Sinestro
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Sinestro is a fictional character, a supervillain within the DC Comics universe. He first appeared in Green Lantern Vol. 2 #7 (July-August 1961), created by John Broome & Gil Kane, and is considered both the Green Lantern Corps's greatest foe, and - as he was originally one of their own - their greatest failure.
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History
Beginnings
A native of the planet Korugar, Sinestro was initially considered to be one of the greatest Green Lanterns, but as the years passed, he became more and more fixated not simply on protecting the magenta-skinned Korugarians, but on preserving order in their society. Eventually he concluded that the best way to accomplish this was to conquer them, and to rule the planet as a dictator.
When Hal Jordan joined the Corps, Sinestro was assigned to be his instructor; during his absence, the Korugarians rebelled. When Jordan saw this, he reported Sinestro to the Guardians; consequently, Sinestro was arrested, and his Green Lantern Ring was given to Katma Tui, the leader of the rebellion. It should be noted that this is a retcon; Sinestro's first published appearance was as a criminal (this of course, was pre-Crisis).
Downfall
The Guardians put Sinestro on trial and, as punishment, banished him into the "anti-matter universe" of Qward (note that the DC Comics concept of antimatter does not coincide with that used by physicists).Image:Emerald dawn II.jpg However, in Qward, Sinestro found allies in the Weaponers, a group of warriors that wanted to invade our universe. To that end they created a yellow power ring for him to use. This gave him an advantage against Green Lanterns, since their power rings cannot affect anything yellow (ironically, the yellow ring drew its power directly from whatever green rings were used against it). Despite this, skilled Green Lanterns like Jordan always found ways to defeat him.
Before the Guardians left their universe, they constructed an inescapable prison for Sinestro and thousands of others on Oa. However, Sinestro's cunning prevailed once again and he managed to free himself through the mental manipulation of the Mad God of Sector 3600. Now weilding nearly unlimited power, Sinestro murdered entire star systems until he was finally subdued by the Green Lantern Corps of Earth. Now guilty of multiple acts of genocide, Sinestro was put on trial again by the assembled membership of the Green Lantern Corps. Finding him guilty, they condemned him to death and executed him, not realizing this activated a failsafe system within the Central Power Battery on Oa that caused it to be destroyed should ever a Korugarian male be killed by a Guardian or their agents, a measure taken by the Guardians after their mates, the Zamarons, left them to live with Korugarians. Ironically, Sinestro's death thus achieved what he had long sought; the destruction of the Corps. He had also managed to cheat death itself by transferring his consciousness into the Central Power Battery, where he made a startling discovery about the ancient Yellow Impurity within the Green Lantern's light...
Guy Gardner
Guy Gardner, forced to forfeit his Green Lantern ring after a grudge fight with Jordan, set out on a quest to regain his power and identity. With the help of Lobo, Gardner acquired the yellow power ring of Sinestro from Oa's Crypt of the Green Lantern Corps (Guy Gardner Reborn #1-3), and his own comic series began with him using that ring. The yellow ring did not use a battery to recharge but actually needed to be used against Green Lanterns to restore power. Gardner found this out by accident when a member of the GLC fought him while he had absolutely no power.
As the yellow ring of Sinestro spoke Sinestro's native language, Guy was entirely unable to communicate with the ring, although it seemed to understand him to a degree.
Guy only wore the yellow ring for a short while; the relaunched character was caught up in the new editorial direction for the Green Lantern franchise that led to the controversial Emerald Twilight storyline in Green Lantern (vol. 3) #48-50, and it was decided to take this new ring from Gardner and re-invent the character even more drastically.
Revenge
Eventually, however, the Corps was reestablished, only to be attacked by Jordan himself after he was driven mad by the destruction of his home city. Sinestro, apparently revived by the Guardians, was sent to stop him, only to be "killed" again in battle. Again, his death led to the destruction of the Corps, but this time at Jordan's hands. However, once again this turned out to be a charade. Sinestro was not killed. Hal Jordan destroyed not Sinestro but a construct created by Sinestro's newest ally, the fear elemental known as Parallax, which was the legendary Yellow Impurity within the Central Power Battery. Sinestro, discovering Parallax imprisoned in the Main Battery, collaborated with his fellow prisoner to mentally influence and manipulate Jordan into freeing them both. Their plan not only gave them their freedom, but ruined Jordan's reputation by branding him as both a traitor and a murderer.
Image:GreenLanternRebirth5.jpg
Rebirth
Sinestro eventually revealed the charade and battled the newly resurrected Hal Jordan, now freed from Parallax's influence, but failed to overcome him. In the course of the battle he was drawn into the anti-matter universe and is expected to strike again in the future.
Recently, Sinestro has appeared in the miniseries Villains United, taking on Lady Quark, and revealing that he has joined up with The Society. Some fans believe that after what he had done to Hal Jordan in Green Lantern: Rebirth, Sinestro would find the Society below him and refuse membership while others believe that Sinestro would never pass up an opportunity to make Jordan and his allies suffer, even if it meant joining forces with "lesser beings".
Effectively, after the restarting of the Green Lantern Corps, he apparenly decided to found his own Corps, offering yellow powers ring, and a role in the Sinestro's Corps, to the most feared and savage warriors of the universe. The size and scope of this new organization has yet to be revealed.
Other media
While his archnemesis Hal Jordan was visually based upon American actor Paul Newman, Sinestro was based upon British actor David Niven.
Sinestro has since been prominently featured in Challenge of the Super Friends (where he was part of the "Legion of Doom") voiced by Vic Perrin for the first three episodes and from then on by Don Messick.
In 1979, comedian Charlie Callas played Sinestro in the Legends of the Superheroes live action TV specials.
Sinestro has made several appearances in the DCAU, first in Superman: The Animated Series. His origins, while not explicitly developed, follow the same dramatic line of his comics origin: Sinestro was a Green Lantern whom the Guardians determined was unfit for the power of the job. His yellow ring is as-of-yet unexplained (since the animated Green Lanterns have no determinable weakness to yellow, the color of Sinestro's energy is essentially just a small tribute to the comics). In an ironic twist from the comics' Hal Jordan being a key player in the creation of Sinestro as a villain, this Sinestro is inadvertently responsible in the creation of the Lantern that beats him - Kyle Rayner, a conceptual artist for the Daily Planet. Sinestro is portrayed as an intense, Terminator-like assassin of Lanterns (he himself killed Abin Sur, Rayner's predecessor), with his ultimate goal to destroy the Guardians themselves. (Between this and the Manhunters, it looks like the Guardians maintain pretty poor relationships to prior workforces.) Since then, Sinestro has appeared on Justice League, as part of Gorilla Grodd's Secret Society, and on Static Shock. In these episodes, Sinestro's focus has been John Stewart, as opposed to Rayner. There is not a particular explanation for this (Grodd says that Sinestro "has sworn a blood oath against all Green Lanterns"), but the best explanation is that Sinestro is stuck on Earth for some unknown reason and he's lashing out at the closest Lantern he can find, which is Stewart (Rayner is patrolling a more remote sector, much like Stewart was doing before Justice League). He is also a member of the Legion of Doom on the 2005 season of Justice League Unlimited, featured as a powerful and competent member of a train heist in "The Great Brain Robbery", as well as saving the lives of several members of the Legion from Darkseid in "Alive!". In each appearance, he has been voiced by Ted Levine (note that Sinestro's loyalty for Lex Luthor during the LOD civil war is a plot device to allow the character live to save the surviving members. All the rest of the previous "Secret Society" remained loyal to Grodd, except for him and Giganta, who had a good reason to be against Grodd. At the following episode, Sinestro fought for Earth, althought he has no reason to save a world that isn't his own).
He has appeared in an episode of Duck Dodgers in a plan to kidnap all the Green Lanterns, but was stopped by Dodgers himself. He was voiced by John de Lancie.