Recaps

John rescued Lois from Hector, who had attacked her while demanding information about a green spaceship. Hector survived John’s strike and unleashed a barrage of gunfire, but John remained unharmed.

• Hector recognized Lois and demanded that she reveal the location of the green spaceship, then tried to crush her neck.
• John appeared behind Hector and struck him through a vehicle and into a granary wall, rescuing Lois.
• John shielded Lois from the rain and remarked that her article had attracted noisy trouble.
• Hector rose from the rubble, his dark-yellow power swelling as he focused his rage on John.
• Hector used telekinesis to lift the scattered firearms and fire thousands of bullets at John.
• John protected Lois with his Bioelectric Field and stood unharmed as the guns emptied.

John effortlessly withstood Hector’s gravity attack, then trapped Hector in a silver-white force field while searching for a reaction from his ring. Hector attacked him with yellow energy, and John answered with a slap that struck Hector’s head.

• Hector absorbed the fear of the wounded operatives and used telekinetic force to crush John.
• John’s shield stopped Hector’s attack, and an afterimage revealed that John had already moved beside Lois.
• John taunted Hector and enclosed him in a compressing silver-white force field.
• John noticed that the dark-green ring on his finger was not reacting, and Hector seized the moment to fire yellow energy at him.
• John shattered the blast with a slap and struck Hector’s head.

John defeated Hector with Heat Vision that could turn corners and track him, then caught Lois photographing the aftermath. The chapter ended with John confronting Lois and wondering how this world’s military had resisted Lucifer’s invasion.

• Hector fled from John after fear returned, but John pursued him with Heat Vision.
• Hector dodged John’s first Heat Vision attack, then taunted him as the beams passed by.
• John used his Bioelectric Field to make his Heat Vision turn and track Hector, blasting him unconscious into a crater.
• John carried Hector away as Lois photographed them with a military camera.
• John demanded that Lois delete the photo, but Lois refused and promised she would keep it secret.
• John learned Lois had a military father and wondered how Lucifer had been kept from invading the human world.

John rescued Lois after the Bureau of Extranormal Affairs detained her and fought its soldiers, while Lois called her father, Sam Ryan, to arrange medical and cleanup teams. Before leaving, John extracted a fear-reproducing yellow substance from Hector and fed it to the Green Lantern Ring’s tiny shark, naming it Cornetto.

• Lois blamed John for the article that led Bureau agents to arrest and interrogate her, and John warned that the fight could have turned worse if the soldiers had driven farther into Kansas.
• Lois borrowed John’s flip phone and told Sam Ryan that Bureau agents had detained her and that their people were mostly dead; Sam said he would fly to the scene with medical and cleanup teams.
• Lois warned John that Black Hawk search-and-rescue personnel and Pentagon satellites would soon reach the area, but promised not to reveal his identity.
• John used the Green Lantern Ring to pull a writhing yellow substance from Hector’s chest and watched the ring’s tiny green shark swallow it.
• John named the shark’s new yellow lump Cornetto, then warned Lois to seal Hector’s body in a lead box and avoid touching it, especially the brain.

Bruce Wayne investigated the destruction of a Bureau of Extranormal Affairs unit in Kansas and headed there to find the escaped aberrant. Meanwhile, Sam Ryan and senior officials struggled to understand the catastrophic event and its apparent extraterrestrial cause.

• Bruce Wayne examined data showing that an unknown outbreak had annihilated a special operations unit in Kansas in two minutes, while the escaped aberrant vanished.
• Alfred told Bruce that Lois Lane had been detained by the Bureau and that Lieutenant General Sam Ryan had sent a helicopter guard unit to the site.
• Bruce linked the clues about Zod and Kansas, marked the location near Smallville, and ordered Alfred to prepare the jet as he set out for Kansas.
• At a Nevada conference, Constantine had ruled out Hell, leaving officials to consider an extraterrestrial explanation for the destruction.
• Sam Ryan told senior officials that thirty-seven soldiers, twelve scientists, and a rapid-response detachment had been wiped out, and asked how Hector had crushed the Kansas plains with a force field.

Diana Prince warned the officials that the Kansas and Nevada incidents involved an ancient fear-based force that conventional weapons could worsen. Amanda Waller secured approval to form Task Force X, or the Suicide Squad, and sent it to Kansas for reconnaissance as Diana feared a greater storm was coming.

• Diana Prince told General Sam that the dark green metal and fear-inducing radiation matched ancient accounts of a force that could grow by absorbing human emotions.
• Sam Ryan insisted that the military should attack the Kansas farmland, but Amanda Waller argued that conventional troops were powerless against the supernatural incidents.
• Amanda proposed Task Force X, an unrecorded unit of convicts controlled by explosives implanted by Major Rick Flag, and named Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and Bronze Tiger among its members.
• Amanda persuaded the Department of Defense representative to authorize the Suicide Squad's reconnaissance mission in Kansas.
• Diana watched Amanda leave and resolved that she might have to break her noninterference principle if humanity could not stop the threat.

Major Flag and the Suicide Squad waited near Smallville to recover yellow residue when a powerful green energy impact struck the convoy. A mysterious figure emerged from the crater and asked whether this was Earth.

• Flag ordered Harkness, Lawton, and Turner to stay quiet and wait for orders while the team searched for the yellow residue.
• A blazing emerald streak fell from the sky and struck the ground ahead of the convoy, creating a crater and a sweeping energy wave.
• Flag ordered everyone out of the vehicles as the green barrier smashed through the convoy and wrecked a truck.
• A dark-red figure rose from the crater inside an emerald shield and asked, “So this is Earth?”

Sinestro tracked Abin Sur’s ring to Earth and attacked the Suicide Squad when they opened fire on him. After killing most of the group, he followed the ring’s trail toward a dangerous energy source near Kent Farm.

• Sinestro traced Abin Sur’s ring to an inland region on Earth, where he found the Suicide Squad and wrecked vehicles.
• The Squad fired at Sinestro, but he blocked their bullets with a green shield and condemned them as uncivilized.
• Sinestro turned the rain and mud into enormous green chains, destroying vehicles and killing Harkness and several soldiers.
• Sinestro crushed Lawton and other soldiers beneath a giant manifested hand, then killed Flag with a blade of green light.
• Sinestro followed the ring’s trail toward a mysterious energy convergence near Kent Farm and flew toward it.

John's ring transformed after its emerald will clashed with a core of fear, giving him a new ability he named Insight. He detected a hostile Green Lantern approaching and prepared to move the fight away from Kent Farm and conceal his family’s home.

• John forced the ring’s clashing emerald and yellow energies into balance, turning them into a pale blue light.
• John used Insight to see through structures, analyze living bodies, and read sounds, conditions, and intentions.
• John detected a fast-moving visitor carrying Green will and recognized the presence as a threat.
• John suspected the visitor was an Oa patrolman connected to the ring’s previous owner and headed outside to meet him away from the farm.
• John raised his hand and pressed down on the air, intending to conceal the farm before the visitor arrived.

John concealed the farm beneath an invisible field and flew into the night, while Sinestro tracked a disturbance in his Lantern Ring to a mysterious figure whose energy it could not classify. The two faced each other in the sky as Sinestro’s ring issued an unprecedented threat warning.

• John expanded and refined his field until it mimicked the surroundings and made the entire farm invisible.
• John flew into the clouds, and Martha watched from the window and wished him a safe return.
• Sinestro’s Lantern Ring began malfunctioning and cut off the signal he had been tracking, so he scanned the plain for residual traces.
• Sinestro followed the traces east and found a pale blue figure hovering in the night sky.
• Sinestro’s ring failed to scan the figure, reported its energy and waveform as infinite, and classified the threat as unclassifiable.

John confronted Sinestro, who demanded Abin Sur’s ring back and attacked after John insulted him. John’s pale blue barrier absorbed Sinestro’s assault and converted its energy, leaving Sinestro stunned by the ring’s unknown power.

• Sinestro realized Abin Sur was out of contact and suspected John’s pale blue energy had altered Abin’s ring.
• John used [Insight] to examine Sinestro and kept the ring, explaining that the dying alien had forced it into his hands.
• Sinestro called John an inferior savage and demanded Abin’s belongings, while John mocked him and the Green Lantern Corps.
• Sinestro unleashed nine enormous green energy dragons at John.
• John’s barrier stopped the dragons, absorbed their energy, and converted it into pale blue energy, horrifying Sinestro.

Sinestro escalated his assessment attack against John, but John easily stopped his constructs and turned Sinestro’s spear into a weapon against him. The chapter ended with John descending above a vast green arc as Sinestro’s instincts warned him he had nowhere left to retreat.

• Sinestro formed a towering armored mech and struck at John, who stopped its fist with one hand and revealed his energy had turned dark green.
• Sinestro decided John would never pass the assessment and compressed his ring’s will into a massive spear.
• John caught the spear tip between two fingers, snapped it, and left Sinestro reeling from the backlash.
• John seized the spear’s shaft and swung it into a huge arc across the sky, creating a green curtain that blocked Sinestro’s view.
• John descended above the green curtain as Sinestro sensed that retreat was impossible.

Sinestro used his remaining ring energy to repair and empower his body, then charged John for a final close-range attack. The chapter ended as Sinestro's fist neared John.

• Sinestro's fist and three shields failed to hurt John, who grabbed him by the throat and struck his abdomen and face.
• John threw Sinestro upward and followed with a chopping kick that sent him plunging toward the ground.
• Sinestro halted his fall, but his ring's energy dropped below ten percent, leaving him badly injured while John remained unharmed.
• Sinestro rejected retreat and burned his remaining will to restore and armor his body.
• Sinestro surged across the sky and charged John, closing in with his fist ready to strike.

John defeated Sinestro with his extreme cold, heat vision, and a final punch, then brought the still-living but gravely injured Green Lantern to Kent Farm. Old Joe opened the door and asked John who the charred figure was.

• John dodged Sinestro’s attacks and broke his knee with a counterstrike.
• John froze Sinestro, blasted him with heat vision, and punched him into unconsciousness.
• John found Sinestro still alive in the lake and carried him to Kent Farm.
• Old Joe opened the door with his shotgun and asked John who Sinestro was.

John hid the injured Sinestro in the cellar while Old Joe and Martha quietly accepted his secrecy and urged him to stay safe. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne flew toward Kansas after Wayne Enterprises detected two powerful energy surges, the second far stronger than the first.

• John carried the unconscious Sinestro to the cellar, broke the padlock, and bound him with rope.
• John noticed his pale blue Lantern Ring resonating with the dull Green Ring on Sinestro's hand.
• John told Old Joe he would leave Sinestro by the interstate in the morning, and Martha reminded John to protect himself.
• Bruce Wayne flew the Batplane toward Kansas after Wayne Enterprises detected two abnormal energy pulses.
• Bruce studied readings showing that the second pulse greatly exceeded the first and surpassed the Newcastle Incident measurements.

Bruce investigated a devastating impact in western Kansas and suspected it was connected to something from space, while John restrained the injured Sinestro and prepared to question him. The chapter ended as John announced he had two questions for Sinestro.

• Bruce scanned the steaming crater in western Kansas and found signs of an unknown battle, including a strange biological trace and no remains.
• Bruce asked Alfred to search Kansas for a possible barn, electromagnetic anomalies, damage reports, and unregistered people.
• Sinestro woke in John's basement with his wrists tied and discovered that John had taken his Green Ring.
• Sinestro failed to overcome the Sling Ring's cyan energy and accepted that John had captured him for information.
• John crouched beside Sinestro and told him he had two questions.

John questioned Sinestro about the emotional spectra, the Green Lantern Corps, and whether the Guardians could reclaim his ring, then released Sinestro and ordered him off Earth. Sinestro suspected Kryptonians were coming after John, who confirmed that he was the target.

• John learned that green will and yellow fear normally repel each other and cause mental breakdowns, while his will had fused and controlled both spectra.
• John returned Sinestro's ring, but it remained powerless until John later restored its function.
• Sinestro told John that the Corps had thirty-six hundred members and that the Guardians of Oa could potentially recall Lantern Rings.
• John ordered Sinestro to leave Earth and claimed his attack had been self-defense, warning that more enemies were coming for him.
• Sinestro guessed that Kryptonians were coming, and John confirmed that he was the one they were after.

John thanked Old Joe for his help before they went to repair the farm’s irrigation pump, while Bruce investigated the disappearance of satellite data over Kansas and prepared to monitor the area. Zod learned that the Black Zero would reach Earth’s low orbit in ten days and focused on the planet carrying Krypton’s Codex of Life.

• John told Old Joe that Sinestro had left before dawn, then thanked him for his help the previous night.
• Old Joe told John that the western irrigation canal’s pump bearing had seized, and they agreed to replace its bronze bushings after breakfast.
• Bruce archived the Kansas anomaly as K-002 after discovering that satellite tracking and imagery had failed over the farming area.
• Bruce activated an anomalous-energy threshold trigger for Kansas and prepared weapons, saying he had to keep humanity’s fate in human hands.
• Faora reported that the Black Zero would reach Earth’s low orbit in ten Earth days.
• Zod looked toward Earth and noted that the Codex of Life was on the planet.

Zod reflected on Krypton’s plan to transform Earth into a new homeworld before an unknown dark-yellow entity infiltrated his warship. The entity reached the bridge and filled the Kryptonian warriors’ minds with visions of the Phantom Zone.

• Zod considered how the World Engine would reshape Earth in ten days to support Kryptonian civilization.
• Faora reported that an unknown massless energy signal had penetrated the warship and was moving through its cooling pipes.
• The signal disabled sections of the ship and advanced toward the bridge as Zod turned to face it.
• Faora and the guards armed themselves and formed a defensive wall in front of Zod.
• The dark-yellow entity gathered on the bridge and stirred the warriors’ deepest fears with visions of the Phantom Zone.

Zod rallied his soldiers after an unknown entity forced them to relive the horrors of Krypton’s destruction and their past suffering. He approached the entity, but it struck him and began invading his body and mind with the deaths of Krypton and its people.

• A memory of a decompression accident in the Phantom Zone showed Zod’s adjutant dying in the vacuum while Zod watched helplessly from an isolation chamber.
• The soldiers saw Krypton shattered and nearly lost their composure, but Zod ordered them to stand firm and vowed to find a new world for their people.
• Zod swept his blade and dispelled the visions before stepping forward to confront the hovering yellow mass.
• The mass, identified as Spectrum, sensed Zod’s fear and determination, then transformed into a spike and pierced his chest through his family crest.
• Spectrum invaded Zod’s body and mind, flooding him with the dying cries of Krypton and the deaths of its ten billion people.

Zod endured a terrifying mental assault that forced him to confront Krypton’s destruction and stoked his rage against Jor-El and the infant carrying the Codex. He awoke aboard the Black Zero after four stellar hours unconscious, and Faora reported that medical scans had found nothing wrong.

• A foreign consciousness flooded Zod’s mind with fear and visions of Krypton’s dead, urging him to sacrifice Earth’s people, but he resisted until he collapsed.
• While unconscious, Zod raged against Jor-El and vowed to take the Codex from Jor-El’s child as a dusky yellow presence coiled around his spine.
• Zod awoke restrained in the Black Zero’s medical bay, and Faora released him when he ordered her to.
• Faora told Zod that he had been unconscious for four stellar hours and that the ship had gone to level-one alert.
• Faora reported that the neural, circulation, and genetic scans were all negative, though she seemed to notice a fleeting yellow flash in Zod’s eyes.

Zod concealed his unexplained fainting spell and learned the Black Zero would reach Earth in fewer than five days. Meanwhile, Sinestro failed to contact Oa through ordinary channels, established a primitive quantum connection, and began examining John's ring from their battle.

• Faora reported that Zod showed no radiation or infection, and the central computer attributed his fainting to excitement.
• Zod dismissed Faora's concerns, asked about the ship's course, and learned it had locked onto Sol-3 with fewer than five days remaining.
• Zod watched the yellow star ahead and vowed that he was coming for Kal-El.
• Sinestro tried to contact Oa and its emergency beacon, but the ring reported failures caused by an unknown spectral distortion.
• Sinestro used an old quantum communication method to reach nearby nodes, then recreated his battle with John in a force field.
• Sinestro slowed and magnified the simulation to inspect the pale cyan ring on John's raised hand.

Sinestro analyzed John Kent’s overwhelming will and fear-based power, then sent Oa a warning and proposed developing yellow-powered weapons. Oa summoned him through a teleportation gate, where he arrived before the grave Supreme Guardians Council.

• Sinestro reviewed the simulation of John Kent defeating him and concluded that John could wield fear through his will.
• Sinestro recalled how he had used terror to end a workers’ strike and maintain order on Korugar.
• Sinestro sent Oa a report confirming Abin Sur’s death, John Kent’s unusual power and independent ring, and the need to classify him as a corps-level risk.
• Sinestro appended a proposal for the Guardians to develop implements powered by yellow fear and sent the beacon to Oa.
• After seven planetary rotations, Oa opened a teleportation gate, and Sinestro stepped through to the Supreme Council Hall.
• Sinestro found the twelve emotionless Guardians gathered in an unexpectedly grave atmosphere.

The Guardians examined Sinestro’s reconstruction of John’s battle and discovered that green will and yellow fear had formed a stable, blue-tinged spectrum. They debated whether the dangerous mutation could help the Green Lantern Corps before Sinestro arrived at Oa to answer for his request to use fear.

• The Guardians reviewed Sinestro’s battle reconstruction and saw that the Emotional Spectrum had mutated, with its core shifting toward blue.
• Kallon rejected the green-yellow fusion as a violation of Oa’s laws, while Korugar explained how will had forced fear into a stable equilibrium.
• The Guardians debated Sinestro’s proposal to use fear, weighing the danger against the Corps’ limited resources and inability to protect every sector.
• Kallon recognized that the blue spectrum was stabilizing the fusion and learned that Oa’s outer defenses had been breached.
• Sinestro entered the council hall, holding his chest.

Sinestro argued that the Green Lantern Corps should harness the yellow spectrum of fear, and the Guardians tasked him with obtaining a stable energy sample from the Kryptonian orphan on Earth. As Sinestro departed Oa, he sensed corruption in the Corps’ green light.

• Sinestro defended using fear as a tool of order and proposed creating a ring powered by the yellow spectrum.
• Kallon explained that Oa needed a stable sample of yellow-spectrum energy, which was known to exist in the Kryptonian orphan.
• Korugar revealed that Zod’s warship would reach Earth within a week and ordered Sinestro to offer the orphan Oa’s protection in exchange for an energy sample.
• Kallon told Sinestro that if the orphan refused and Zod killed him, Oa would recover the sample from his remains.
• Sinestro left Oa with one week to complete his task and sensed rot in the light of his ring.