I am the darkness before there was light. 
- — Nekron src
History
Nekron is the Lord of the Unliving, one of the most powerful forces in the DC Universe, able to summon the dead to serve him towards whatever ends he might seek. Nekron is a concept/physical manifestation of the concept of death as a cosmic certainty and as the ultimate opponent and opposing force of all life that exists.[1] As a cosmic force for evil, he has frequently found himself in conflict with the Green Lantern Corps. During Blackest Night, he has been revealed as the mastermind behind the Black Lantern Corps.[2]
Although he is a sentient being, Nekron is not alive as we understand the concept. He is the complete ruler of the Land of the Unliving, a dimension where souls go before their final judgment. As his eternal punishment, he is also imprisoned within this realm, unable to leave, although he frequently attempts to escape into our dimension. His origins remain completely shrouded in mystery. Nobody knows how he rose to power in his realm, or whether or not he was at one point a living being.[3] Recent sources have claimed that Nekron is not so much a part of darkness, but in fact is the darkness, predating the existence of life as we know it.[2] Further, It is stated that the darkness itself created Nekron as its persona and uses him to protect itself from the life. It has also been hinted at that the guardians of the universe clashed with Nekron close to the beginning of the universe and imprisoned him.
Krona War
Trapped in his own realm throughout most of eternity, Nekron first became aware of the world of the living through the deceased cosmic villain Krona. A rift was opened in the continuum between dimensions, caused by the death of an immortal.
Nekron gloats
And Nekron looked upon the universe and saw all that was life itself, and determined that he would become its master. So that he might escape his prison, he resurrected and empowered Krona, with an army of the undead at his disposal, to slaughter the Guardians of the Universe and widen the rift.[4] It took the combined might of the entire Green Lantern Corps to defeat them, in a colossal battle that resulted in literally hundreds of casualties. Hal Jordan entered the Land of the Unliving on a suicide mission, and harnessed the souls of his fallen Lanterns to fight back against the great evil. Their combined willpower overcame Nekron long enough for the Guardians to seal up the rift, and Hal escaped, leaving the Lord of the Unliving once more condemned to his lifeless prison.[5]
Further Appearances
Although largely confined, Nekron has made several more breaches into our world and had interactions with superheroes. After Captain Atom died briefly, he was introduced to several incarnations of Death, including Death of the Endless and the Black Racer. They were each presented as a component of death... and Nekron represented the concept as a cosmic certainty, death as the ultimate opponent.[6]
The Ultimate Opponent
In an attempt to gain control of the Quantum Field life energy of the planet, he had carefully engineered the hero's death. Although he absorbed a great deal of the power, Captain Atom used his connection to steal energy from Nekron's own personal field, and depower him enough to defeat him in physical combat.[7]
Underworld Unleashed allowed him another opportunity to gain entrance to the physical plane. Destruction of the Tower of Fate created another rift into our dimension, and Nekron fought Nebiros for the privilege of conquering the world. He won the battle, and the undead souls of the damned surged across the Earth as Hell literally broke loose.[8] Alan Scott and Fate teamed up against him. Nekron almost gained full access to our world, but fighting against him with the great supernatural strength of Fate gave Green Lantern enough time to demolish the portal with his green flame.[9]
Through the Rift.
He was able to return to our world once more during Ghosts. An outside supernatural force brought a number of dead Green Lanterns back to life, calling themselves the Green Lantern Corpse. This created another crack in his realm, but still not one large enough for him to squeeze through. Taking control of the undead Lanterns, he sent them to capture the last remaining descendant of his original nemeses... Kyle Rayner. If Nekron had killed him and harnessed his powers, then he would finally have been able to leave his prison, but Kyle escaped back out through the crack and personally put each and every one of the rogue Lanterns down in single combat. Although it was a long and difficult battle, putting them back to rest sealed the portal and ended Nekron's threat once more.[10]
Nekron was accidentally summoned onto our plane by the supernatural hero Witchfire, who used his incantation without realizing the consequences it would have. She teamed up with Wonder Woman to prevent him from sucking the life-force out of any more innocents, while he was feeding. The combination of mystical energies and godlike blows was sufficient to drive him back into his own realm on that occasion.[11]
Blackest Night
Main article: Blackest Night
Following the Final Crisis, Nekron makes his triumphant return during the Blackest Night, where he forms the Black Lantern Corps composed entirely of his zombies equipped with power rings to wreak havoc upon the universe. His plans for this stretched back toward the Sinestro Corps War, when he killed the Anti-Monitor and absorbed him to energize his own Central Power Battery on the planet Ryut in Sector 666.[12] The battery wouldn't become completely active until it was discovered and disturbed by Lanterns Ash and Saarek, his first new victims.[13] He has taken the fallen Guardian named Scar as one of his servants, for she was burned by the Anti-Monitor and poisoned by his touch, causing her to slowly die and come under his influence.[14] There is also evidence that he has been influencing William Hand, the criminal known as Black Hand, his entire life. His control over Black Hand was solidified when Hand killed himself and his family, with Nekron taking him as his herald.[15]
As his influence spreads throughout the universe, the dead rise and return to take revenge on the living, building his power by literally devouring the hearts and emotions of all those who still breathe.[16] Only those with emotional ties to superheroes and villains are resurrected, to achieve the maximum potential. The sheer quantity of death caused by his Black Lantern Rings charges the Central Battery to full power. At this climax, he transports himself and his forces down to Earth to personally command his army. Landing in the middle of Coast City, he turns every single dead citizen into a Black Lantern, announces that all owe their lives to him, and he has come to collect.[17] Many of Earth's mightiest heroes rally to defeat him, and representatives from all seven Lantern Corps. Atrocitus, Carol Ferris, Hal Jordan, Indigo, Larfleeze, Saint Walker and Sinestro pour their combined beams into his Power Battery, hoping to obliterate it with the full life-force energies of creation. This only makes him stronger, and he seems to have planned this. Nekron resurrects Batman as one of his most powerful agents, who then kills and revives Animal Man, Donna Troy, Green Arrow, Ice, Kid Flash, Superboy, Superman and Wonder Woman as Black Lanterns. These are all people who have come back from the dead at some point in their lives, and he claims they only escaped because he let them... to further his own goals. He plans to use his army to uncover a dark secret of the Guardians... and then return the universe to a state of quiet order.[18]
Nekron's goal is revealed to wanting to find and destroy the embodiment of life itself: the white Entity. He kills one of the Guardians and uses their blood to draw the Entity out of hiding, than attempts to kill it and with it, which will in turn kill all of life in the universe. Sinestro bonds with the Entity and attempts to battle Nekron.[19] Despite Sinestro destroying his physical form, another Black Lantern simply picks up his weapon, becoming Nekron's new physical form. Nekron then manages to take the Entity out of Sinestro. Hal Jordan bonds with the Entity and uses it's power to restore the living heroes transformed into Black Lanterns to their normal selves. Hal uses the Entity to transform the heroes into White Lanterns, together they defeat Nekron by resurrecting Black Hand, thus destroying Nekron's link to the living plane. The Entity resurrects the Anti-Monitor which destroys the Black Lantern Battery. With his link to the earthly plane severed, Nekron's body is destroyed, ending the Blackest Night.[20]
Wrath of the First Lantern
The DC Universe heavily changed its continuity into the DCnU following the events of Flashpoint in 2011. This was part of an effort to make storylines more accessible to newer readers, beginning with the New 52. This new timeline combines elements from the DCU, Vertigo Universe and Wildstorm Universe while drastically changing the origins and histories of characters.
During the fight between the First Lantern and the rest of the Lantern Corps, Hal Jordan, who has returned to the world of the living now as a Black Lantern, releases Nekron from his prison to the battle. After the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum is removed from The First Lantern's body, Nekron cuts Volthoom in half killing him. Before he can seek to escape he is sent back to his prison by Hal Jordan.
Powers and Abilities
Powers
- Necromancy:Nekron's position as the Lord of the Unliving gave him a great number of powers that related to death itself.
- Dark Lightning: He has the ability to fire bolts of a force called dark lightning from his hands, powerful enough to hurt and even kill the Guardians of the Universe. Despite being immensely powerful, it is not unstoppable. Wonder Woman was able to block it with her bracelets, although the force still threw her across the room.
- Necrotic Empowerment: Nekron gains physical strength from the deaths he causes.
- Reanimation: As the Lord of the Unliving, Nekron can reanimate corpses into fully functioning zombies working entirely under his control, and retaining semblance of their past personality.
- Fatal Touch: The sustained touch of Nekron's hand can chill any mortal being to death, through supernatural means.
- Immortality: Since he is not alive in the sense that we understand it, Nekron is technically incapable of being killed. As such, defeating him is extremely difficult; if defeated he will simply return to the Land of the Unliving.
- Reality Manipulation
Weaknesses
- Link Required: For all his power, Nekron holds one great weakness: he cannot exist in this universe. In order to properly interact with the living, Nekron requires a link between between New Earth and the Land of the Unliving, such as a tear in space-time, or a mortal link such as Black Hand.
Paraphernalia
Equipment
- Black Lantern Central Power Battery (Formerly)
Notes
- Although this character was originally introduced during DC's Earth-One era of publication, their existence following the events of the 1985–86 limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths remains intact. However, some elements of the character's Pre-Crisis history may have been altered or removed for Post-Crisis New Earth continuity, and should be considered apocryphal.
- There is an unrelated monster named Nekron who fought the original Justice League of America.[21]
Trivia
- It has been confirmed in official sources that his name is pronounced NEHK-Ron.[3]
Related
- 29 Appearances of Nekron (New Earth)
- 25 Images featuring Nekron (New Earth)
- 4 Quotations by or about Nekron (New Earth)
- Character Gallery: Nekron (New Earth)
External Links
Footnotes
- ↑ Captain Atom #42
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 IGN Interview with Geoff Johns
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #XVI
- ↑ Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #2
- ↑ Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #3
- ↑ Captain Atom #42
- ↑ Captain Atom #43
- ↑ Fate #12
- ↑ Fate #13
- ↑ Green Lantern Annual (Volume 3) #7
- ↑ Power Company: Witchfire #1
- ↑ Green Lantern (Volume 4) #25
- ↑ Green Lantern (Volume 4) #42
- ↑ Green Lantern (Volume 4) #44
- ↑ Green Lantern (Volume 4) #43
- ↑ Blackest Night #1
- ↑ Blackest Night #4
- ↑ Blackest Night #5
- ↑ Blackest Night #7
- ↑ Blackest Night #8
- ↑ Justice League of America #128-129
  This character is or was primarily an enemy of the Green Lantern of Earth, or the Green Lantern Corps as a whole. This template will categorize articles that include it into the category "Green Lantern Villains." |
 Black Lantern Corps member |