Chapter Summaries

John proved to Lois that his ring could create a solid fountain pen from green light, and she reluctantly accepted that his claims about an approaching alien fleet might be true. Lois published his account on the Daily Planet’s front page, where Perry condemned it as nonsense, while the story began to stir unseen ripples beyond the public’s ridicule.

• John made the ring create a fountain pen, then dissolved it back into green particles as Lois watched.
• Lois doubted that anyone would believe her story, but John told her to decide for herself what to do with the information.
• After considering it overnight, Lois published a front-page article titled “Wandering: Alien Expeditionary Fleet.”
• Perry berated Lois for printing the article, but she accepted responsibility, and he ordered her back to work.
• Metropolis residents dismissed the article as a joke, though it began to stir unseen ripples.

At a Nevada laboratory, Hector Hammond became obsessed with an alien spacecraft wreck and wondered how Lois Lane had described details of it. When a remnant of a fear entity emerged from the wreckage, Hector rushed toward it in awe, and it pierced his carotid artery.

• Hector Hammond studied the salvaged alien wreckage and puzzled over how Lois Lane’s newspaper account matched details of the craft.
• An unknown energy discharge triggered an alarm as a dark yellow remnant of the fear entity emerged from the spacecraft’s thruster.
• Hector ignored the evacuation orders and approached the entity, believing it was the alien contact he had long dreamed of.
• Hector grabbed the writhing mass, which transformed into yellow needles and pierced his carotid artery.

Hector survived a violent transformation after the yellow needle entered his body and fixated on the Daily Planet report mentioning Zod and a Kansas farm. Meanwhile, Lois was abducted by federal agents outside the Daily Planet and taken toward an abandoned veterans’ center.

• Hector convulsed after the needle triggered a transformation, and his uncontrolled power knocked out guards and destroyed equipment in the hall.
• Hector’s brain swelled and his body mutated, leaving him with a savage yellow gleam in his eyes.
• Hector saw the Daily Planet report and muttered, “Zod” and “Kansas... farm.”
• Lois noticed suspicious cars and men waiting outside the Daily Planet as she left work.
• Federal agents identifying themselves as a special national security department seized Lois, subdued her with ether, and drove her away in a Chevrolet.
• Lois’s captors headed north from Metropolis toward an abandoned Veterans Affairs Recuperation Center.

Colonel Walker interrogated Lois Lane about her newspaper report and a deadly outbreak at a secret Nevada facility, suspecting she knew about an extraterrestrial spacecraft. When Lois denied having a source, Walker ordered her taken to Kansas to investigate the monster heading there.

• Colonel Walker confronted Lois with her bloodstained newspaper and a recording from a Nevada facility where thirty-seven special agents and twelve scientists had died.
• Walker questioned Lois about how she had guessed the spacecraft’s emerald-green coating and learned about the classified Antarctic salvage project.
• Lois denied knowing anything and concealed John’s connection, while wondering whether his warning about an alien fleet had been true.
• Walker showed Lois surveillance images tracing her recent trip to Kansas and linked her to the recording’s repeated words, “Kansas... farm.”
• Walker ordered Lois transported to Kansas and called for Chinooks, Apache escorts, and a level one lockdown.

Hector reached the convoy near Smallville and used his powers to destroy the vehicles and drive the soldiers into madness. He tore open Lois’s transport and found her cowering inside.

• Lois recognized the road as the route to Smallville while the military convoy carried her toward the town.
• Hector appeared above the railway bridge, and his presence caused the special operatives in Lois’s vehicle to collapse in pain.
• The soldiers opened fire on Hector, but he stopped the bullets in midair and sent them back, overturning the lead vehicle and killing its occupants.
• Hector flooded the soldiers’ minds with horrifying visions, driving them to attack one another and themselves.
• Hector tore open Lois’s transport, spotted her huddled inside, and looked down at her in surprise.

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.