Krona (comics)
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Krona is a fictional character, an extraterrestrial villain in the DC Comics universe. He first appeared in Green Lantern v2 # 40 Oct 1965) and was created by John Broome & Gil Kane. Originally, he was a member of the ancient race of powerful, blue-skinned humanoid immortals from the planet Maltus (they would later relocate to Oa and style themselves the Guardians of the Universe).
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[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Beginning of the universe
Krona was a Maltusian scientist obsessed with observing the creation of the universe, despite a Maltusian legend that said discovering that secret would cause a great calamity. Krona created a machine that allowed him to see into the moment of creation. Somehow, his experiment disrupted the process of creation, with terrible consequences. The exact consequences have been rewritten over the years; originally, it was the unleashing of evil itself in the universe; later, it was assumed to be the creation of the evil anti-matter universe of Qward. During the Crisis on Infinite Earths, it was also revealed to be the cause of the existence of all parallel universes in the DC multiverse; several villains were sent back in time to stop him, but were defeated by Krona and the Oans. In a final revision, it was established that it increased entropy in the universe, shortening its existence by a billion years. Now, post Infinite Crisis, the backup feature in the weekly comic 52 has re-established that Krona's experiment created the anti-matter universe.
Whatever the exact effects, Krona's fate was the same: he was judged by his fellow Maltusians and sentenced to exist in an energy form, forever wandering the universe. The Maltusians, feeling guilty about not having stopped Krona, then argued how to deal with the results, eventually splitting into various groups (the Guardians of the Universe, Controllers, and Zamarons). However, Krona eventually escaped this fate and tried to start his experiment all over again, since the original machine had exploded before he could finish watching the universe being created. He was stopped by the Green Lanterns of Earth, Hal Jordan and Alan Scott, and banished into his energy form again.
[edit] Entropy
Eventually, however, Krona's energy form somehow reached the dimension where the souls of the dead in the DC universe await their passage into their final residences. This realm was ruled by a being called Nekron, Lord of the Unliving. Because of the paradox of an immortal now being in the Realm of the Dead, a rift opened between the dimensions, which allowed Nekron to see the universe of the living. Desiring it, but being too large to pass through the gap, Nekron instead recreated Krona as an undead being of enormous power. Given an army of similarly-restored spirits, Nekron sent Krona to kill the Guardians, so the rift would open more. Krona accepted because part of Nekron's plan involved collapsing the universe so as to recreate it according to his own desires, which would give Krona the chance to see a universe being born. Krona and his minions succeeded in killing some Guardians as well as several Green Lanterns while destroying the central power battery to preclude the Lanterns recharging their power rings. Although his subsequent attack was powerful enough to shatter the morale of the Corps, Jordan managed to inspire and rally his fellows to attack Krona with their remaining time of their rings' charge. He was defeated when Jordan entered the realm of the dead and incited the spirits of the recently-killed Lanterns to rebel against Nekron. This gave the Guardians enough time to banish Krona into the dead realm and close the rift while the spirit of Jordan's predecessor, Abin Sur, helped his successor escape the realm.
In later appearances, Krona resurfaced as an agent of entropy itself (whether this contradicts the story in the paragraph above or not isn't clear). One of his attacks caused the New Guardians to vanish.
[edit] JLA/Avengers
Krona was also the main villain in the DC/Marvel JLA/Avengers mini-series. In it, apparently still an entropy-being, he destroyed several dimensions while trying to discover the secret of universal creation. Arriving in the Marvel Universe, Krona agrees to a cosmic game with En Dwi Gast, the Grandmaster. Two teams, one from each universe would seek out items of power, including the Ultimate Nullifier, the Infinity Gems, and Kyle Rayner's Green Lantern Power Battery. When Gast's heroes, the JLA won, Krona attacked the Grandmaster, despite the best efforts of the JLA and the Avengers to stop him. He finally obtained his secret from the cosmic entity Galactus, whom he killed. Krona then continued his onslaught to destroy both the Marvel and DC universes in order to create a new one, so that he could watch creation first-hand. Even with Superman wielding Captain America's shield and Thor's Uru hammer Mjolnir, it was Hawkeye and the Flash who finally stopped Krona, imprisoning him into a "cosmic egg" from which a universe will be born in about a trillion years.
Since this story was part of a special publication by two separate comic book companies, it would not usually be considered canon, but this is a rare case in which it has become canon: The cosmic egg later reappeared in the pages of JLA.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Krona possessed vast energy manipulation powers that neared omnipotence. In the JLA/Avengers crossover event, Krona shows his energy wielding to a great extent capable of destroying the CSA universe and the Polemachus universe.
Like all other Guardians, he was functionally immortal and incredibly intelligent.
