| EMPIRE OF TEARS | BIOGRAPHY |
| Created by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill |
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PERSONAL DATA
Homeworld: Ysmault
Space Sector: 666
First Appearance: Green Lantern Corps Annual #2/4 (1986): "Tygers"
Creators: Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill
HISTORY
Eons ago, when magic held prominence in the universe, the Empire of Tears spanned three galaxies. The deathless demons were pure evil, unchallenged in their might until the elders of Oa decided science should prevail and sought to rid the starways of magic.
- Green Lantern Corps Annual #2, Green Lantern Vol. 2 #111
The Sorcerers of Jhes'lesh, the Yattering Tower of Phuul, the Shamans of Ushmiel all fell before the Oans. The last threat to be dealt with was the Empire of Tears. They too were driven back by the Oans. - Green Lantern Corps Quarterly #7
The last battle and most vicious battle was fought on the throneworld of Ysmault. There the demons tortured those Oans found weak of will with horrors unimagined. Only the strongest survived the ordeal.
As the smoke of battle cleared, the Oans emerged victorious. The demons were chained but not eradicated. Their planet was considered forbidden territory by the Oans. The minds of the demons remained entombed on Ysmault for all eternity. - Green Lantern Corps Annual #2, Green Lantern Corps Quarterly #7
Though they did not eradicate all magic, the Oans were largely successful in their designs and went on to become known as the Guardians of the Universe. They later founded the Green Lantern Corps to work in their stead. - Green Lantern Vol. 2 #40, 111-112
Billions of years later, a story told by the renegade Green Lantern Sinestro to MadGod Sector 3600, another imprisoned foe of the Guardians, dealt with the Empire of Tears' corruption of Green Lantern Abin Sur.
Sometime after receiving the power ring, Abin Sur broke the Guardians' quarrantine of Ysmault to rescue the survivors of a crashed Ungaran spaceship. The entombed demons offered assistance to Abin, enticing him to free them. One of the demons, Qull of the Five Inversions, promised to give the answers to any three questions, free of charge.
The first of Qull's answers gave Abin Sur the location of the sole survivor of the crash, a young Ungaran girl. Her ankle was broken but she was otherwise unharmed. Abin Sur returned to ask the second of his three questions.
The second question dealt with the fate of Abin Sur himself. According to Qull, Abin Sur would die when his power ring failed him at a critical instant. He went on to tell the Ungaran Green Lantern of his successor, who would be the greatest of the Green Lantern Corps, eclipsing the achievements of Abin Sur.
The third question concerned the final battle of the Green Lantern Corps.
After untold millennia, The Weaponers of Qward, Ranx the Sentient City, The Children of the White Lobe, and the Empire of Tears would rise united against the Green Lantern Corps.
Sodam Yat, a Daxamite hailed as the ultimate Green Lantern, would perish battling the lobe-spawn. The planet-form Green Lantern named Mogo would be the last to fall as Ranx the sentient city explodes a blink-bomb within his core.
Abin Sur scoffed at this notion, believing Qull's stories to be the product of a diseased mind bent on revenge. He left Ysmault with the young Ungaran girl, planning to forget all that the demon had spoken about. Beyond his hearing, the demons laughed for nineteen weeks. They had broken the Green Lantern. - Green Lantern Corps Annual #2
Away from the demons, Abin Sur thought hard on what Qull of the Five Inversions had said. Consulting his power ring, Abin Sur decided to travel by starship in order to conserve the ring's energy on longer missions. He first used a starship during his battle with the Larifars of Pendara. The Empire of Tears had sown the seeds of doubt in the Green Lantern's mind. - Green Lantern Corps Annual #2, additional material adapted from Green Lantern Vol. 2 #16
Years later, after a battle with Legion, Abin Sur was severely injured and his starcraft was damaged. The yellow radiation belt surrounding planet Earth blinded him, causing him to crash. Abin Sur thought back to the successor the demon had told him of. He realized they had destroyed him, had he relied solely on the power ring he might have tested the radiation belt before plunging through it with his starcraft. - Green Lantern Corps Annual #2
Abin Sur's successor, Hal Jordan of Earth would become a legend as Qull had prophesised. After many years of serving the Guardians of the Universe, Jordan would rebel and take the energy of the Central Power Battery as his own. - Showcase #22, Green Lantern Vol. 3 #50
The events following Jordan's transformation into Parallax included the destruction of the Green Lantern Corps. Sometime after losing his power ring, the planetform Green Lantern Mogo was terraformed by an alien race brought by the last Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner. - Green Lantern Vol. 3 #50, Green Lantern Vol. 3 #87
How this effects the predictions of Qull or if this too was forseen by the demon remains a mystery.
CHRONOLOGY
For a definitive list of appearances of Empire of Tears in chronological order click here