Ophidian Shares the Orange Light and Loses a Sun

In Green Lantern Corps No. 16, on sale May 13, 2026, the greed entity Ophidian skipped Larfleeze and bonded with Effigy, who then detonated Oa’s sun.

Writer Morgan Hampton, with art by Will Conrad and Juan José Ryp and colors by Matt Herms, priced the issue at $3.99 and rated it Teen. The orange light had one living owner. Its own being asked that owner to share.

Ophidian Chooses a Host Who Will Spread Greed

Manhunters rebuilt in the hijacked body of the android Lantern Aya are trying to harvest every emotional entity and run the galaxy on that fuel. Guy Gardner, carrying the Allsight he won in earlier issues, sees that the machines already hold the Butcher and the Predator. He also sees Ophidian reaching for Effigy, who is already inside Oa’s sun.

The Corps answers by putting living lanterns on the loose entities. Soranik Natu takes Parallax. Yrra Cynril takes Proselyte. Larfleeze, Agent Orange, is standing right there and has treated Ophidian as property for as long as the orange battery has had a thief to hold it. The snake does not pick him.

Reviews of the issue describe Ophidian telling Effigy that Larfleeze has worn the emotion down, hoarding it until the light cannot grow, and that this fight needs someone who will spread selfishness instead of sitting on it. Effigy, still the Controllers’ fire-built knockoff of a ring-wielder, lets the entity in before the Manhunters can seize it.

WHO BONDED WITH WHICH ENTITY

• Effigy: Ophidian, the living form of greed, takes him as host inside Oa’s sun.
• Soranik Natu: Parallax, the fear being, rides with her as the Corps moves on the star.
• Yrra Cynril: Proselyte, the compassion being, is already in her care as a child she is carrying.
• The Manhunters: They already hold the Butcher and the Predator, and they want the rest.

The story inside the issue is titled “Lux Aeterna,” Latin for eternal light, and it ends with that light spent. Merged with Ophidian, Effigy cuts loose a blast that turns the star into a supernova and then a black hole. Jessica Cruz is the one who has to say it out loud.

The Fire Copy Built to Fight Green Lanterns

Effigy is Martyn Van Wyck, a Seattle man created by writer Ron Marz and artist Darryl Banks. He first appears as himself in Green Lantern vol. 3 No. 110 in March 1999 and takes the name in No. 113 in June 1999, a 27-year gap before Hampton puts an orange entity in him. The Controllers snatched him as a Controllers’ failed Darkstars replacement, a superhuman meant to outflank the Green Lantern Corps. They sent him home thinking the work had failed. His eyes went from blue to orange, then the fire arrived.

Van Wyck wanted a music career and could not even land the small jobs. Once the flames answered him, he made constructs the way a ring does, only in fire, and he burned a path through Hollywood until Kyle Rayner noticed. His girlfriend Trace named the shapes in the fire burning effigies, and he stole the word for a new self. He left her. He left Seattle. He picked fights because he could.

The Controllers came back, stripped his will down to a drone, and threw him at Rayner again. Rayner beat him and left him drifting, figuring the powers would keep him alive in vacuum. He drifted back. He joined the Injustice League and Libra’s Secret Society. In Final Crisis: Revelations No. 1, dated October 2008, the Spectre killed him. Green Lantern Corps No. 11, dated February 2026, says he lived through that killing, trapped in the lantern the Spectre made of him, until the lantern vanished and he crawled out.

EFFIGY’S PATH TO THE ORANGE LIGHT

1. March 1999: Appears as Martyn Van Wyck in Green Lantern vol. 3 No. 110 after the Controllers experiment on him.
2. June 1999: Takes the name Effigy in vol. 3 No. 113 and fights Kyle Rayner in Hollywood.
3. October 2008: The Spectre kills him in Final Crisis: Revelations No. 1.
4. February 2026: Green Lantern Corps No. 11 returns him to the board, citing that lantern prison.
5. May 13, 2026: Ophidian possesses him in Oa’s sun in Green Lantern Corps No. 16.

He is not a lantern recruit. He is a fire analog of the same tool, built by the Guardians’ old rivals, and Hampton parks him in the star that lights the Corps’ homeworld. That is the body Ophidian wants when sharing greed suddenly sounds useful.

Why the Orange Light Refused Larfleeze

Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver introduced Larfleeze, with a cameo in Green Lantern vol. 4 No. 25 in January 2008, as the joke that ate a Corps. Greed does not staff a roster. It keeps the battery, kills the rest, and runs an army of constructs made from the people it already took. Other Corps grow through recruitment. Orange grows by subtraction.

That conceit made him the sole living Orange Lantern for years, a one-person army whose entire myth is that he will not share. Hampton lets the entity of that myth complain about the man who has been feeding it. Comic Watch’s read of the issue notes Ophidian needling Larfleeze for doing selfishness wrong. GeekDad’s read calls it a fight between Larfleeze and the being he treated as a birthright. The snake’s complaint is the same in every account: hoarding starved the light.

So the orange entity does the one thing Agent Orange cannot stand. It lends itself out. The loan goes to a Kyle-era villain who has never held a ring, standing in a sun, with Manhunters minutes away. Larfleeze is in the same story and still loses the argument.

Into the Black Hole Past the Event Horizon

Effigy’s first act with Ophidian is not a recruitment speech. He blows up the star to keep the Manhunters off the entity, and the blast takes Soranik and Yrra with it into the hole that follows. Guy still feels Ophidian, so he walks toward the event horizon. Ellie Stewart, Jo Mullein, John Stewart, Larfleeze, and Razer go with him. They get stretched. The issue’s own pull line belongs to Cruz.

Our Sun… it’s gone.

Jessica Cruz, Green Lantern Corps No. 16

Twenty-eight days later, before Oa and New Thanagar freeze, Green Lantern Corps No. 17, on sale June 10, 2026, for $3.99, sends the Corps past that horizon to save Ophidian and reverse the damage. The solicits frame Effigy’s sudden rise as an Orange Lantern as a rescue job, not a new roster slot. Two worlds face ice ages if the hole is left alone. The shared orange light has already cost the Corps its sun.

Guy gets the others out. Later issues put Manhunters back on a run at Oa, which only happens if the Corps is no longer stuck in the hole. The orange experiment does not come with them as a second Agent Orange on the masthead.

Larfleeze Reclaims Ophidian as an Alpha Guardian

Green Lantern Corps No. 19, on sale August 12, 2026, 91 days after the supernova issue, reseats the entities in living hosts Hampton calls Alpha Guardians. Razer holds the Butcher for red. Soranik holds Parallax for yellow. Larfleeze holds Ophidian for orange. The thief who would not share is once again the official cage for greed, now with a title the rest of the Corps can point to.

The same issue spreads a chrome sheen across the united Corps, a borrowed taste of every color that is still weaker than a true White Lantern. That is a different power-up. For orange, the news is smaller and sharper: the entity that demanded a host who would spread selfishness is back with the man who built a Corps out of not spreading anything.

Green Lantern Corps No. 20, on sale September 9, 2026, then gives the cast downtime, with Hampton calling the next two issues a prologue to a Green Lantern crossover. Effigy is not the face of that next chapter. The public memory of orange does not move either. Talk about the Corps in September 2026 still names Larfleeze as the only Orange Lantern, with Lex Luthor’s old loaner ring as the one footnote people remember.

Hal, Lex, and the Deputies Who Never Lasted

Orange has always made room for guests and then slammed the door. During Blackest Night, a ring copied itself onto Lex Luthor for 24 hours, a pairing so clean it felt like the Corps had found a second member, until the ring faded. Hal Jordan held the orange battery long enough for Ophidian to talk to him and for the light to show what it does to a will that is used to green. In Brightest Day, Hector Hammond swallowed the battery and wore the snake until that plot burned out.

Effigy is the latest name on that list, not the start of a staffed Orange Corps. Hampton gave greed a host who would spend it, and the spend was a star. Then the office reverted to the person the emotion was designed around.

LIVING HOSTS OF THE ORANGE LIGHT

By August 12, 2026, the Alpha Guardian of greed was Larfleeze again, and the Corps was already climbing toward the next war with machines that still want every entity on a leash.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is the Orange Lantern Oath?

Agent Orange charges the light by reciting, “What’s mine is mine and mine and mine, and mine, and mine, and mine! Not yours!” It is the only Corps oath written as a refusal, which is the rule Ophidian broke when it left Larfleeze for Effigy.

How Did the Spectre Kill Effigy?

In Final Crisis: Revelations No. 1, dated October 2008, the Spectre melted Martyn Van Wyck into sentient oil and sealed him in a lantern shaped like a Green Lantern power battery, where he burned. Green Lantern Corps later says he survived inside that lantern until it disappeared and he escaped.

Who Hosted Ophidian Before Effigy Besides Larfleeze?

During Brightest Day, Hector Hammond swallowed Larfleeze’s orange power battery whole. Ophidian possessed him the way Parallax once rode Hal Jordan, and the snake used that body to go after the thief who had kept it caged.

What Were the Controllers Trying to Replace With Effigy?

The Controllers were building living agents to succeed the Darkstars and to match the Green Lantern Corps. Effigy was one experiment in that program, a fire copy of ring constructs rather than a member of any Lantern Corps, which is why Ophidian could wear him without handing him a ring first.