Soranik Natu had everything a young Korugarian woman could want. She was gorgeous, brilliant, and a respected surgeon in a top hospital within the capital city. Natu's life was one of dedication to her skill and to her patients; and that life was shattered forever when she was invited to join the Green Lantern Corps.

RELUCTANT SOLDIER

When first confronted by the Oan ring, Natu was in the midst of a brain surgery that was going badly. Her patient was crashing and was sure to die unless Natu did something no sane Korugarian would dare to do. She accepted the ring which had long been reviled as a symbol of the oppression of Sinestro, the homicidal former tyrant of Korugar. Natu quickly used the ring’s power to save her patient’s life. In doing so, one nurse remarked that she had saved her patient but had "damned herself".

Natu was taken to Oa for training where she immediately made it clear to Kilowog, Salakk, and the other senior Lanterns that she had no desire to join their ranks. Ordering the ring to take her home, Natu left Oa presumably never to return.

Before returning to Korugar, Natu felt compelled by her people’s reverence for the dead to visit the site where her ring's former bearer, Tarkus Whin, had died. Like Whin before her, Natu was ensnared by an artificial black hole created by the Spider’s Guild. There, amongst the bones of many of the guild's victims, Natu found the remains of her predecessor.

Recognizing danger all around her, Natu quickly swallowed her ring while ordering it to decrease her vitals to the point where she appeared dead. She reasoned that whatever killed Whin would have no use for a lifeless Lantern. At the same time, she ordered the ring to send out a distress signal to any nearby Lanterns.

Her gamble paid off when her distress signal was picked up by Kyle Rayner, Green Man, Guy Gardner, and Stel. Ignoring the Guardians edicts against traveling into the Vega system, Rayner and Gardner followed the distress call into Vega. There they infiltrated the guild and recovered the comatose Natu.

Still defiant, Natu briskly thanked her rescuers and reiterated her desire to rid herself of the Green Lantern Corps. Her principles were quickly challenged by Kyle Rayner who suggested that, if she truly wanted to honor her predecessor, she would take up his ring and fight as a member of the Corps.

Natu was swayed by Rayner's passion, as well as by Gardner's sarcastic challenge that she "didn't have what it takes". Using the ring she had once feared and despised, Natu created a funeral pyre for the fallen Lantern and a Lanterns uniform for herself. She would join the Corps.

THE CURSED RING

Natu would fight her way out of the Vega system with her new allies by her side. Along the way she frequently expressed fear that her ring was "cursed" further exhibiting her people’s deep seeded mistrust of the Corps.

What she did not know was that the "curse" Natu was referring to was the "Parallax anomaly" within the central power battery. The original source of the yellow weakness that plagued the early Lanterns, the Parallax anomaly would weaken a rings power when the wielder experienced fear. This fear anomaly would come back to haunt Natu, and would lead to the first real tragedy of her tour of duty as a Lantern.

Following the escape from Vega the Spider Guild retaliated and attacked Oa. Natu distinguished herself when she marshaled her fellow recruits to focus their power and push back the onslaught. Her actions had a profound effect on one fellow rookie, Myrtt, who would later become her sector partner of Space Sector 1417.

TRAGEDY ON BETRASUS

Natu and Myrtt eventually graduated to full Lanterns and were tasked with investigating a series of seemingly connected murders through Space Sector 1417.

Their investigations lead them to pinpoint prince Ragnar and prince Stentar of the Royal House of Betrasus as the next likely victims. Arriving just in time to find the two royals engaged in battle with gold plated drones, Natu's ring failed to shield Stentar from the lethal blast of a drones cannon. The prince was vaporized right in front of Natu, who, like a common rookie, failed to shield against the golden hue of the drone.

Natu’s failure was too much for her to endure as the prince’s horrible death reawakening her childhood fears of the "cursed" Lantern. Natu was certain that her ring was afflicted and abandoned her partner to fly to Oa and investigate her suspicions.

While she pursued this irrational fear, Myrtt fell victim to the machinations of the true orchestrator of these murders, prince Ragnar. Ragnar was obsessed with the Green Lantern Corps and hatched a plan to create a "vacancy" by killing all the worthy rivals in his sector before dispatching one of his sector’s Lanterns and taking their ring.

Back at the palace Myrtt was offered to toast the dead with Ragnar, who had poisoned the drink with a sophisticated poison that stimulated fear within the brain. With his defenses down, Myrtt was no match for the return of Ragnar's battle drones and fell in battle, fruitlessly calling for Natu’s backup.

Myrtt’s distress called reached Natu on Oa. Of all people, Guy Gardner advised her to let go of her personal defenses as they were fueling a fear of failure inherent in the intensely driven Natu. With new perspective, Natu pushed aside her fear and raced to Betrasus to answer her partner’s distress call. Although she was tragically too late to save Myrtt, the refocused Natu quickly uncovered Ragnar's plot and arrested him, knocking out his teeth in the process.

To her chagrin Ragnar was immediately freed due to his diplomatic immunity. He would not escape justice however, as his actions brought shame to the house of Betrasus. His father, King Nor, ordered Ragnar's public execution. Natu had a small measure of revenge when, moments before his head was to fall, Natu presented Ragnar's sister princess Iolande with the very ring Ragnar coveted so obsessively.

THE PRINCESS

Natu and her new partner immediately came to odds with one another. The fiercely prideful Natu had little patience for the polite yet haughty Iolande, while the princess struggled with Natu's lack of respect for her royal status. The relationship was further complicated when Iolande lashed out at Natu after the doctor failed to save the life of the gravely ill King Nor.

Although the two women have grown to respect one another, their distinctive personalities make for an explosive partnership that remains a work in progress.

SHOWDOWN WITH SINESTRO

Natu had returned many times to Korugar, but her newfound alliance had devastating results on her personal life. Because of her ties to the Corps, Natu was blackballed from her hospital and stripped of her license to practice medicine. She was even "evicted" from her apartment by the building residents who viewed her as a symbol of the oppression their people endured for so long. Shocking the mob, Natu set her own belongings on fire with a blast from her ring, declaring “Dr. Soranik Natu” dead, and leaving her old life behind.

Undeterred by the near planet-wide fear and hatred she now inspired, Natu took her skills to the slums of Korugar. There, she worked tirelessly to aid the many citizens that had fallen through the cracks of Korugar’s ineffective government. Her actions drew the ire of the military police, who were looking for a reason to “take down” the newest Green Lantern.

With a confrontation between Natu and the police seemingly inevitable, Sinestro picked the opportune time to return to Korugar. Natu attempted to arrest Sinestro and the two ring wielders immediately locked in battle. The far more experienced villain toyed with Natu, while espousing his philosophy of fear and control to his young replacement.

Sinestro easily overpowered Natu and tortured her in a yellow energy "electric chair" while explaining that it was his desire for her to appear as the "winner" of their battle. Korugarians were sheep that needed strong leadership, and Sinestro reasoned that Natu would hold down the fort until he was ready to return and reclaim his throne.

Natu plummeted to the surface as the seeming victor of her battle. She was greeted by the easily swayed masses, who proclaimed her a hero, and petitioned her to take over the leadership of the planet. Just as Sinestro predicted, Korugarians once again willingly gave their fate over to a Lantern's control.

Uncomfortable with both her newfound status and the exposure of the weak will of her people, Natu has distanced herself from Korugar and the madness that followed her "defeat" of Sinestro. She has spent more time on Oa devoting her surgical skills to creating prosthetics for those Lanterns that were injured in the Sinestro Corps War.

LETHAL FORCE

Natu continues to work closely with other Lantern’s particularly Iolande, Gardner, Rayner, and her training class peers, Isamot Kol and Vath Sarn. As a doctor, Natu has fiercely advocated against the excessive use of the Guardians new “lethal force” authorization, and has come into conflict with Kol, Sarn, and the more bloodthirsty Lanterns within the ranks over their respective interpretations of "justice".