Green Lantern, Yellow Lantern, Little Blue Men

Wayne Manor’s basement was somewhat old and dim, making the conversation between Schiller, Batman, and Sinestro feel more like an interrogation from the Middle Ages.

Although Sinestro had no idea why the yellow energy had slipped beyond his control and obeyed the orders of the black-clad freak before him, nor why he could no longer summon the power of the Yellow Lantern, the one thing he did know was that, without the support of his ring’s energy, he had nowhere left to run.

"Can you tell us about your origins? Or rather, how exactly did you become the Corps Leader of the Yellow Lantern Corps?"

Sinestro narrowed his eyes. He had not expected Schiller’s first question to be this. He said, "It seems you already know something about the Lantern Corps. But as far as I know, the Corps have not developed much in Earth’s sector. The entire planet has only one Green Lantern…"

"That’s right, but we probably know more than you think."

"Such as?"

"You’d better answer my question first."

"If you won’t tell me what you know, then what exactly do you expect me to talk about?"

"Don’t change the subject. I know what you’re thinking. You’d better not try feeding us the same nonsense you use to fool the natives of backwater planets. Don’t bring up any theories about the supremacy of the Lantern Corps. I only want to know how the greatest Green Lantern became a Yellow Lantern."

"It seems you really do know quite a lot." Sinestro drew a breath. He did not seem inclined to hide it. "Because I caught a glimpse of the filthy conspiracy behind the Green Lantern Corps—or rather, behind all the Lantern Corps."

"Oh?" Schiller leaned forward with obvious interest. "And what was that?"

"You should know the origins of the Lantern Corps, shouldn’t you?" Sinestro sighed, then began recounting the story of the rings and the Lantern Corps as though answering his own question.

It all had to begin with one of the oldest and most advanced civilizations in the universe. They were now known as the Guardians of the Universe, though more comic readers preferred to call them the "Little Blue Men."

They were an ancient, highly advanced civilization. When their civilization reached its peak, they began to entertain the idea of protecting the universe. So they harnessed the Emotional Spectrum, created power rings, and developed the Lantern Corps.

"When I first joined the Green Lantern Corps, I believed the will of the Guardians of the Universe was supreme. I thought they were a race possessed of great wisdom and noble character, devoted to protecting the universe."

"But one day, I was chosen by another great being. Somewhere beyond the visible world, I heard His voice. He told me another story…"

"Those beings who called themselves the Guardians of the Universe were nothing more than selfish, arrogant aliens. From beginning to end, they had never protected this universe at all…"

As Sinestro reached this point, Schiller touched his temple and fixed his gaze on Sinestro’s eyes. "You mean someone told you the truth? Who was he?"

"I don’t know. But he showed me evidence. At the time, I was the strongest Green Lantern, so I had access to the Central Power Battery of the Green Lantern Corps. That was where I found it—Parallax."

"That voice told me that the so-called Guardians of the Universe had placed Parallax inside the Green Lanterns’ Central Power Battery, turning it into the weakness of the Green Lanterns. They did it only so they could better control the Green Lantern Corps."

"The Green Lanterns had always been tools for them to control the universe. Their so-called defense of justice and preservation of cosmic peace were all lies."

"So you betrayed the Green Lantern Corps?"

Sinestro sighed. "After discovering all this, I still hadn’t made up my mind. I knew the person who told me this must have wanted to use me for something, and he might not have been any nobler than the Guardians of the Universe."

"But the Guardians discovered that I had investigated the Central Power Battery. They had already begun to suspect me. I could no longer remain in the Green Lantern Corps, so I found an opportunity, released Parallax, and left the Corps with it."

"Did that voice contact you again afterward?"

Sinestro shook his head. "I guessed that person might have a grudge against the Guardians of the Universe, but I couldn’t be certain. The civilization of those blue-skinned Guardians was extraordinarily advanced, and their level of life was incredibly high. Anyone capable of opposing them would have no need to use me to accomplish anything…"

"Perhaps that person simply couldn’t do anything for the moment…"

By then, Schiller already had a suspicion, because the greatest enemy and rival of the Guardians of the Universe was the First Lantern.

The feud between those two sides still had to begin with the origins of the Little Blue Men.

That race was indeed advanced, but perhaps a little too advanced. Their logic and way of handling things were simply beyond the comprehension of carbon-based lifeforms. In fact, they were a little premature for any intelligent species.

If one had to give their portrayal in the comics a review, it would be this: their schemes were generally failures, their thinking generally confused, their decisions generally wrong, and their results generally a complete mess.

These blue-skinned aliens could be called the universe’s biggest troublemakers. They always made a hugely consequential wrong decision at the wrong time and in the wrong place, then left behind a mountain of messes for other beings in the universe to clean up. In short, they caused trouble, lost control of it, ran away, and dumped the blame on someone else.

The key point was their habit of dumping the blame. That phrase practically ran through the entire history of their race.

Back when the Little Blue Men first conceived of protecting the universe—meaning they first conceived of causing trouble—the First Lantern from another universe came to this universe seeking the power of the Emotional Spectrum to save his destroyed homeland. After meeting the Little Blue Men, the two sides immediately hit it off and began researching the Emotional Spectrum.

At first, things went smoothly. But as the research continued, the Little Blue Men discovered that the power of the Emotional Spectrum was simply too great!

So what did they do?

They decided to eliminate their own emotions.

By the logic of carbon-based lifeforms, there should have been no causal connection between those two things. Yet this supposedly advanced intelligent race thought that way—and acted on it.

Then, during the experiment, the Little Blue Men discovered that after applying the power of the Emotional Spectrum to the First Lantern, the First Lantern had become far too powerful!

So they thought, let’s eliminate the First Lantern too!

But the First Lantern had already become immensely powerful, so the Little Blue Men could only imprison him.

The history between the Little Blue Men and the First Lantern showed that this evaluation of them was not unfair in the slightest.

They discovered that the Emotional Spectrum was an immensely powerful force, so the Little Blue Men blamed their own emotions and decided to eliminate them. They discovered that the First Lantern was an immensely powerful being, so they blamed the First Lantern and decided to eliminate him too.

But if they had truly been ruthless enough to see it through, that would have been one thing. Instead, their internal decision-making was a complete mess. Some wanted to eliminate emotion, while others refused. Some wanted to use the power of the Emotional Spectrum, while others feared it was too dangerous.

In the end, they came up with a compromise. They created the Green Lantern Corps, stuffed an ancient creature representing fear into the Green Lanterns’ Lantern, made the yellow power of fear the Green Lanterns’ weakness, and then painted their entire home yellow, believing that would prevent the Green Lanterns from attacking them.

At any rate, to humans, this way of thinking was more than a little difficult to understand.

According to Sinestro, it should have been the First Lantern who contacted him, exposed the Little Blue Men’s secrets, sent him to investigate the Green Lanterns’ Central Power Battery, and then led to the release of Parallax and the creation of the Yellow Lantern Corps. But that still did not explain why all of this had happened ahead of schedule.

The only change was that Schiller remembered no plot in the original work where the First Lantern contacted Sinestro. So what exactly was going on with the First Lantern? Was he about to escape? Or had he already escaped? If it was the latter, that would be rather dangerous.

The First Lantern was an extremely powerful being. In the comics, he had nearly caused the universe to reboot. If he had contacted Sinestro, that meant he must have wanted to do something.

Schiller’s thoughts stretched far into the distance, because there had been too many things lately that had exceeded his expectations. First, he had originally believed the Laughing Man could never be born in this universe, yet deep within Bruce’s dream, they had unearthed an unhatched Laughing Egg. That was not normal.

Second, the First Lantern had acted ahead of time and created the Yellow Lantern Corps. This might mean that the conflict between him and the Little Blue Men was about to erupt early.

Could there be some connection between these two anomalies?

Schiller thought about many things, but he did not tell Batman any of it. Otherwise, Batman would not sleep for the entire year.

Batman had not even left the beginner’s village yet. He did not possess the ability to participate in cosmic events. Yet these successive changes could clearly bring about a crisis beyond Batman’s capacity at any moment, potentially causing the entire universe to fall toward danger.

To prevent that from happening, a plan gradually took shape in Schiller’s mind.

After Schiller and Batman emerged from beneath Wayne Manor, Schiller said to Batman, "You’d better find a secure way to lock that guy up. He may be useful later."

"And…" Schiller took a key ring from the pocket of his coat. Besides a string of keys, it also held a string of rings.

He opened the key ring, removed several rings from it, and handed them to Batman. "These are the power rings that were drawn in by me earlier. All of their energy entered Dream, so the physical remnants can no longer return to their Corps. You can try to see whether you can crack the secrets inside them…"

Batman stared at the pile of rings in his hand with his usual suspicious gaze. His conversation with Sinestro today had made him realize just how vast and dangerous the universe beyond Earth was.

"Are you feeling nervous? Planning to increase the intensity of your training regimen? Actually, I have a better method…"

Batman turned to look at Schiller, but Schiller did not continue. Instead, he turned his head away.

"Batman…" Schiller’s tone sank low, just as it had when he and Batman first met in that alley. He said:

"…Have a good dream."