Mogo

Origin and Background

Mogo the Living Planet

Mogo's first appearance was in Green Lantern vol. 2 #188 (May 1985), in a story entitled "Mogo Doesn't Socialize" written by Alan Moore.

Mogo is a sentient planetoid, the largest of any Green Lantern officer, that is often referred to as male but is actually genderless. When Mogo desires to do so, its affiliation with the Green Lantern Corps is marked by moving the foilage around its equator into a green band with a Green Lantern symbol in the middle.

In its early appearances, Mogo is not a social Green Lantern - hence the title "Mogo Doesn't Socialize" - and its interactions with the rest of the DC Universe are not well-documented - allowing for any and all retcons. It avoids announcing its presence, preferring to represent itself using 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." Although, Mogo has shown the ability to control its gravitational force so this may just be a convenient fact for Mogo to exploit and remain secluded.

Bolphunga the Unrelenting was one of Mogo's first direct adversaries; having tracked the mythical Green Lantern Mogo to the planet where he apparently 'resided', Bolphunga spent years searching the planet for Mogo, searching for any sign of a power ring, until closer examination of patterns in the foliage prompted him to realize that Mogo was, in fact, the planet he was on. He soon fled after discovering this.

Mogo once sent holograms to purchase Lobo's dolphins. When Lobo tried to retrieve them, a Mogo hologram 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.

Emerald Twilight, Dormancy, and Rebirth

When Parallax, who was at that time inhabiting the body of Hal Jordan, destroyed the power battery on Oa and killed the Guardians, Mogo lost contact with the willpower energy that helped sustain him. He traveled to Sector 1014 to seek the aid of Green Lantern 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 the last Green Lantern, 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.

Mogo appeared in Green Lantern Corps: Recharge #2, requesting back-up against Rannian and Thangarian forces. Green Lanterns Rayner, Guy Gardner, Stel, and Green Man were dispatched to clear out the enemy fleets, and then enjoyed a respite on Mogo's surface (which Guy quips that Mogo wants to socialize). With the Corps rebuilt again, many Lanterns gain partners. Mogo teams up with Bzzd, an insect-sized Lantern. Bzzd was killed battling Mongul II.

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, Rayner (arguably the closest modern Lantern to Mogo), and other Lanterns have traveled to his sector to ask for his help.

Infinite Crisis

Mogo played a role in the conclusion of the 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 who had teleported into their flight path to catch them.

Superboy is defeated by Kal-El, but Kal-L died of his injuries. After the fight, the rest of the Green Lantern Corps, who had suffered fatalities themselves, take Superboy-Prime into custody. Mogo would later express his regret over the loss of many corpsmen to Hal Jordan.

In 52 #41, as Adam Strange and Starfire's ship hurtled towards a sun, Mogo appeared and rescued them.

Prophecy and Sinestro Corps War

In Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #2, a prophecy narrated to Abin Sur suggests that Mogo will be the last Green Lantern. In a battle with the " Empire of Tears", Ranx the Sentient City will explode a blink-bomb within Mogo's core, killing the sentient planet and ending the Green Lantern Corps forever. Ending Mogo would be a devastating blow to the Corps, as readers learned in Sinestro Corps War.

In Green Lantern Corps #11, Mogo showed Kilowog images of his dead species, pushing him into madness and hate against the Green Lantern Corps. He then started tampering with the minds of the Lanterns seeking advice and counseling, in the form of illusions granted by Mogo's powers, framing Gardner for killing and pitting the Lanterns against each other. This behavior was caused by the virus Despotellis of the Sinestro Corps, and according to Gardner was actually unnoticed by the planet, who was immune to the fungus himself (stated by Green Man in issue #13). After the fungus made itself known by drilling towards Mogo's core, the sentient planet proceeded to shift its orbit into the path of an asteroid whose impact noticeably scars Mogo but eradicates the fungus, whose remnants are destroyed by the other Lanterns.

The Sinestro Corps attacked Mogo with Ranx, who started to drill into the planet, with the intention of planting the blink bomb. While defending Mogo, 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." In a sense, no Lanterns would exist without Mogo. Thanks to Sodam Yat, as well as a change in the Book of Oa permitting the Lanterns lethal force against the Sinestro Corps, Ranx is destroyed and the Sinestro Corps are driven from Mogo.

Blackest Night

During Blackest Night, Oa is attacked by Black Lanterns. During the attack, Salaak decreed 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," another, common 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 green magma, which has led fans to speculate a connection between Mogo and the Starheart, 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."

Following the successful imprisonment and destruction of the Black Lanterns, Mogo and the rest of the Green Lantern corps along with Munk and Miri faced the wrath of a red ring–possessed Guy Gardner. While Miri, a Star Sapphire, attempted to reconnect Guy back to his humanity it is ultimately Mogo who manages to purge the infection of the red light. However, he warned 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.

War of the Green Lanterns

Death of Mogo

After Krona restored the yellow impurity of the Green Lantern Rings to control all the green lanterns, Mogo started releasing all the spare rings he had to increase Krona's army. John Stewart and Kyle Rayner tried to break him free from Krona's control using the blue light of hope, but were unable to because of the Black Lantern energies still contained in him from Blackest Night. Realizing that Mogo was too far gone to be saved, John tapped into the Black Lantern energies and teleported out of Mogo. He then fired the black lantern energy at Mogo's brain, killing him.

Future

In Legion of Three Worlds #2, it is revealed that in the 31st century Mogo has been long dead and without him, there is no way to distribute the rings and thus no Green Lantern Corps aside from lone lantern Sodam Yat.

Other versions and Non-continuity tales

In the Green Lantern Vs. Aliens limited series, Mogo was also the adopted home of a group of Aliens. It seems that years ago, Hal Jordan and a group of fellow Green Lanterns were charged with dealing with these Xenomorphs following the death of a Green Lantern, and Hal Jordan wanted to avoid killing them if possible, believing that they were just animals, and thus were not evil. His solution was to deposit them on Mogo, where they would be a threat to no one and would be able to live. Years after that, however, Kyle Rayner and other Green Lanterns, including Salaak traveled to Mogo to rescue the crew of a crashed freighter. This was Rayner's first encounter with the sentient planet, although he didn't speak to Mogo directly. Most of the GL squad did not survive. However, due to its non-canon nature (as evidenced by the dead GLs showing up alive later), in their next encounter, Rayner does not remember this event.

Powers, Abilities, Weaknesses, and Characteristics

Mogo is the wielder of a Green Lantern Power Ring which enables him to accomplish a variety of effects. The Green Lantern Ring allows Mogo to manipulate its energies through the use of willpower.

The Green Lantern Ring gives Mogo the following abilities:

• Animating: A Green Lantern can will things to move how he wants.
• Artificial Intelligence: Every ring has a connection to the Main Battery on Oa, which taps into an artificial intelligence. It acts as an "on-board computer," telling the wearer what they need to know. It can either respond out loud, or silently directly to the wearer's mind. The AI contains a large database of information that may be crucial to a Lantern's success. The ring also translates nearly every language to and from the wearer (though they have difficulty translating profanity), which is why the Corps can communicate with each other. When the bearer of a Green Lantern ring dies, the ring will seek out a suitable replacement for their sector. The AI can be used to play a holographic playback sequence complete with colors across the spectrum based on information in memory banks. The ring can dictate when to pause or stop the playback should an interruption arise where the Lanterns undivided attention is needed. The AI can also alert the wielder of incoming threats or of attempts to manipulate the wielders construct by an outside party.
• Burglar Alarm: A Green Lantern can coat anything with the ring's beam and thus, if anyone other than himself touches it, his ring will glow, alerting him to the possible theft.
• Communicator: The ring can act as a personal communicator between Green Lanterns. They have also been seen connected to telephones.
• Costumes: The wearer of the ring may create any costume they choose, based on their personal preferences, whenever they choose. The ring projects the costume over any clothes already worn at the time.
• Energy Projection: The rings can also project beams, form protective bubbles and force fields, and fire destructive blasts. Sometimes, depending on the wearer, the beams and blasts make sounds. Kilowog's ring is one such example of blasts making sounds.
• Energy Constructs: The rings can construct anything the wearer can imagine from hard-light energy, as long as they are willing to make it. The more determined the wearer is, the more complex and intricate these things can be. The constructs can even be so complex as to form working machines, computers, and even people.
• Flight: The ring allows the wearer to fly in atmosphere or in space, and can achieve incredible speeds, moving from planet to planet in a matter of hours.
• Invisibility: The ring can make the wearer or anything else invisible.
• Matter Manipulation: A Green Lantern can use their ring to manipulate nearby matter, such as water, for various purposes such as a construct that acts like an energy construct but can block something yellow and may serve a purpose that an energy construct couldn't perform.
• Mind Control: The wearer of the Ring can use it to plant post hypnotic commands or control a person.
• Mirages: The Ring can create mirages/illusions.
• Phasing: The ring allows the user to go through walls.
• Power Absorbing: In the JLA's first fight with Amazo, it was GL who defeated him by drawing out all of Amazo's powers. In Green Lantern/ Silver Surfer: Unholy Alliances, Kyle defeated Parallax with SS' power and Thanos with Oa's energy by drawing out all that extra energy from them which made them unconscious. However he couldn't hold all that power nor could his Ring like Hal did with Amazo's powers, so that move isn't often used with so much power.
• Probing: The ring can probe the Lantern's or another person's mind, allowing him to uncover memories or the person's thoughts.
• Radiation: Besides light based radiation used to create the energy constructs associated with a Green Lantern, the ring can simulate various forms of radiation. One example of this is the ability to simulate the radiation of Green Kryptonite, a form of radiation that is harmful to Superman. However, this ability is no longer valid and has been retconned.
• Recharging: The rings need to be recharged by means of a Power Battery. Other large sources of power may be used to recharge a power ring, however effectiveness may vary. The internal power source of a Manhunter Android is, in effect, the same as a power battery, and can be used to recharge a power ring. During the JLA / Avengers crossover, a Cosmic Cubewas used to recharge a depleted ring, although this is not an ideal solution and is available if there are no other options.
• Ring Duplication: Each ring can duplicate itself, creating a second ring which may be given to another as a backup, for protection, or to help the lantern in times of great need. This duplicate ring is exactly like a normal ring.
• Temperature Control: The Ring can increase or decrease the temperature of anything, even something as large as stars, or even create bubbles of intense heat or cold, even down to Absolute Zero.
• Transforming: The ring can transform anyone or anything, be it into an animal, altering their state of appearance, or their size. Once Hal and Alan turned the two Flashes ( Barry and Jay) to light protons in order to free them from prisons.
• Electro-magnetic scanning: The ring can allow(through the use of x rays) the user to see through walls, without the people on the other side knowing. it can also scan along the Electromagnetic spectrum.
• Wormhole/Warps: The ring can open wormholes to cut down on distance.
• Time travel: The ring allows the wielder the ability to travel through time, though the process requires great willpower.
• Healing: A wielder can command a ring to heal him/her/itself of any injures incurred. It can also heal others.
• Energy twin: The ring can create an energy copy of the wielder which is connected to the ring wielder, any information the twin gathers is transferred to the wielder upon touch while others cannot see this twin apart from fellow Green Lanterns.
• Pocket dimension: Within the ring is a pocket dimension which can altered to the wielders specification. It can be used to contain opponents.
• Sub-routines: The power rings have inner programmings or mechanisms which can executed without the users permission. One such sub-routine is the autoshield. This shield automatically protects a wielder from external harm and has been proven to be capable of protecting the wielder from planetary level attacks.

Retconned

Radiation: Besides light based radiation used to create the energy constructs associated with a Green Lantern, the ring can simulate various forms of radiation. One example of this is the ability to simulate the radiation of Green Kryptonite, a form of radiation that is harmful to Superman. However, this ability is no longer valid and has been retconned.

Time travel: The ring allows the wielder the ability to travel through time, though the process requires great willpower.

Weaknesses

Mental Incapacitation: The ring cannot be wielded correctly if the wearer is under the influence of drugs or if there is an involvement of neural interference.

Yellow Impurity: In the beginning the Green Ring was vulnerable to the color yellow. It was unable to defend against attacks from wielders of the Sinestro Corps as well. This weakness however has now be changed and can be overcome by veterans who have the ability to overcome great fear. Hal Jordan was of the first of the Green Lanterns to show that this weakness could be overcome.

Recharge: Previously had to be recharged every 24 hours or when it has been depleted of energy. This can be accomplished if the bearer of the ring recites an oath into his power lantern while holding the ring to it. However now, the power ring only needs to be recharged when it runs out of energy. Sinestro stated to Hal that it was possible for a Green Lantern to store his.her battery in a pocket Universe and take it with them wherever they went but so far Hal has not displayed the ability to do this.

Red Lantern Corps. Bearers of the red ring have the ability to drain a Green Power Ring of its energy. The ring of a Blue Lantern however has the ability to charge a Green Lantern Ring or negate this negative effect. Blue Lanterns rings also have the ability to purge the negative effects that a Red Lanterns Ring can cause upon the wielder of a Green Lantern Ring.

(Previous Weaknesses)

Ability To Kill: One of the main weaknesses of the Power Rings that greatly disturbed Sinestro was the fact that the bearers of the Green Lantern Ring were unable to kill. Recently however, this restriction on the rings has been lifted but murder is still against the law of the GL Corps. This restriction was lifted by the Guardians of the Universe during the War of the Green Lanterns.

Mogo can also alter his weather and surface conditions such as plant growth, and travel through space at faster-than-light speeds. Mogo has a form of sensory or extrasensory awareness of what is happening around and on it. However, apparently his powers and even consciousness are partially dependent on a constant supply of the energy from a Green Lantern power battery. Mogo also telepathically guides the Green Lantern Power rings to their bearer.

Other Media

Mogo appears and plays a key role in the Batman: The Brave and The Bold episode "The Eyes of Despero." Despero takes control of Mogo as part of his plan. It is later freed by G'nort. Here, Mogo exhibits an increased control of his land mass similar to what he exhibits in Blackest Night.

Mogo appears in Green Lantern Emerald Knights which recounts his conflict with Bolphunga the Unrelenting.

Mogo appears in Green Lantern: The Animated Series where Hal and his team are looking for the owner of a power ring before an asteroid hits. Hal figures out that the planet is the possessor of the ring and drilling into the core of the planet drops the ring in, which Mogo then uses to destroy the asteroid, thanking Hal for giving him the power to protect himself and declaring himself there ally. Mogo also shows a habit of acting as a prison for criminals who crash on him.