A contingent of Green Lanterns consisting of Arisia Rrab, John Stewart, Kilowog, Two-Six and Xrill-Vrex find themselves stranded in a hostile sector of space which none of them nor their rings can identify. With the troubling complication that their rings can't locate the central power battery to help them to find their way and the fact that one of their most dangerous foes is along and seems not only friendly, but not to have any recollection of the Lantern Corps whatsoever. Their search for other members of the Corps leads them to a group of Lanterns who fell in battle against the locals. When Stewart's contingent of Lanterns is attacked once more they're saved by the timely appearance of Guy Gardner, who has even less a clue of what's going on than they.
Tropes
- Aesop Enforcer: While Hal's motivations for trapping the entire Lantern Corps in another dimension are not touched on in this series the oft alluded to Aesop and his actions mean that this story presents him as forcing the Lanterns to face a terrible truth at a very high price about the consequences of their mode of operation.
- Air-Vent Passageway: B'dg crawls through the light pirate's prison's ventilation system to locate the Lanterns' stolen rings and destroy the electronics needed to keep the force field doors up.
- Big Damn Heroes: When Stewart's group is about to be attacked by "cleaners" right after finding the bodies of three other Lanterns Guy crushes the local defense mechanisms as they surround the others having followed his ring to their location.
- Cardboard Prison: The light pirate's prison isn't meant to hold prisoners long term, since they're killing them all to try and pull what little emotional power they can from them, it's still rather foolish to imprison people behind force fields when your universe is running low on power, and even more foolish to imprison little guys like B'dg in a cell where small panels are easily removed so that he can climb through the walls and ventilation systems.
- Central Theme: Responsible non-wasteful use of resources, through cooperation and communication rather than allowing petty squabbles to exacerbate problems.
- Crystal Prison: The local lightsmiths create crystalline forms rather than light constructs using their method of wielding the emotional spectrum. The red smiths kill several Lanterns by encasing them in red crystal, with John managing to break through his before he runs out of oxygen and power to his ring.
- Emotion Eater: The light pirates have become to desperate and greedy for the power of the emotional spectrum that they're draining their prisoners of what little of it they can, killing them, despite how wasteful and pointless it is to kill living beings (the only renewable source of the powers on the emotional spectrum) to using a complex device that takes a fair degree of power to run get a minuscule amount of power.
- Empathic Shapeshifter: Xrill-Vrex ability to key into the emotional states of those around her morphs her shape to resemble whomever she's currently keyed into.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Two-Six and Xrill-Vrex become close companions after being in the same small group that got stranded in the previous universe, getting thrown in the same cell after their rings were taken, and fighting their way to freedom together.
- Flashback Echo: Throughout the miniseries John has little flashbacks to his time in the army that echo his current predicament.
- Force-Field Door: The light pirates' prison cells are each kept closed with a force field. B'dg takes advantage of the logical problems with such a system by disabling every door at once with a tiny well placed explosive.
- Just Before the End: When the Lanterns run into Relic, and realize the reason he and Krona seem so different and benevolent is because they are at a point before either turned villainous John, Guy and Kilowog realize that the reason they don't recognize the sector of the universe they're in is because they're not in their universe; they've been flung to the time of the death of the universe that existed before the one they're from.
- Kidnapped by the Call: As Guy succinctly puts it, One second I'm on earth minding my own business, not wearing any damn magic rings, and the next I'm wearing two and I'm flung across the universe to god-knows where!
- "Lesson of the Day" Speech: Kilowog attempts to deliver a relatable Aesop while he and Guy easily fight the lightsmiths imprisoned in the same light pirate cell as they, but Guy pointedly cuts him off with another far less relatable one which applies much better to the situation they've found themselves in:Gardener: Look at these guys. They're mean, they're angry, but without their light they're pushovers!
Kilowog: There's a lesson to be learned there. Rely too much on the rings and you—
Gardener: You destroy the universe? - Mythology Gag: A bald humanoid extraterrestrial woman with the ability to take on elements of things around her who spends a lot of time orange like Xrill-Vrex has been seen in a DC Comic before, as the Ace Pilot of Wonder Woman's Space Pirate crew in Wonder Woman (1987).
- Plot Armor: Plenty of Lanterns die, but no earth Lanterns or other major Lanterns are in any real danger here.
- Power Incontinence: Xrill-Vrex's limited control over their empathy is usually something they can deal with by keying into a specific individual, but while captured by the Light Pirates with people being brutally killed and panic, fear, pain and confusion all around her she is almost completely overwhelmed even though she tamps her power down as much as possible.
- Running Gag: Since Guy is wearing a green ring and a red one Stewart starts calling him a Christmas Lantern, which the other Lanterns take up despite not being familiar with the holiday or that those colors are usually used in decorations for it.
- Temporal Paradox: John and the others realize that if they change anything at the time they've been sent back to their entire universe might never exist let alone each individual Green Lantern who has been sent there. Guy is still annoyed that they're not trying to help, even though he knows they need to be careful about messing with the timeline.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Guy is thoroughly pissed at the way John decides to deal with Krona's questions by lying that they're there to help, to the point that he very nearly attacks him.Who the hell are you?[...]Because the John Stewart I know wouldn't pull something like this! You didn't even give us a chance to weigh in! [...] Spare me the 'Burden of Leadership' speech, all right? You know what bugs me, that story about us being here to help Relic, it just rolled right off your tongue, like you were born to lie.[...]You know what's at stake for these people. Their universe is dying. Because guys like us used up all the light.
