Sinestro
To think that baldheaded fool and that miserable clown would have pages before me...
And now that I have one, beware...
Who am I, you may ask?
I am Sinestro.
Thaal Sinestro.
Formerly Green Lantern of the planet Korugar in space sector 1417 and arch nemesis of Earth's so-called premiere ring-bearer Hal Jordan. I was created by the likes of John Broome and Gil Kane - who incidentally, modeled me after a Terrestrial actor called David Niven - and made my debut in issue number seven of the first series of Jordan's title in 1961.
I sought to use my ring to preserve order my way and had hoped to use my methods rather than those of the Guardians of the Universe to bring total peace to my planet, then my sector and finally the universe itself. I was known as the greatest Green Lantern and my sector was the safest in the universe. However, Jordan, that fool from that primitive planet Earth, didn't like the measures I took to make my sector safe; he believed I was a dictator who ruled with an iron fist and caused the Guardians to make me a renegade and to send me to the Anti-Matter universe of Qward, where I was granted my own power ring, which was yellow in color. Of course that meant that the Green Lantern rings were powerless against it. Still, Jordan would manage to thwart my plans time and again, eventually resulting in my imprisonment inside the Central Battery of Oa while the Guardians went away with the Zamarons.
Eventually, the Guardians returned and called upon me to stop Jordan, who had gone mad due to the loss of his Terran hometown of Coast City and was seeking the power of the Central Battery. After an arduous fight, it appeared that Jordan had killed me prior to his entering the battery to become Parallax.
The truth was, that was a hard light duplicate created by the true Parallax and controlled by me. Once the Battery was destroyed, I was truly released and hid as I watched the Parallax-possessed Jordan become the very traitor that he despised me for being. What I did not count on was a surviving Guardian granting a power ring to a neophyte and dirty alley rat named Kyle Rayner. Soon enough, he had discovered the existence of Parallax. Of course, I made my presence known and was about to kill him and that miserable bowman, when Jordan, who had previously sacrificed his life to reignite the Sun and become The Spectre, came back to life, purged of any influence of Parallax. The two of us fought to a draw with Jordan damaging my ring, forcing me to escape to the Anti-Matter Universe.
Soon enough I encountered there the Anti-Monitor, who had engineered the Crisis on Infinite Earths, and embraced the doctrine of spreading fear. In order to counteract Jordan and the reborn Green Lantern Corps (Whom I will admit have improved their rings to finally be able to directly affect the color yellow for at least their hardened troops), I decided to form my own army... the Sinestro Corps! I offered Rings like my own to the most fearsome warriors in the universe! Together we would spread fear and our own ways of policing the universe. Of course, the Green Lanterns had to be eliminated first. Or at least, I had to make the Guardians change certain policies to truly make their corps a serious police force, ready to apply appropriate measures when necessary.
But that was only the beginning. Soon enough, more Ring Corps emerged. The result... the Blackest Night, followed by the so-called Brightest Day, where I gained the White Lantern ring of Life. Now, I've been recruited back into the Green Lantern Corps while the Guardians expelled Hal Jordan. Don't ask me to explain the logic of either move and I needed Jordan as a Lantern almost as soon as I started, even if I later dismissed him without a power battery for his ring.
But enough history.
I have been voiced by the likes of Vic Perrin and Don Messick, Ted Levine, John De Lancie, Miguel Ferrer, Xander Berkely, Victor Garber, and Jason Isaacs. Mark Strong portrays me in the film. But I will never live down the ...fact... that Charlie Callas played me as well.
- A Sinister Clue: Though "sinister" isn't the word I'd use, I am, in fact, left-handed.
- Arch Enemy
- Badass Creed: As the Green Lanterns have their oath, so do the members of my Corps. My oath, presented below, serves as the template:
In Blackest Day,
In Brightest Night,
Beware your fears made into light,
Let those who try to stop what's right,
Burn like my power... Sinestro's might!
- Of course, other members of the Corps have to say "his power".
- Badass Mustache: Would it not feel desperately wrong if I were to shave?
- Berserk Button: During the War of the Green Lanterns, that traitorous wretch Lyssa Drak had the audacity to attempt to imprison me in my own memories of my time as a Green Lantern. Once I realized the deception, I tore through the Book of the Black in order to make her know true suffering, but my attempts were thwarted by none other than the rogue Guardian Krona.
- Big Bad: What Jordan and the Guardians insist I am.
- Break the Badass: That fool Gardner rightfully ridicules Jordan for the quality of Jordan's enemies... but not once has he dared make those jokes about me.
- Crazy Prepared: Did you really think that I would gather the most fearsome beings in the universe, given them the ultimate weapon, and not be able to shut them down when one tried to use it against me? Mongul learned this the hard way...
- My Corps also learnt this when they enslaved my homeworld...
- Depending on the Artist: The fools can never seem to decide what color my skin is, whether or not my ears are pointed, or the size of my forehead.
- Dragon with an Agenda: To the Anti-Monitor during my Corps' war against the Green Lanterns. Of course, everyone working under the Anti-Monitor had their own agenda, but I was one of the few to succeed in mine...
- Enemy Mine: To survive the Blackest Night I have had to form a cease fire with the Green Lantern Corps and work together with them and the other Corps. The truce is still intact (at least until we decide what to do with the missing emotion Entities and the White Lantern Battery that we've found on Earth).
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Arin...that woman...she was nothing at all.
- I wasn't going to hurt Arsona. She could have acknowledged me after all these years...
- Evil Counterpart: To Jordan, of all people.
- Foe Yay: Jordan stands in my way, I in turn try to rid myself of him. What of it?
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Hard to believe I was once a mere archeology student back on Korugar.
- Good Is Not Nice: As you humans say, that is my story and I am sticking to it.
- Green Lantern Ring: I started out with a regulation GL ring before gaining the Yellow one on Qward. Now I have a White Lantern ring, which should prove... interesting.
- Although now I have my yellow ring back, despite trying to prove once and for all that I was the greatest Lantern.
- And now I have a GL ring again.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: Due to the chances I might be without the aid of my power ring in this recent decade I have revealed I have excellent hand-to-hand combat capabilities.
- Human Aliens: How dare you slander my race by comparing us to such primitive creatures as Earthmen?! Indeed, you are Korugarian Aliens, bereft of our rich magenta hue.
- Legion of Doom: I have been a part of that particular group in the past.
- Light Is Not Good: I am good and I do what is necessary to preserve order. My lantern's ability to instill fear aids the process.
- Soranik I Am Your Father
- Man of Kryptonite: At first my ring was the very anti-thesis to my former colleagues in the Green Lantern Corps.
- Meaningful Name: So my name happens to sound like something evil in the Earthmen's language. It's probably what biased Jordan against me.
- Has it never occurred to those pathetic sub-species to think at all that in the dead Earth language they know as Latin, the word "sinestra" means "left hand", and that I happened to be left-handed?
- Real Men Wear Pink: Nay, real men are pink.
- Retcon: I was not raised from death in the 1990s by one of the Spectre's foes. I was alive and well at the time. That was a mind-trick played on the Spectre's host, the hated Hal Jordan, by Parallax.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: Of course, my methods seem harsh, but imagine how orderly and peaceful the universe would be with me in charge!
- Villain Takes an Interest: Korugar may have banished me, but they have warmed considerably to Soranik. She may be able to bring order back to our world.
- Villainous Widow's Peak
- Was It Really Worth It?: I have sacrificed much to bring order to Korugar. My wife dead, my daughter raised by strangers, and betrayed by one of only two people in the Corps I considered a friend. And how does Korugar thank me? By declaring me as its greatest villain. That is my place in her history. But much more must be sacrificed if order is to be brought to the universe! And that abomination that took my wife's corpse had the audacity to ask me, "has it been worth it?" I...I don't...
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Once again, I deplore use of words such as "extremist", but I must use such tactics if order is to be kept in place.
- Xanatos Gambit: The Sinestro Corps War wasn't merely an attempt to overthrow the Green Lantern Corps. It was a way to force the Guardians to do what was necessary to strengthen the Corps. Now that they can kill, the universe will fear the Green Lanterns. And the universe will be better for it.