The power of the Emotional Spectrum was never limited to the Green Lantern Corps alone. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet—every color embodied a different emotional force.
And the sudden appearance of the Indigo Ring of Compassion and the Blue Ring of Hope was anything but a good omen.
Things like this always felt like the opening of some painfully cliché cosmic prophecy—When the ancient lights return, all life shall be drowned in suffering bla bla bla...
The difference was that when Joey read stories like that, he had been an outsider looking in.
Now, he was trapped inside the story himself.
Because when the seven lights of the Emotional Spectrum began appearing one after another, it only meant one thing:
The countless disasters the Guardians of Oa had left buried since ancient times had finally reached critical mass.
All that remained... was the moment of detonation.
The Blackest Night was coming.
"Good. So you know what these are," Mogo said through the flower resting on Joey's shoulder. "That saves me the trouble of explaining."
"Listen carefully. This world—"
Joey immediately cut him off.
"Yeah, yeah, I know already! Just skip to the important part!"
At this point, he had completely lost count of how many people over the past few days had shown up—voluntarily or otherwise—telling him 'the world was on the verge of collapse.'
Why the hell did every single person who crossed paths with him end up expecting him to save the world?
The flower on his shoulder spoke again in Mogo's voice.
"It was only after I intervened that I realized you were Jor-El's son."
There it is again.
Joey could only admit Kara had been right—his biological father really was one of the biggest names in the universe. Even a solitary Green Lantern like Mogo knew Jor-El's reputation.
"I was born in the middle era of this universe," Mogo continued. "Since the moment I gained consciousness, I have witnessed the rise and extinction of countless civilizations. After becoming a Green Lantern... even more so."
Mogo had probably spoken more words today than he had in the previous thousand years combined.
Becoming a Green Lantern—a planet free to roam the stars—sounded incredible in theory.
In reality, it only guaranteed eternal loneliness.
He was a celestial body of immense mass. Who could even imagine what it would look like if he suddenly decided to visit Abin Sur or Kilowog for old times' sake?
Mogo's gravity alone was enough to destabilize an entire star system the moment he drew near.
And if he got any closer, his mere existence could unleash catastrophic tides upon the homeworlds of people like Abin Sur or Kilowog.
His isolation was inevitable.
If the Guardians had not entrusted him with an important purpose, receiving a Green Lantern ring might have been less a blessing and more a curse.
Because Mogo carried a responsibility unlike any other:
He was one of the hidden forces responsible for choosing new members for the Corps.
Green Lantern rings selected candidates through willpower and courage—but behind those judgments, guiding the rings in ways few understood, was not merely the Book of Oa or the Central Power Battery.
It was Mogo himself.
And now, Mogo believed he had another choice to make.
"In fearful day, in raging night,
With strong hearts full, our souls ignite.
When all seems lost in war's cruel blight,
Look to the stars—for Hope burns bright!"
As Mogo recited the oath in Joey's place, the distant Blue Lantern ring suddenly shot toward him, moving so fast he had no time to react before it slid onto his finger.
"Kal-El of Krypton and Earth... you possess the power to inspire hope in others. Welcome to the Blue Lantern Corps."
Brilliant blue light erupted around Joey's body.
Even beneath the rays of a red sun, he suddenly felt limitless power surging through him.
This was the power of Hope.
At the same time, the Indigo Ring of Compassion slowly drifted closer as well.
A golden tree burst from the ground and rapidly grew upward, its branches extending just enough for the floating ring to rest upon them.
If Kara had been present—someone who had actually spent over a decade living on Krypton—she would have immediately recognized both the flower from before and this tree.
They were Kryptonian plants.
The tree before him was a Hansa tree.
Mogo was clearly trying his hardest to close the distance between himself and Joey.
Unfortunately, it had absolutely no effect.
When Joey browsed the Kryptonian archives, he skimmed past this kind of information without a second glance. Hell, he hadn't even recognized the flower from earlier.
Mogo himself had no authority to choose the bearer of a Blue Lantern ring.
The Blue Ring chose its owners according to its own nature:
Only those who carried hope, refused surrender, and possessed truly noble character were worthy of wearing it.
"This ring once belonged to a truly great man," Mogo said softly. "And now it has chosen you, Kal-El."
Seeing the Blue Ring choose the son of Jor-El—one of the most feared man in the universe—filled Mogo with a strange sense of irony.
"I sincerely hope," he said, "that you will bring hope to this universe, just as Saint Walker of the planet Astonia once did."
Within moments, Joey instinctively understood how to use the Blue Lantern ring.
It possessed almost no offensive power to speak of.
Instead, it amplified the willpower of Green Lanterns, calmed the rage of Red Lanterns, dispelled the fear wielded by Yellow Lanterns...
With the ring on his hand, Joey felt utterly overflowing with energy. With a single thought, he could leap from the surface of Mogo all the way back to Earth.
And along with that power came the memories and experience of the ring's previous owner.
Joey had to admit:
Saint Walker truly had been an extraordinary man.
His homeworld, Astonia, had faced extinction after its sun began to decay. A catastrophic helium flash would erupt within years—perhaps decades—and consume the entire planet.
The world had descended into endless panic, fury, chaos, and destruction.
And it was at that moment that Saint Walker made his choice.
He gathered his family, left his church behind, and set out on a pilgrimage.
He would climb the highest mountain in the world...
And search for the Messiah spoken of in ancient scripture.
Messiah was, after all, another word for Savior.
In nearly every religion ever born among intelligent species, there was always some version of a Messiah lurking within the myths.
According to scripture, he was the messenger of God—the savior sent to deliver mortals from suffering.
Saint Walker had been exactly that kind of fanatic.
A true believer in the coming of the "Messiah.
And the road of pilgrimage was anything but merciful.
Along the thorn-covered path, he lost his father first.
Then his wife and daughter.
And finally... his son.
Even after losing the last of his family, Saint Walker still refused to abandon his climb toward the summit.
To reach the peak and find the Savior promised by God had become the only thing driving him forward.
But when he finally reached the mountaintop, standing at the highest point in the world, he discovered there was nothing there at all.
Nothing except a single smooth stone.
After enduring endless hardship and sacrificing everything during the pilgrimage, Saint Walker felt only fury.
Holding his scripture high, he roared at the heavens, hurling blasphemies at the god he had once worshipped with unwavering faith.
And the heavens answered his rage with rage of their own.
Thunder bellowed across the sky as torrential rain poured down upon him.
At this point, the story was nothing more than the tragedy of a zealot whose blind faith had destroyed his entire family.
Until, standing amidst the storm in utter despair, Saint Walker saw something reflected upon the surface of that smooth stone.
His own reflection.
Bathed in the light of Hope, Joey fell silent for a moment in thought before slowly removing the Blue Lantern ring from his finger.
After a long hesitation, he finally let out a weary sigh and gently hung both the Blue Ring of Hope and the Indigo Ring of Compassion upon the branches of the Hansa tree before him.
"Thank you, Saint Walker. But... no. I'll pass."
In the end, Saint Walker returned to his homeworld as nothing more than an ordinary mortal.
And yet, through his words and speeches, he brought hope back to his people.
He united them together just like the Savior spoken of in scripture.
Under his leadership, global order was rapidly rebuilt, and the people devoted itself to preparing for the coming solar catastrophe.
Whether the future would bring salvation or destruction, they chose to face it together.
And it was at that very moment that a Blue Lantern ring descended from the heavens.
Saint Walker's world was saved.
It should have been a beautiful story.
If not for the arrival of the Black Lantern Corps afterward.
The final ending of that hopeful tale was Nekron and his army of the dead tearing the entirety of Sector One apart.
Perhaps in another universe, Saint Walker and his people might have found a happier ending.
But not in this one.
Not in a universe built upon tragedy.
"Why?"
The standards of the Blue Lantern Corps were a hundred times stricter than those of the Green Lanterns. This was the first time Mogo had ever witnessed someone reject a Blue Lantern ring.
"You brought hope to the entire universe," Mogo said. "That ring was practically made for you."
"Because both the ring and I know I'm not as noble as it wants me to be. Sooner or later, we'd end up parting ways anyway."
Joey remembered every act of killing along his path.
Back when he had first begun fighting with his powers, nearly every battle had awakened a bloodthirsty impulse within him, pushing him toward the edge of losing control.
Even the twisted reality created by Doctor Fate's helmet had revealed part of the truth about him.
The Kryptonian half of himself had never truly made peace with the rest of him.
Joey did not believe the Blue Lantern ring could solve the monster lurking inside his heart.
Everything happening throughout the universe kept reminding him of one truth:
This was a cold and merciless place.
And a universe like this could not be saved through hope and love alone.
The moment he had worn the Blue Ring earlier, his energy reserves had already surged to their peak.
Now Joey floated effortlessly into the air, his feet lifting from the ground.
"I think this universe needs more than just heroes and hope," he said quietly.
"It also needs absolute power."
After enduring battle after battle against the Alpha Lanterns and the living planet Mogo, after withstanding countless assaults of willpower energy, Joey had completed yet another cycle of adaptation.
New frequencies had begun appearing within the radiation spectrum of his bio-field.
For the briefest instant, a faint yellow light flickered around his body.
Every Green Lantern ring throughout the valley reacted immediately, trembling with visible unease.
"Your choices—and your power—have both exceeded my expectations," Mogo admitted. "I must say... Kryptonians truly are born warriors."
Seeing this, Mogo could only quietly reclaim the two hidden rings he had kept secret from nearly all the Guardians and the Green Lantern Corps.
He no longer questioned why Joey had rejected the power of Hope.
After all, to Mogo, the minds of most organic beings were impossibly difficult to understand.
Though that certainly did not include the Guardians hiding away on Oa.
"I can already foresee that the Guardians are gradually losing both the wisdom and the capability to fulfill their responsibilities," Mogo said solemnly. "You must prepare yourself."
The sky above Joey began changing at astonishing speed.
The red sun rapidly shrank into the distance before vanishing into a sea of stars as night fell.
Mogo was moving again.
Within mere minutes, the endless stars faded, the darkness receded, and sunlight once again bathed the planet's surface.
Except this time, the star hanging overhead was an extraordinarily brilliant blue sun.
And from that moment onward, neither Joey nor Kara suffered any further limitations while standing upon Mogo.
This was the final gesture of goodwill Mogo could offer.
Ever since the creation of the massive Alpha Lantern Corps, the vast majority of Green Lanterns had already become divided from the Guardians in all but name.
"The prophesied Blackest Night has already begun," Mogo warned.
"You must expand your vision beyond a single localized war and look toward the universe as a whole."
"Remember this well—"
"The future of the Kryptonians, the Green Lantern Corps... and perhaps the entire universe itself..."
"...now rests upon you alone."