Abin Sur is a fictional character and a superhero from the DC Comics universe. He first appeared in Showcase #22 (September–October 1959): "SOS Green Lantern". He was a member of the Green Lantern Corps and is best known as the predecessor of Green Lantern Hal Jordan, whom Abin Sur's power ring chose as his replacement. In the Post-Infinite Crisis continuity, he was revealed to be a brother-in-law of Sinestro and uncle of his daughter, Soranik Natu. He was modeled after Yul Brynner.

Biography

Originally a history professor on the planet Ungara, Abin Sur is appointed Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814 in the mid-1860s. As a child, he became best friends with Ruch Ehr and later, by association, Munni Jah. The two of them were a couple and Abin secretly loved Munni, but never spoke openly of this.

Recruited by the Green Lantern known as Starkaor, he is known to have come to Earth on several occasions. In the American Old West, he teams up with an ancestor of Hal Jordan's to battle an alien named Traitor (who was responsible for the death of Starkaor). Abin would then wield Starkaor's ring after his mentor's death. In 1873, while severely wounded, he recruits the lawman Daniel Young to be a temporary Green Lantern. During World War II, he encounters Starman and Bulletman when the three battle an alien being under the control of Mr. Mind. On a later visit, his ring's power is neutralized by the foe he is tracking. He discovers the unconscious forms of Alan Scott and Jay Garrick, and borrows Scott's slightly different ring. He uses it against his adversary, taking advantage of the ring's effectiveness against the color yellow. He also visits Earth at some point between the Golden and Silver Ages, when he encounters the Martian Manhunter. At one point, Abin Sur imprisons the evil wizard Myrhydden inside his own ring, depriving him of the voice needed to cast his spells. Later, he is sent to retrieve Earth's most infamous gangster, Al Magone, whose evil had brought him to the notice of the Guardians. Abin Sur imprisoned Magone on a prison planet where time did not pass, an action that would have ripples throughout the Corps for decades to come.


Crash and death
While on patrol, he is attacked and pursued by the being known as Legion while on its way to Oa. Pre-Crisis his ship was hit by yellow sun radiation. Badly injured and with his spaceship seriously damaged, he makes an emergency landing on the nearest habitable planet (Earth). Due to his injuries, Sur was aware that his death was inevitable and he uses his ring to search for a successor, a man without fear. The first possibility was Clark Kent. Since he was not native to Earth, he is not chosen. The next candidates were Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner. As Jordan was closer, the ring chose him as the most suitable replacement right before Sur's death, and brings him to Sur, who gives him the ring. Pre-Crisis Hal first tested his ring by lifting a mountain, then hid the ship and Sur's remains under it, as Sur had told him to dispose of them. Later it is shown these were the Sierre Madre mountains. Hal had made sure to bury Sur in nearly inaccessible area and leave a small stone marker.

For a brief time during Zero Hour, he was pulled into the present, where he assists the Darkstars in their battle against Entropy. A Darkstar from Abin's own time, one he is familiar with, supports them all. Both are unexpectedly returned to their own era at the end of the battle.

In the afterlife Sur is able to help Jordan again when Jordan enters the realm of the death lord, Nekron. Jordan is attempting to stop Nekron from entering the living universe and destroying it. Jordan manages to incite the spirits of the deceased members of the Corps to destroy the god long enough for the Guardians to drive Krona and his forces back and seal the portal. Before the sealing was complete, Sur helps his successor exit the realm while saying how proud he was of Jordan. Abin Sur later sacrifices his soul to assist the Swamp Thing in rescuing his infant daughter Tefé Holland from the demon Nergal in Hell.

Abin Sur's afterlife is further disrupted when unknown events send him back to Earth. He attempts to assist the Green Lantern Kyle Rayner in investigating the situation but is torn away against his will.

It is later revealed that part of his soul was still being tortured in Hell while his spirit was acting as a companion to Hal Jordan during his brief stint as the Spectre. Eventually, he frees his soul from Hell and assisted Hal Jordan on several spiritual adventures and metaphysical dilemmas. Eventually, Abin Sur engaged in the Karamm-Jeev Descent, an Ungaran form of reincarnation, and was reborn as Lagzia, daughter of Sur's old friends Ruch Ehr and Munni Jah.

During some point in his life, Abin sires a son, Amon Sur, who grew up to become leader of the Black Circle crime syndicate. Amon is angry at his deceased father for abandoning him for the Corps, and decides to take his anger out on all Green Lanterns. Amon is eventually stopped by Hal Jordan's successor, Kyle Rayner and a second-generation Guardian of the Universe called Lianna. Amon eventually has a confrontation with Hal Jordan himself, who had returned to his position as Green Lantern after being both resurrected and freed from the influence of Parallax. Hal defeats Amon, but Amon received a duplicate of Sinestro's ring from the Qwardians and vanishes. After Hal finally took Abin's body home and buried it, a mysterious yellow light appears in the sky after Hal left.


The Prophecy
During Sinestro Corps War, it is revealed that Abin discovered a prophecy concerning the Multiverse, The Powers of the Emotional Spectrum, and The Blackest Night prior to his death. Green Lantern: Secret Origin, reveals details of Abin's quest to learn more about The Blackest Night as he interrogated The Five Inversions on Ysmault, who had foreseen the prophecy. He learns that Earth is the birthplace of The Black: the antithesis of the emotional spectrum that the prophecy predicts will "one day consume all light and all life." He discovers that the prophecy foretells his own death, when his ring fails him in his time of greatest need. He subsequently journeys to Earth in an effort to learn more about The Blackest Night, so that he might stop the prophecy's fulfillment. During his quest, Abin Sur begins to lose his faith in his willpower and his ring, and begins to feel fear. His weakened willpower results in his ring creating correspondingly weaker constructs, allowing his prisoner, Atrocitus, to break free and attack him, and cause his ship to crash on Earth. Abin Sur is critically injured in the crash, leading him to instruct his ring to seek out a successor and the ring chose Hal Jordan. His discovery of the prophecy from The Five Inversions was noted in the Book of Oa. However, this was believed to be a lie from their enemies and one of the Guardians, later named Scar, burned the page which has Sur's prophecy years later. Only two Guardians, Ganthet and Sayd, as well as a Zamaron tribe, would take his discovery seriously.


"Blackest Night"

In the "Blackest Night" storyline, the finale of the prophecy becomes reality. A black power ring reaches Abin Sur's grave on Ungara and bids him to rise. A flashback to Sur's past reveals that he once had a sister named Arin, whom Sinestro was romancing before her death due to unknown circumstances. Indigo-1, leader of the Indigo Tribe also claimed to have met Abin before his death. Black Lantern Abin and Arin arrive on Korugar shortly after, ready to confront Sinestro and Hal Jordan. They are defeated by the combined efforts of Jordan, Sinestro, Indigo-1, and Carol Ferris, who join their lights together to destroy the black rings, rendering Abin and Arin's corpses inert. Before dying, Abin states that he recognizes Indigo-1. In Blackest Night #5, the Indigo Tribe oath is revealed, and includes a line which mentions a lantern and Abin Sur's name. Due to the Indigo Tribe oath being spoken in an unintelligible language, no further details are known.

During Krona's takeover of the Green Lantern Corps, Sinestro and other ring-wielders are briefly trapped in the Book of the Black and experience visions of their pre-ring pasts, with Sinestro encountering a pre-Tribe Indigo-1 locked in a prison and trying to find out where Abin Sur has imprisoned her, but Sinestro departs to focus on his own escape rather than try to rescue her, leaving her history a continued mystery. It is later revealed that Abin Sur had discovered the Indigo light on the planet Nok during a mission, which he along with Natromo forged it into a battery, with Abin Sur bringing Indigo-1 who was allegedly his worst enemy and responsible for the death of his daughter to the planet to become the first Indigo Tribe, all subsequent members of the Tribe being selected as the worst psychopaths of their worlds. Abin Sur did this as he foresaw the danger that the Guardians of the Universe would pose once the "Blackest Night" had passed, and sought to find a way to stop the Guardians by changing them due to the impossibility of killing them.

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