Kho

Storyline

Expatriate

(in Wonder Woman #18-19, May-June 2008)

Kho, a young Khund warrior, is the daughter of Kharhi, and adviser to the Khund Emperor. Perhaps because of her father’s position, she was exposed to alien cultures since childhood - which is vanishingly rare in her culture. She grew fond of American mainstream youth culture, and also became a huge fan of Wonder Woman (Diana of Themyscira). In her teens she came to serve with the platoon under her father’s orders, and eventually made corporal.

In 2008, the Ichor invaded the Khund Empire and destroyed multiple planets before the Khunds admitted that they were powerless against it. It was presumably at Kharhi’s initiative that the Khunds decided to contact one of their most respected enemies for help - Wonder Woman, whom they called the Destroyer. Kharhi and his unit rushed to Earth where they attacked Wonder Woman as a sign of respect for her strength - and were swiftly defeated.

Diana immediate agreed to help the Khunds. However it was a trap - Kharhi just wanted Wonder Woman to distract the Ichor long enough for him to fly a planetbuster bomb into the thick of it. Though that would destroy their home-world (but not necessarily the Ichor), the Khunds preferred death to being saved by an alien. However, Kho discovered the plot and rushed in to warn her idol, not wanting Wonder Woman to die without any chance to fight.

While Lt.-Col. Etta Candy-Trevor convinced the Ichor to renounce its attack, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern Procanon Kaa stopped Kharhi’s suicide run and contained the explosion.

However, having saved Khundia meant that the Khunds would resume their horrible conquests and massacres as soon as feasible. Procanon Kaa, whose daughter had been recently killed in a Khund raid, was accusatory about this - and had even considered letting the Ichor destroy the Khunds.

As his her wont, Wonder Woman found a solution - Procanon Kaa had just lost his daughter and Kho her father, and she encouraged the Green Lantern to adopt the Khund as his apprentice. This was quite clever - a Khund Green Lantern meant that the Green Lantern Corps was now kin and clan to the Khund, putting them in a delicate position when it came to conflict between the two. It also meant that Kho could rein in any Khund leader - as a Khund she was allowed to challenge them to a duel if she opposed their policies, and she now wielded one of the most powerful weapons in the universe.

The wise Procanon found in himself the strength to accept the young alien as his apprentice. As for Kho, she was apparently happy for the opportunity to venture among the stars while wielding a seriously powerful weapon and becoming part of the Wonder Woman legend - as well as a soldier for an army far more powerful than even the Khunds.

Wrath of the Silver Serpent

(in Wonder Woman #42, May 2010)

Kho was trained by Kilowog, then handed back to Procanon Kaa for apprenticeship. Another newbie, Green Lantern Thulka Re, joined the duo as an apprentice. Over time, Procanon Kaa and Kho Kharhi did come to consider each other father and daughter.

Months later, Procanon Kaa and his rookies found a planet that had just been ravaged by the Silver Serpent space marauders. They could find but a single sapient survivor before Silver Serpent forces attacked them. Thulka Re died opening a breach among enemy forces, and Kaa was seriously wounded as he covered Kho so she could fly away with the survivor. Kho grabbed Procanon Kaa, and saved both her charges. The seemingly unstoppable Silver Serpent forces were later defeated by Wonder Woman on Earth, presumably to Kho’s pride.

War of the Green Lanterns

(in Green Lantern #58-59, and War of the Green Lanterns: Aftermath #1, May-Spet 2011)

In 2011, almost every single Green Lantern, including Kho Kharhi, was mind-controlled through their ring by the rogue Guardian, Krona. She survived this crisis, but was angered by the sight of John Stewart destroying the mind-controlled Mogo to save the day. Green Lanterns Kho Kharhi, Barreer Wot, and Penn Maricc confronted Steward despite Kyle Rayner’s attempts at mediation, but violence was avoided.

Enemies Closer

(inGreen Lantern Corps #27 and Green Lantern Corps Annual #2, March 2014)

Kho, also with other Green Lanterns, were captured by the Khund Empire, who had made an alliance with the Durlans and declared war on the Green Lantern Corps. Kho was rescued before her people could use her and her fellow Lanterns towards their purposes, and subsequently joined the war against her people and the Durlan allies.

Profile and Statistics

• Name: Kho Kharhi
• Aliases: Green Lantern, Neko (her “space handle”), Corporal Kho Kharhi (her former military rank)
• Known Relatives: Royal Adviser Kharhi (first name unrevealed; father, deceased)
• Group Affiliation: Green Lantern Corps, former member of the Khund military
• Green Lantern Corps Status: Active
• Space Sector: 422
• Home-World: Khundia
• Marital Status: Single
• Green Lantern Corps Sector Partner: Procanon Kaa
• Green Lantern Predecessor: Unknown
• Green Lantern Successor: Non-Applicable
• Weight: 258 lbs
• Height: 6’5”
• Eyes: Dark Grey
• Hair: Black

Green Lantern Oath

Kho, as some Green Lanterns do, adopted her own oath to use while charging her ring, rather than the standard 'In Brightest Day, in Blackest Night...' one. Her personal oath is as follows:

"Against dishonor and traitors flight, i stand beside my clan to fight. With dying breath, I claw and bite, beware my power, Green Lantern's light!"

Personality

Kho was apparently fairly young when first encountered. Many of Kho’s preferences are Khundish - and Khunds are an advanced civilization of vicious, brutal warriors who revere brute strength, glorious victory through any means, viciousness, constant combat, fighting to the last, and strict tribal honor. This is much of her background and a large part of how she thinks; her Green Lantern oath reflects this culture.

However, Kho has been exposed to alien values since childhood. Unlike most Khunds, she is not xenophobic - and she evidences a sense of fairness and compassion, which are considered rare mental illnesses on Khundia.

For instance, when faced with the peaceful inhabitants of Talcyion Omega, a race that had never known conflict or war of any kind, she treated them with kindness and politeness - rather than as inferiors and beneath contempt, as most of her kind would normally do in similar circumstance. Her first reflex when finding a traumatized female of that race was to touch her face to soothe her, use her ring to create a cast for a broken arm and ask Kaa how to use the ring as a mild sedative - all of which is particularly un-Khund-like and much closer to how an Amazon of Themyscira would behave.

Kho Kharhi approaches being a Green Lantern like being a warrior monk learning a complex martial art. She says “yes teacher” to most everything her mentor says, bows to other Lanterns, seriously studies and applies Green Lantern ethics as if they were a code of honor.

Powers and Abilities

• Khundian Strength/Physical Prowess: Kho's race is known for their highly formidable brute strength and physical endurance.
• Khundian Combat Training: Kho, as is typical for her people, was trained in the arts or war and combat from a young age.

Kho wields a Green Lantern power ring, which gives her several very formidable abilities and tactical resources:

• Emotional Spectrum Green Will Energy Conduit: The rings use pure energy supplied by a Power Battery, which in most cases takes the form of bright green light. This energy is the green light of willpower of the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum. A Green Lantern's ring, considered by some to be one of the most powerful weapons in the known universe, has the ability to affect and use fundamental forces of the known universe, including electromagnetic energies such as gravity, radiation, heat, light, and powerful blasts of concussive force. It is also theorized that the ring also has a basis in other dimensional energies commonly called magic by users of such energies. The ring can also create fields of force formed from an unknown energy that is bound by the users' will. The limitations of such use are the skill, knowledge and imagination of the user.
• Energy Projection: The ring can be used to fire blasts of energy or create weapons such as projectiles of them. The ring can project beams of force powered by the will of the user. Their appearance does not indicate the power of the weapon. The weapon's power is more an indication of the will of the user.
• Force Field: The ring can create various force fields of various sizes and shapes to protect the wearer and others in the vicinity. With the cosmic scope of a Green Lantern's duties, it is only natural that the power ring is designed for operation in space. The ring creates a force field around the wearer, protecting them from the hazards of the void including filtration of stellar radiation and microscopic particulate matter which would ordinarily be fatal should the space debris strike the ring wielder at high speeds. An atmosphere appropriate to the ring wielder's biology is created inside the force-field while body temperature is maintained and waste products are removed. Gravitational stresses which could cause injury are stabilized for the ring wielder. Theoretically, a ring wielder could use the ring as their sole source of life support. The force field is created instantaneously whenever needed as part of the ring's automatic defensive system.
• Energy Constructs: The primary function of the power ring is to provide a weapon capable of transforming the wearer's thoughts into physical constructs through the wearer's strength of willpower. A Green Lantern can create any particular items or construct that they can imagine as long as they have the willpower necessary to will it into existence. The constructs exist only as long as a Green Lantern is fueling them with their willpower. Items created by the rings are not indestructible and are only as powerful as the willpower of the Green Lantern creating them. The types of constructs usually reflects the ring wearer's personality.
• Phasing: The power ring allows the wearer to pass through solid objects such as walls, though this is also a function of the ring-bearer's will and not an automatic ability of the ring itself.
• Environmental Playback: Upon request, the power ring can recreate a holographic environment based on data in its memory banks. The ring-bearer can observe events in a ghostlike state, but the cannot alter the outcome of the playback. All objects in the playback will appear in the full spectrum of colors, regardless of the wielder's level of expertise creating simulacra. The power ring will automatically end the playback if outside interference warrants the ring-bearer's undivided attention.
• Invisibility and Light Refraction: A ring-bearer can render themselves invisible by willing the ring to bend light waves around their body. A similar action allows an experienced ring-bearer to create objects of colors other than green, even simulacrums of living people.
• Energy Absorption: The ring can absorb and store other energies. Doing so does not replenish the normal store of energy the ring has. For example: a ring that needs recharging but contained a store of electricity could only discharge that electricity.
• Superhuman Strength: While not super strength of the conventional sense, a Lantern, while using constructs created by the ring, becomes capable of lifting/moving tremendous weights far heavier than they would normally be able to with comparatively little effort.
• Flight: By the manipulation of anti-gravitons and directed molecular movement, the ring allows the user to fly at incredible speeds. In atmosphere, a Green Lantern has been known to fly as fast as Mach 10 in atmosphere by creating an aerodynamic envelope around their body. In space, a Green Lantern's flying ability has been shown to reach velocities far exceeding light speed. In atmospheres, air friction is not a hindrance since heat is either absorbed or reflected by the ring's field.
• Wormholes and Spacial Warps: The power ring grants its bearer access to wormholes in space, enabling a Green Lantern to rapidly cut the time and distance needed to respond to an emergency. Black holes can also be navigated by experienced ring wielders. A Green Lantern can travel through a black hole to be deposited outside a white hole in a far off sector of space.
• Time Travel: Time travel is possible with the power ring, though the further forward in time a ring-bearer travels, the more willpower it takes.
• Limited Cellular Regeneration: A Green Lantern can use their ring to heal physical injuries in their self or others.
• Electromagnetic Scanning: The ring has a wide range of detection abilities based on the imagination of the user. If the ring-bearer can conceive of it, they can probably detect it. Most normal electromagnetic phenomena are within the range of the ring, including radio, radar, television, infrared, ultraviolet, microwave, and high frequency band communications.
• Thought Relay: Otherwise known as a telepathic link, which can be used to coordinate tactics with other Green Lanterns or report of the status of an active mission to a sector partner or other Lantern. The links can also be established with non-Green Lanterns, though it requires more willpower.
• Galactic Encyclopedia: The earlier rings worn by the Corps functioned as references for their bearers. Having the vast knowledge of the Book of Oa to draw upon, each ring functions as a ready reference on most peoples, stellar events and conditions that may have been seen by other rings or other Green Lanterns.
• Universal Translator: The power ring can translate virtually any language in the universe, facilitating diplomatic encounters rather than violent confrontations. Complications arise when a frame of reference for translation is not available, as evidenced during Katma Tui's induction of Rot Lop Fan into the Green Lantern Corps. Katma Tui had the difficult assignment of explaining the concepts of "light" and "color" to the sightless Rot Lop Fan. She overcame this barrier by using sound rather than light as the basis of the ring's power. Some Green Lanterns, such as the planet form known as Mogo, have used the ring to create an intermediary "being" to expedite communication.
• Material Alteration: The Green Lantern's uniform is not made out of fabric. It is created by the power ring whenever the ring-bearer wills to wear it. Most Green Lanterns wear similar uniforms that are programmed into the ring by default. However, each Green Lantern is able to adjust their uniform to fit their own needs, personalities, or whims. The green parts of the wearer's uniform are usually very warm or hot to those who touch it, while the black parts are very cold. The uniform also produces a "siren" taking on the form of the Green Lantern Corps' symbol, circling the Green Lantern when active. The symbol, or badge, will not appear on the uniform until after a newly inducted Lantern has completed training on Oa, leading to the term "White-Circle" to describe a rookie Lantern.
• Ring Duplication: A power ring is capable of duplicating themselves. Each duplicate shares the qualities and capabilities of the original ring. The duplicate rings are subject to over-ride control by the original ring-bearer, and take a significant expenditure of energy to create.
• Emergency Beacon: A Green Lantern in distress can use their power ring as an emergency beacon. The alert can be directed to a Green Lantern's neighboring sector, or it can be a Corps-wide alert.
• Homing Beacon: A homing beacon in the power ring can lead one Green Lantern to another. Though a power ring can be ordered to disguise itself to elude power ring wielding trackers.
• Mind Alteration: Though the ethics of mind tampering may be debatable, sometimes it is deemed necessary. As the power ring relies on thought and will to operate, mind tampering is not impossible. The real difficulty lies in properly applying the power. There lies a risk of severe damage to the mind where alterations are being attempted should mistakes be made. A ring-bearer can use the power ring to erase portions of an individual's memories. Green Lanterns have used mind techniques as part of training. New recruits may be subjected to mind scans by other Green Lanterns or the Guardians of the Universe. They are taught to build mental defenses to protect themselves from mental attack. The power ring can also be used to beam information from the ring wielder to another being. Green Lanterns have used this technique to share information regarding their enemies during combat situations.
• Pocket Dimension: A ring-bearer can use their ring to create a small extra-dimensional holding space in which they can store their power battery for ease of retrieval. These pocket dimensions can be accessed from any location.
• Security Protocol: The rings can be programmed. They are coded to the wearer to make them unusable if stolen. The ring will refuse to take an action that would kill a being unless they are on Oa or have obtained permission. The Guardians recently removed the lethal force prohibition, first to allow lethal force against members of the Sinestro Corps, then against all enemies of the Green Lantern Corps.
• Preset Conditions: Commands can be stored in the ring to be executed at a later date even if the bearer is not wearing the ring.