initially introduced as a scientist. He often ended up in trouble with the other Maltusians in his endeavors to learn more about the universe’s origin. Though we have explored his origin story in the flashbacks of the Green Lantern Comics, let us have a better look at his dark origin.
Once, he was also targeted by the Manhunters of the Guardians of the Universe, who tried to attack him. Krona was then intrigued by them and managed to make a program that caused this robotic force to commit mass genocide on Ryut. The incident caused much trouble for the Guardians, who finally discarded the manhunters.
As we have previously seen, Krona was also responsible for bringing evil into the universe. It was this mishap that led to his initial banishment from the universe.
Some exciting stories involving Krona
Krona has been a part of numerous storylines and has ended up in fights against multiple villains across universes during his entire life. Let us look into these events, picking off right from the moment where the Guardians banished him.
After being banished into a far-off universe, Krona managed to locate the realm of the dead, which was overlooked by ‘Nekron’- Lord of the Unliving. Krona’s presence causes a glitch in the dimension, and Nekron detects the presence of an immortal in his realm. The imbalance also gives Nekron the ability to see beyond his realm and into the living world. Not wanting to lose this ability, Nekro decides to use Krona to cause the glitch to expand and recreates him into an undead being.
Now that Krona possesses a physical form once again, Nekron gives him an army of followers and asks him to kill the Guardians of the universe. This would also destroy the universe, and Krona would be able to witness the creation of the universe again in front of his eyes. For this reason, Krona agrees to kill the Guardians along with his army and even succeeds in killing a few of them. He also destroys the ‘Central Power’ battery, which powers the Green Lantern’s rings, thereby causing them to run out of their powers.
Though Krona cannot be overpowered at this stage, Hal Jordan’s Green Lantern still attempts to attack him with the remaining superheroes. Hal even approaches Nekron’s realm and raises the spirits of the dead Green Lanterns into rising against Nekron. The surviving Guardians all come together to banish Krona once again, only this time they banish him in Nekron’s realm and then close the rift between the undead realm and the living world.
Krona’s transformation into Entropy- Krona was not the only ambitious scientist among the Guardians who created machines that caused havoc among the universes. One other crazed guardian, Dawalakispokpok, invented the time machine to go back in time to put an end to Krona’s earlier experiments. However, this mission failed terribly, and it ended up giving Krona even more power.
Krona was now transformed into an Entropy, a being with eternal power and wisdom that kept on increasing. In his new mighty form, Krona caused trouble for the Guardians and the Green Lanterns by attacking them. He believed that he could speed up the universe into a state of ‘perfect peace’ through absolute entropy, and his madness was contained only after all the Green Lanterns came together to overpower him.
Krona’s face-off with the Grandmaster- As an entropy, Krona traveled across universes searching for the truth of the universe’s creation. He came across the Marvel Universe, where he met with the Grandmaster, who challenged him to a cosmic game that included finding 12 objects across universes. He agreed to give Kronos the knowledge he was seeking if he won, and promised to introduce him to a being that survived the Big Bang. Krona’s team consisted of the Avengers, while the opposing team consisted of the Justice League.
Krona ended up losing the game, and he furiously assaulted the Grandmaster. He absorbs the Grandmaster’s knowledge and finds the truth he has been seeking this whole time. However, he does not realize that this was his opponent’s plan all along, and Krona ends up trapped between universes.
He begins to attack these universes and is determined to create a new one right before his eyes. Krona also creates his own army of villains, but eventually, Hawkeye and the Flash come together to end this menace. They trap Krona in a ‘cosmic egg’ from a universe that will not exist for trillions of years in the future and place the egg at the Justice League’s watchtower.
Krona’s fight against the Trinity
Later on, Krona’s cosmic egg was stolen by Despero, a New Earth villain, and then handed over to Enigma and Morgaine le Fey of the New Earth. They intended to use Krona’s energies within the egg to reshape reality, but their plans go amiss, and Krona ends up a free being.
He uses the information he absorbed from the Grandmaster to learn more about the universe’s consciousness. He approaches ‘The Controllers’ to help him learn more about this, but they backstab him and try to use his powers for their gain. Krona attacks them and destroys their labs, where he discovers the planet’s ‘consciousness’ that was kept imprisoned. Krona then makes it his mission to set across planets and free these consciousnesses that will eventually lead to chaos and war.
Morgaine of New Earth reappears and offers the Earth’s consciousness to Krona only if he agrees to fight off the Trinity. Krona agrees, and what follows is one of the most critical battles in Krona’s arc, as he fights off numerous superheroes, most important of which is the Trinity: Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman.
He is soon overpowered, but Morgaine comes to his aid and sets him free. Finally, Krona ends up unraveling all his powers, resulting in the destruction of Earth. He then discovers the ‘Worldsoul,’ i.e., the essence of the Earth. He finally had his chance to inquire about the universe’s origins, but he learned that there was no higher plan or complex roots. Enraged by the fact that his theories had no meaning, he decides to destroy WorldSoul but is stopped by the Trinity of superheroes, who manage to imprison him this time.
Krona and the Emotional Entities- After Nekron is defeated after the Blackest Night arc, Krona is freed once again, and he returns with a mission in mind. He travels the universe to capture all of the Emotional Entities and intends to use them to take control over the Guardians and the Green Lanterns. He begins with stealing the fear entity ‘Parallax’ and soon moves ahead to capture various entities.
In this process, he fights off many opponents and even teams up with multiple villains in the universe. Krona reveals that he used to work with the entities and protect them while he was a Guardian of the Universe, and thus, he has the powers to capture and control them.
Krona and the War of the Green Lanterns- In his powerful form, Krona then returns to his home planet, where he uses all the entities under his control to possess the minds of the Guardians. He also uses the fear entity ‘Parallax’ to sabotage the Central Power Battery, which powers the Green Lantern’s rings. In doing so, Krona controls almost all the Green Lanterns, except for a few who have had prior experience with Parallax.
Chaos ensues as the Green Lanterns and the Guardians fight among themselves, and Krona finds himself face to face with Hal Jordan yet again. Hal manages to summon all his power, and Krona finally sees his demise at his hands. After his death, the Guardians and the Green Lanterns are freed from the Emotional Entities, and Krona’s dead body is handed over to the Red Lantern ‘Atrocitus.’
The powers that make him dangerous
As one of the ancient and powerful Maltusians, Krona was an immortal being who could manipulate power and energy and weaponize it.
Besides weaponizing his ability to control energy, he could also possess other beings, and even “electro-blast,” i.e., use his energy to generate fire.
He could also possess minds and control the mental state of his enemies. Even the powerful Guardians of the Galaxy were vulnerable to his powers and could be mind-controlled. At the same time, his mental defenses were strong enough to keep him undiscovered from any being trying to discover his location. Additionally, his powers heightened his senses, and he could find the exact locations of his enemies, even across planets or even galaxies.
Krona didn’t need to rely on anything or anyone for his powers in terms of dependency and was quite self-sustained. He was also highly intelligent and possessed great information about the happenings in the universes, operating technology and gadgets, as well as scientific knowledge. To sum it up, Krona is quite a dangerous opponent, and it is best to stay out of his way.
Conclusion
Krona has lived through billions of years and is unmatched in his knowledge and powers. He is a most-experienced being who has dabbled in incidents all across the universe and has quite a fighting spirit. Krona never gives up and always returns in some form or another to get his revenge, and it is best not to get on his wrong side!