Deep within the dead moon, the entity known as Dr. Bedlam chuckled in anticipation. He watched on his monitor as the Green Lantern Prime entered the uninhabited system. Like the others before him, this Green Lantern had followed the carefully laid clues in his search for answers, but he would find only death.

    With Sinestro’s aid, it had not taken long to find that the Green Lanterns’ greatest strength was also their greatest weakness: The Lanterns’ minds were trained to readily project their thoughts and imaginations through their power ring and give them substance.

    But what if it wasn’t their conscious thoughts that were channeled into existence? What if it was the depths of the unconscious that was keyed into? What if it was their deepest fears, their darkest despairs that were brought to life through a yellow energy matrix, a wavelength that the Lanterns had no defense against? What then?

    Dr. Bedlam called it his “Will Smasher” and it had already killed three Green Lanterns.

    But Dr. Bedlam’s greatest trophy was now almost in his grasp.

    He watched as the Green Lantern Prime touched down on the moon’s rocky, airless surface. Instantly, the “Will Smasher” locked into his clear mental emanations, so well-practiced in turning thought into reality, and tapped directly into Alan Scott’s Id.

    The ground Green Lantern Prime was walking on suddenly turned to molten yellow protoplasm and swallowed him like a great, hungry mouth.

    Dr. Bedlam laughed and clapped as he watched the Green Lantern Prime began his descent into a Hell.

    This is where the fun always began.

    Forced to reluctantly abandon the Argo, Zero Man, Traveler, Wonder Man and Alex Ryan now needed to find another way to Dressilus. Thanks to the Traveler’s diplomatic credentials and the discretionary financial account set up by the Noirmer, he was able to book passage for himself and his “diplomatic staff” on a starliner transporting Shi’Ar colonists to Dressilus to witness the signing of the peace treaty.

    Avoiding bounty hunters in the concourse, the party safely boarded the ship just before it took off. It would only take twelve hours to reach Dressilus, so the party’s plan was simple: Lock themselves in their stateroom until they arrived.

    Ten hours into the trip, there was a knock on their door. It was a ship’s steward. He said that the ship had received a message on the diplomatic frequency requesting to speak with Ig Ahna Ne To, who would be with the Traveler’s entourage.

    “Who’s ‘Ig Ahna Ne To’?” Wonder Man asked.

    “I am,” Zero Man said and opened the door.

    The giant, nightmarish form of Batman glowed a sickly yellow and again struck at the Green Lantern Prime with its long talons. Green Lantern Prime, undeterred as he continued to fly deeper into the moon’s rocky caverns, dodged out of the way. He formed an immense green hammer with his power ring and swung it at the Batman construct. The Batman form shattered like glass, but its razor sharp fragments flew toward the Lantern and impaled themselves like shuriken into the sphere of green energy that surrounded him.

    Alan Scott winced in pain and clenched his fist. The glow around him intensified and the shards detached. They reformed behind him as a large yellow duplicate of Kristallnacht, howling for his blood. Streams of sharp yellow glass flew towards Lantern. He raised his fist and a plume of green fire erupted from his ring like a blow torch, blasting straight into the center of “Kristallnacht” and welding its melted yellow glass into the cavern wall.

    Alan Scott continued his decent.

    “You are merely prolonging the inevitable!” Dr. Bedlam yelled, his voice reverberating though the caverns. “You are doomed! Doomed!”

    Despite his braggadocio, Alan Scott could hear the slight tinge of worry in Dr. Bedlam’s voice. Dr. Bedlam had made a fundamental miscalculation. He had assumed that the Green Lantern Prime shared the other Green Lanterns’ vulnerability to yellow.

    He didn’t.

    The yellow luminescence again began to build around Green Lantern Prime. Before him, yellow copies of the Furies rose to meet him. He gritted his teeth, formed a green battering ram and blasted right past them. A moment later, he shuddered from the effort. He may not have been vulnerable to the color yellow, but these constructs were still very powerful, and continually having to face them was taking a lot out of him. He had to find the mechanism that was generating them, and fast.

    Luckily, all he had to do was follow Dr. Bedlam’s gloating.

    Up ahead, he saw that the cavern ended in a metal wall.

    That looks promising, he thought.

    As he approached, the silver metal became covered with a yellow force field. Green Lantern Prime materialized a giant green boxing glove and pounded it into the force field. It was tough—very tough. He could feel another will generating it; he could guess whose. He battered at it again, but it was like punching cement.

    “Fool!” Dr. Bedlam thundered. “I am the Green Lantern slayer! I am one of the legions of Apokolips! You cannot defeat me! No one can defeat me!”

    “Archie did. Repeatedly. Without the armor.”

    Just as Scott had hoped, the yellow force field flickered for just a moment. It was enough. Scott struck at it with everything he had and the shield collapsed. He green boxing glove suddenly became a large can opener, and the metal wall was breached seconds later. Scott flew inside.

    Green Lantern Prime found himself inside a large chamber. In the center of the room was a large, complex machine. Above it was a scaffolding that supported a large control deck. Dr. Bedlam stood on the deck behind a railing and visibly seethed as he worked a series of controls.

    Alan Scott’s looked back down at the machine. In the center of the large, Byzantine device he could clearly see its obvious heart and power source: A small, yellow lantern.

    Alan Scott grimaced.

    “Do you really think I wouldn’t have contingency plans to deal with you?!” Dr. Bedlam yelled and pounded a button on his panel.

    The sound of thunder knocked the wind out of the Green Lantern Prime.

    Boom Tube. Right behind him.

    The vortex was different, however, and much stronger. This dimensional gate was not an ordinary Boom Tube. The gravity was extraordinary and, in his weakened state, the Green Lantern Prime was pulled in. He fell past the threshold into a strange, weightless, near-void of strange colors and concealing mists. It looked familiar somehow… Had he seen this place before….?

    Floating far in the distance, Lantern saw a muscular man in a gray tunic. The man glared at Lantern, his arms crossed. Emblazoned on his chest was the lightening bolt symbol of the Nazi S.S.

    Oh, no.

    “You will be trapped forever, Lantern! Forever!” Dr. Bedlam’s voice echoed from the real world, and the modified Boom Tube began to swiftly close.

    Green Lantern Prime extended his arm and a beam of green light shot toward the opening, which was by now only a few inches in diameter. When the beam reached the hole, it became a bright green cork. The cork in place, the gateway stopped contracting, but the cork instantly started to vibrate, and terrific pain traveled up the Green Lantern’s arm.

    Despite the strain, Alan Scott tried to relax and concentrate. His power ring had once been charged with the energy signature of the Kryptonians’ Phantom Zone generator, but that had been a long time ago…. He had to remember….

    Scott looked over his shoulder.

    In the dark fog behind Jor-El, Scott could now make out three other figures.

    They were all coming closer.

    Scott’s arm was shaking and he supported it with his other hand. He clenched his eyes shut tightly, and a brilliant shimmer of white traveled up the green beam to the opening. The gate reopened in an explosion of light.

    Green Lantern Prime soared through it and was back in Dr. Bedlam’s lair.

    “Impossible!” Dr. Bedlam yelled.

    Green Lantern Prime swooped down toward the heart of the Will Smasher. Nothing elegant, nothing cute, Scott just blasted the yellow lantern to bits with a concentrated burst of green Source energy.

    The lantern exploded in a bright flash of yellow energy that ripped the Will Smasher to pieces. The yellow blast wave threw Alan Scott against the far wall.

    “My machine! My beautiful machine!” Dr. Bedlam screamed shrilly.

    Secondary explosions sent shockwaves through the rest of the chamber. The  control deck was wrenched loose from its moorings, catapulting Dr. Bedlam over the railing. As he fell, he was caught in the swirling undertow of the closing portal to the Phantom Zone.

    “Damn you, Green Lantern! Damn you!” he yelled, his voice becoming faint as he fell out of this universe. A moment later, the gateway closed completely and he was heard no more.

    Fire roared from the damaged machinery and the entire complex shook. Angry-looking electrical arcing played over the ruins of the Will Smasher and became more intense. Green Lantern Prime flew out the way he came in just as the lair exploded.

    Ascending through the collapsing caverns, the Green Lantern Prime raced just ahead of a gigantic, fiery shockwave. He erupted through the crust of the moon and rose into space as fire danced around him.

    When he reached a safe distance, Alan Scott stopped, turned around and watched the planetoid’s disintegration. He stroked his chin. Obviously, he had been right: The Corps had been infiltrated. Unfortunately, whatever information Dr. Bedlam might have had concerning the details of that was now gone.

    As the Green Lantern Prime considered what his next move should be, the last of the DeSaad-designed jamming devices within the moon were destroyed, and Scott’s power ring began to pulsate rhythmically, indicating that someone was desperately trying to contact him…