Before the Green Lantern Corps protected the galaxy as intergalactic peacekeepers, There were the Manhunters. Created by the immortal Guardians of The Universe. took a different approach to protecting and maintaining order within the galaxy, and one may have just stumbled into HBO’s Lanterns.
No Man Escapes The Manhunters
First introduced in 1st Issue Special #5 by Jack Kirby, the Manhunters were a race of androids created by the Guardians of The Universe as their first attempt at an intergalactic peacekeeping force that quickly went awry. It starts on the planet Maltus, the homeworld of some of the first intelligent life forms in the universe that would come to be known as the very same guardians. One of the Maltusians, Krona, would pierce the fabric of time and view the beginning of the universe. This would cause the universe to shatter into what would become the multiverse, also introducing evil into the universe with the anti-matter universe, which would bring with it The Monitor and the Anti-Monitor.
Krona would be the one to cause a malfunction in their coding that lead to their corruption. This manipulation would cause them to believe emotion was the root of evil which they conflated with organic life. The Manhunters would eventually seek total control of the galaxy through merciless conquest and turn on the Guardians of the Universe, later becoming foes of the Lanterns themselves.
What Was the Massacre of Sector 666?
Krona’s reprogramming would lead to the massacre of Space Sector 666, a ruthless genocide that saw nearly every organic life form in the sector slaughtered. The only survivors would come to be known as the Five Inversions made up of Qull, Roixeaume, Dal-Xauix, Ophram, and Atrocitus. The Inversions would raised an army known as the Empire of Tears on the planet Ysmault, dedicated to the goal of destroying the Guardians of The Universe.
How Are the Manhunters Introduced in ‘Lanterns’ Episode 2?
Stuck on a errand retrieving the lantern for Hal in Coast City, John Stewart is kidnapped by a mercenary group led by an individual named Antaan. He questions John’s knowledge of Manhunters, a lesson Jordan has yet to touch on for him. Antaan tells John that manhunter may already know of its exposure and could be planning to go on the offesive, dubbing it one of the “most dangerous beings to exist.”
Antaan shares that the galaxy was once in a great period of chaos, one that felt a quick and brutal response from the Manhunters, a mysterious synthetic race that seemingly came out of nowhere. He boasts of their ability to build new bodies and assimilate into any society, making it easier to execute their sick idea of “justice.”
Why Is Everyone Terrified of the Manhunters?
To help John understand the severity of what he’s telling him, he insists on “stamping” him, seemingly projecting these memories of the slaughter caused by the androids directly into his head. From this we can obviously presume Krona’s corruption of the Manhunters did happen in the DCU, causing them to become harbingers of justice known throughout the galaxy.
Hal Jordan theorizes that the Manhunter was brought to earth by Abin Sur, claiming the android may have been the cause of the Lanterns’ death. This feels like a good point for the series to start giving us our red herrings, all great, sprawling mysteries have them and while Manhunters do seem like a likely threat, there certainly feels to be more to this story and like there’s other forces meddling from the shadows.
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