Brewer Report: Mogo unleashes mojo on Green Lanterns in Emerald Warriors

I have known of Ego for years, and am learning slowly about Alter-Ego in Astonishing Thor, but until this month I had never heard of Mogo.

All of these beings are sentient planets, Mogo inhabiting the oft-retconned DCU. If you are like me and just gotten the cosmic spark from Green Lantern and its family of publications, perhaps you too were shocked at the end of this month’s Green Lantern Corps to see that a planet itself was part of the cosmic cop shop once run by the Guardians of Oa.

I mean, as a new GL reader having just returned to the DCU, for me it was a mind-blower! And it looks like, this week, Mogo will be unleashing his mojo on Earth’s four Lanterns while he is under the control of rogue Guardian Krona!

Thus, a little Captain Cosmic investigation and open go the long boxes:

First introduced in GL in 1985, Mogo is a sentient planet, technically genderless but often casually referred to as male. When it is desired, its affiliation with the Corps is marked with foliage arranged into a green band, marked with the standard Green Lantern Corps symbol, circling Mogo’s equatorial area.

In its early appearances, Mogo is not a social Green Lantern and its interactions with the rest of the DCUare not well documented. It avoids announcing its presence, preferring to represent itself using pseudonymous holograms. In Mogo’s first appearance, it is explained that the planet-sized Mogo’s gravitational field would wreak havoc on any other planet it would try to “visit;” hence Mogo “doesn’t socialize.”

Bolphunga the Unrelenting was one of Mogo’s first direct adversaries; having tracked the legendary Green Lantern Mogo to the planet where he apparently “resided,” Bolphunga subsequently spent years searching the planet for Mogo, examining various plants and animals for any sign of a power ring, until closer examination of patterns in the foliage prompted him to realize just what Mogo really was, prompting him to flee Mogo in a panic.

In one incident, it sent holograms to purchase Lobo’s dolphins. When Lobo tried to retrieve them, a Mogo hologam persuaded him not to. Lobo never discovered he was dealing with a sentient planet. At the same time, Mogo has allowed alien races to live on its surface and has been willing to change its climatic conditions to suit them. These inhabitants of Mogo may not always know that their home is alive and watching them.

When Parallax, who was at that time inhabiting the body of Hal Jordan, destroyed the power battery on Oa and slew the Guardians, Mogo lost contact with the Green Lantern energy that helped sustain him. He traveled to Sector 1014 to seek the aid of Ch’p, unaware that his friend had died long ago. Having relied on the emerald energy of the power battery to sustain him, Mogo lost consciousness and drifted through Sector 1014 until he was discovered by a nomadic alien race. These aliens proceeded to strip Mogo of his natural resources and pollute his environment. Mogo’s body reacted instinctively, creating constructs to hinder the aliens’ efforts to exploit his resources. Mogo was finally rescued by Kyle Rayner, who used his power ring to reawaken the sleeping giant. Mogo offered to allow the aliens to settle on him and offered to take care of all their needs, but the stubborn beings chose to abandon their settlements. Mogo later revealed to Rayner that he was relieved the aliens had left, and that he had planned to give them terrible weather in retaliation for their pollution.

(By the way, this storyline contradicts a Green Lantern Annual where Kyle faces the bodies of many dead Green Lanterns, Mogo included, all of whom try to destroy him.)

Mogo appeared in Green Lantern Corps: Recharge #2, requesting back-up against Rannian and Thanagarian forces. Green Lanterns Kyle Rayner, Guy Gardner, Stel and Green Man were dispatched to clear out the enemy fleets, and then enjoyed a respite on Mogo’s surface (Guy made metafictional remarks about Mogo wanting to socialize, recalling the famous Alan Moore story.)

With the restoration of the Green Lantern Corps, Mogo has taken on the role of a training and recreation planet for his fellow Green Lanterns. Soranik Natu, Kyle Rayner and other Lanterns have traveled to his sector to ask for his counsel. Further, while defending Mogo from an attack by the Sinestro Corps, the Green Lantern Arisia explained that Mogo is responsible for guiding Lantern power rings without users to those who can overcome great fear, and says that “without him, the rings are directionless.”

What a rich and fascinating mythos!

To continue: Mogo played a major role in the conclusion of Infinite Crisis, in which the Green Lantern Corps, Superman and Kal-L plan to stop the villainous Superboy-Prime. The Supermen took the deluded Superboy-Prime into the red sun Rao in a desperate gamble to depower him. With their powers waning, the Kryptonians crash-land on Mogo.

Superboy is defeated by Kal-El, but Kal-L dies of his injuries. After the fight, the rest of the Green Lantern Corps, who have suffered fatalities themselves, take Superboy-Prime into custody.

In 52 #41, as Adam Strange and Starfire’s ship is hurtling towards a sun, Mogo appears and rescues them.

During the Blackest Night event, Oa is attacked by the deadly Black Lantern Corps. During the attack, Salaak decrees that all rings from fallen Green Lanterns should be sent to Mogo, so as not to endanger the lives of potential rookies. Soranik Natu then sent all injured patients in the fight to Mogo, but got sidetracked by Kyle Rayner being attacked by a Black Lantern Jade. She sends her partner Iolande to Mogo with the patients alone instead. Mogo shows up at Oa to help in the battle against the Black Lanterns with Kilowog stating, “I guess Mogo does socialize after all,” a tip of the hat to Moore’s origin story. Mogo increases his gravity to such a degree that all of the Black Lanterns are pulled down to his surface and absorbed into his core. The superhot magma within continually burns up the Black Lantern’s bodies, keeping them from regenerating their forms. Mogo describes this as, “They will burn, for all eternity.” The injured patients are shown to be resting safely in Mogo.

Following the successful imprisonment and destruction of the Black Lanterns, Mogo and the rest of the Green Lantern Corps along with Munk and Miri face the wrath of a red ring–possessed Guy Gardner. While Miri, a Star Sapphire, attempts to reconnect Guy back to his humanity it is ultimately Mogo who manages to purge the infection of the red light. However, he warns that some influence of the red still remains, and that only a Blue Lantern’s power ring could completely remove the influence of the red ring. Mogo soon resumed his duties of supervising new rookies as they were being recruited.

Sounds like these threads may come to bear fruit soon, eh? Guy once again wears a red ring, but Kyle is now a Blue Lantern. Potential?

Of course, that is granted that Earth’s four GL boys – Hal, Kyle, John and Guy – survive the mojo of Mogo in Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #9, on sale this week!