Today we’ll be looking at Indigo-1,
the leader of the Indigo Tribe. Their Light is the Indigo Light of Compassion.
One of the biggest questions surrounding this character is, is she really a
hero? The nature of her Light really does make one question the actions of the
wielder, and if one can be forced into being a superhero. But enough of a
preamble, let’s get to it.
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| That staff is one of the most dangerous weapons in the universe. Simple, but effective. |
The leader of the Indigo Tribe was
once named Iroque. Not much is known about her history except that she was once
a very selfish, conceited person, and that she is somehow connected to the
death of Green Lantern Abin Sur’s daughter. Which makes it a little weird that
the two somehow became friends after that, but then she became a very different
person when she donned the Indigo Tribe Ring and Staff. I’ll go into greater
detail in a bit, but the short version is that the Indigo Light of the
Emotional Spectrum forces its host to feel compassion/empathy over all other
emotions. So someone who is a cold SOB before having the ring becomes the most
caring and sympathetic feeling person in the universe.
We’re first introduced to Indigo-1
and her tribe just before the start of the Blackest Night. She and her tribe
are walking across a desert somewhere in Sector 3544 when they see a Green Lantern and Sinestro Corps Warrior fighting in the distance. The two have an
intense battle for several minutes before breaking off. The GL was injured, and
the SC flew for cover. Indigo-1 and her tribe came upon the injured GL. He
warns the group to stay away from him, so as to not attract his attacker’s
attention. Which is pretty noble, when one considers he was bleeding out at the
time. Indigo-1 says something to the GL, but it is in an unknown language. The
GL tries to get his ring to translate what she said, but her dialect is not one
that the GL’s ring could translate. When you consider the fact that Green
Lantern rings are connected to the book of Oa, which has nearly every language
in the DC Universe catalogued within, you can probably understand why this
freaks him out a little. Indigo-1 kneels down beside the GL, places her hand on
his heart, and says “Will.” This somehow causes her to draw energy from the GL,
which Indigo-1 uses to create a simple hard-light construct, which she then
uses to smother the GL. He struggles for a bit before passing out and dying.
The Sinestro Corps member then comes out of hiding, and tries to blast her into
oblivion with Yellow Energy. Indigo-1 doesn’t flinch, her staff absorbs the
SC’s energy, her power ring then exclaims “Fear,” and creates a Yellow Light
construct of a horrible monster that causes her attacker to flee.
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| Like most Lantern Corps, it's a very diverse group. |
A short time later, the Blackest
Night occurred. Heroes and villains from across the DC Universe are given by
Black Lantern power rings, transforming them into the zombified Black Lantern
Corps. Sensing the impending doom, Indigo-1 and her immediate number 2, Munk,
travel to Earth to aid the heroes GL Hal Jordan, The Flash and The Atom, who
were being mobbed by Black Lanterns. Using Hal’s Green Energy as a battery,
Indigo-1 obliterates the Black Lanterns and then teleports the group away to
the Hall of Justice. While there, Indigo-1 explains a bit about what’s going
on. It’s the pretty standard “In the beginning there was darkness” story.
Darkness fought light, darkness shattered light, which then became the seven
lights of the Emotional Spectrum. Red for rage, Orange for greed, Yellow for
fear, Green for will, Blue for hope, Indigo for compassion, and Violet for
love. She then explains that only through combining the seven lights together
could they hope to defeat the Black Lanterns once and for all. So the plan is
to get one lantern from each group together and combine their lights to
hopefully create the White Light of creation, and destroy the Black Lanterns.
Easy-peasy. Hal goes with the Indigos, while the Flash and Atom stay back to
try to keep things sane on Earth. They quickly gather Carol Ferris of the Star
Sapphires, Sinestro of the Sinestro Corps, and Saint Walker of the Blue Lantern
Corps. The last two, Atrocitus of the Red Lantern Corps and Agent Orange aka
Larfleeze, are on Larfleeze’s world of Okaara, fighting each other. Atrocitus wanted the Orange Central Power
Battery to augment his own power. They’re distracted by a group of Black
Lanterns, and are then saved by Indigo-1 and the other Lanterns. The Seven
Lanterns, Munk had left a short time ago to reinforce Oa, travel to the planet
Ryut where the Black Lantern Central Power Battery was held. Unfortunately, the
Lantern had already been moved. Where you might ask? To Earth. Where else? They
follow the Lantern to Earth and “Let their powers combine,” as Kwame from Captain Planet used to say.
Unfortunately, their combined light proved insufficient to destroy the BL Power
Battery. Things took a turn for the even worst when the Black Lantern Leader,
Nekron, revives more heroes and villains into Black Lanterns, and is even shown
converting living people into Black Lanterns. Apparently those that “cheated”
death, i.e. just about any character in comics that has died once and been
brought back, are susceptible to Nekron’s rings. Wow, they’re screwed. They’re
able to hold things off long enough, somehow, for “the Entity” to appear on
Earth. The Entity being the physical embodiment of life itself. Hal fuses with
the Entity, revives several Black Lanterns, transforming them into White
Lanterns, and then uses their power to revive the villain Black Hand, who was
Nekron’s candidate “tether” to the living world. Without Black Hand, Nekron is
defeated and the Black Lanterns ultimately destroyed. After that, Saint Walker
is the first to note that Indigo-1 and the rest of her tribe are gone. We then
see a long line of Indigo Tribe Members traveling across the universe, with a
shackled and chained Black Hand at the tail end. And thus another member is
added to Indigo-1’s tribe.
Indigo-1 and the rest of her tribe
draw their power from the Indigo Light of Compassion. They have a Power Ring,
but instead of having a Lantern, they have a staff that recharges their ring.
Indigo-1’s ring gives her the standard Lantern Powers; flight, shield
projection, language translation, and the creation of Hard-Light constructs.
Indigo-1 and her tribe also have their nifty staves, which can absorb energy
from other Lantern Corps and redirect it for the Tribesmen to use. They can
also teleport vast distances, and heal others, provided they are compassionate.
The trade up is that those they heal are forced to feel the pain they’ve inflicted
on others. So there’s some pluses and minuses to their powers.
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| Don't mess with her, it get's messy. |
Let’s talk about the biggest minus
of the Indigo Tribe. As part of their bonding ritual, the perspective Indigo Tribe
member is forced to feel nothing but compassion. The ring blocks out all other
emotions, transforming its host into a being of compassion. Because of this,
perspective members need to be as amoral and selfish as possible. Why? Because
if they are even the least bit compassionate beforehand, they’re unable to “shut-out”
the other emotions. Which makes using the staff, the Indigo Tribe’s primary
weapon, much more difficult. The staff, which lets them absorb other Lantern
Energy and repurpose it, works because the Indigo Tribesmen is immune to the
emotion they are absorbing. Without this immunity, they’d be overloaded by the
overwhelming emotion they’re trying to absorb, be it rage, love, or hope. So
yeah, not feeling anything else is kind of important.
Like the other Lantern Corps,
Indigo-1 and the rest of her tribe need to recharge their rings by placing
their ring in their staff and reciting an oath. Interestingly, their oath has
yet to be translated into English. It reads, “Tor lorek san, bor nakka mur, /
Natromo faan tornek wot ur. / Te Lantern lo Abin Sur, / Tann lek lek no—Formorrow
Sur.” Pretty intelligible, but we can assume that Abin Sur is rather important
to the Indigo Tribe.
Indigo-1 and her tribe haven’t had
an appearance in film or television. I assume that had Green Lantern: The Animated Series continued beyond the first
season we would have seen the introduction of the Indigo Tribe, and possibly an
adaptation of “The Blackest Night” story, but alas, it shall never be.
She was
a playable character in Lego Batman 3:
Beyond Gotham. She and the most iconic members of the other six Corps were
captured by the alien supercomputer Brainiac to shrink Earth and add it to his
collection. Through the course of the game, Batman and the Justice League overload
the machine, which transports Indigo-1 and the others back to their home worlds.
The player goes to the Indigo home world of Nok, controlling Martian Manhunter,
Cyborg and The Flash. To their surprise, Indigo-1 and her tribe are rioting and
destroying stuff. We learn that when Indigo-1 was transported back to Nok, the
Indigo Central Battery was damaged. Without the Indigo light, Indigo-1 and her
Tribe reverted to their previous, violent and selfish personalities. The
Battery is repaired by the end of the level, and Indigo-1 travels with the
others back to Earth to save the day. It’s an enjoyable level and game.
From what I’ve seen of Indigo-1 and
her tribe, she’s an interesting character. Her history, criminal and possible killer
turned superhero, is rather interesting. You don’t see too many characters that
are “forced” into being superheroes. Some heroes are forced into being
villains, but the inverse is rare. And, when one considers how her ring is
influencing her personality, it does make you wonder how heroic Indigo-1 really
is. Is she really heroic, given that she’s being ‘forced’ to feel different than
she really wants to. Something to think about, if nothing else. She’s the
compassionate nomad, the sort of purple sort of blue sort of hero, the leader
of the Indigo Tribe, Indigo-1. Next time, I’ll be looking at the bringer of
Blackest Night, William “Black” Hand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_Tribe#/media/File:Indigo01.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_Tribe#/media/File:IndigoTribe_01.JPG
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/greenlantern/images/4/4d/Indigo_1_leader.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20091128202623
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