DC Comics Rebirth Spoilers & Review: Green Lanterns #18 & Volthoom’s Origin w/ Multiversity, Superboy-Prime, Crime Syndicate, Justice Society’s Alan Scott?!

Spoilers, Top Story

DC Comics Rebirth Spoilers and Review for Green Lanterns #18.

Green Lanterns #18 takes a breather this issue to reveal the Multiversity / DC Multiverse origins of Volthoom the First Lantern.

It recounts speedily that the First Lantern couldn’t be stopped by the Seven Lantern Corps, but he was killed by Nekron instead at, I believe, the end of the Wrath of the First Lantern story-line pre-DC Rebirth.

He is now in the clutches of Nekron.

The preceding and following pages were released by DC Comics for free prior to the issue hitting stands and retells Volthoom’s Multiversity origins; it was a preview / teaser.

We learn that Volthoom was a young man on Earth 15, not the Crime Syndicate’s Earth 3.

His mother discovered the emotional spectrum and they used to create the Travel Lantern!

His mother encouraged Volthoom to use the Travel Lantern to escape the destruction of their world Earth 15 at the hands of a destroyer pulsar; presumably an exploding star.

However, I wonder if Earth 15 knows that it was really Superboy-Prime that actually destroyed Earth 15? It is the origin revealed in the Multiversity Guidebook.

As you may know, DC Comics Rebirth rebooted Earth 0 a.k.a. Prime Earth, but did not change the other 51 Earths in DC Comics’ 52 Earth multiverse; as such the revelations of the Multiversity mini-series remain unchanged as do the reveals from the companion Multiverity Guidebook.

Anyhow, that’s it for DC’s free teases. Onto the meat of the issue!

After the destruction of his home Earth 15, Volthoom spent much time mastering how to use the Travel Lantern to traverse the multiverse and time using the emotional spectrum. It is almost a similar traveling fashion to how the hero Waverider rides the waves of possible timelines to get from point A to point B in time.

He mastered the emotional spectrum and traveled to several different multiverse Earths including Earth 17, Earth 47 and even Earth 3; that last one is the home of the Crime Syndicate, where the wizard Mordru fused a piece of Volthoom’s soul into a power ring for the Crime Syndicate’s Green Lantern analogue Power Ring!

You may remember those three Earths from the Multiversity Guidebook.

Volthoom finally lands in the Earth 0, a.k.a. Prime Earth’s universe, on Malthus. The beings there welcome him and purge their emotions which leads to…

…the creation of the First Lantern Ring! They also have an oath that enabled that purge and subsequent ring creation.

The foreboding denizens of Malthus create an artifact of power that they call the Great Heart. Interestingly, the green artifact that pre-Rebirth Green Lantern Alan Scott of Earth 0’s Justice Society used to power his own green power ring was called the Starheart. Coincidence?

Anyhow, Volthoom just had to have the ring and snatched it from them. He still worked with them to be a force of…

…order in the universe (this is an origin from Volthoom’s perspective mind you).

Some time passes and while the details are sketchy, he feels that he was betrayed by Rami, the rogue Guardian; Rami did destroy the Time Lantern somehow.

The Guardians of the Universe created the Green Lantern rings and corps to stop Volthoom. And he was imprisoned for 10 billion years.

Then he escaped, returned and was defeated in the Wrath of the First Lantern story-line I believe.

Volthoom now wants to die, but Nekron tells him that as long as there is an emotional spectrum, Volthoom can’t die.

Fast forward to recent issues of DC Rebirth’s Green Lanterns. Volthoom spies Rami running from the Dominators with his new Phantom Ring.

He follows Rami to Earth to get his revenge.

So, now we’re caught up the present; Volthoom has trapped Rami’s essence in an orb and has taken over Rami’s body and is guiding Green Lanterns Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz to an unknown outcome.

So…

A really compelling story with solid art, suspense, action, and continuity Easter eggs. 9 out of 10.

John is a long-time pop culture fan, comics historian, and blogger. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief at Comics Nexus. Prior to being EIC he has produced several column series including DEMYTHIFY, NEAR MINT MEMORIES and the ONE FAN'S TRIALS at the Nexus plus a stint at Bleeding Cool producing the COMICS REALISM column. As BabosScribe, John is active on his twitter account, his facebook page, his instagram feed and welcomes any and all feedback. Bring it on!