Green Lantern Corps (Earth Lanterns, Hal Jordan) | The Sinestro Corps (Thaal Sinestro) | The Red Lantern Corps (Atrocitus) | The Blue Lantern Corps | The Star Sapphire Corps | The Orange Lantern Corps | The Indigo Tribe | The Black, White, Ultraviolet and Gold Lantern Corps | Other Villains (Cyborg-Superman, General Zod, Mongul, Superboy-Prime) | Supporting Characters | Golden Age
Little is known of the Indigo Tribe, as they are a reclusive group of monks with their own language known to only to themselves (and untranslatable by the Green Lanterns). The Indigo Light stands for compassion, defined as the ability to empathize with others while retaining distance and understanding the motivations of others. As such, they are able to access and redirect the powers of other lanterns when they are present, they possess the powers of flight, teleportation (though this consumes a lot of their energy), and flight auras. They are also able to force compassion on those who have none, including, it turns out, themselves. Every permanent member of the Tribe is a Brainwashed former sociopath.
It turns out that Abin Sur created the tribe alongside a native of the Indigo Light's "homeworld", starting with Indigo-1, his daughter's murderer. He created them as a potential defense against a major potential threat to the universe: The Guardians of the Universe.
- Bottomless Magazines: Unique amongst the corps is the Indigo Lanterns actually carrying their lanterns with them (located in their staffs) in addition to their rings. While most other lantern groups need to keep their lanterns to the side and recharge their rings when they can, the Indigo tribe integrates their power sources with their regalia. When members of all tribes are sent to locate missing power rings it was only Munk who could continuously keep himself at full strength whilst everyone else was growing weak.
- Catchphrase: "Nok."Translation
- Empathic Weapon: The original inhabitants of the Tribe's homeworld harnessed the Indigo energy to create weapons until they discovered their weapons actually felt bad about killing.
- Fictionary: Their Oath cannot be translated by other power rings, but it is clear that it follows the same rhythm as the other oaths.
- Good Is Not Soft: Their first appearance involves a Shoot the Dog moment with an injured Green Lantern Corps member.
- Heel–Face Brainwashing: All of them. The rings force compassion onto them. Given the kind of people they were before, this is not a hypocritical position.
- Lack of Empathy: Without the Indigo Light.
- Name Amnesia: All members of the Indigo Tribe forget their names, which is largely because they've been brainwashed into a zen-like trance and lose individuality for the sake of "Compassion".
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Several members have distinctly unpleasant sounding names, which given their previous lives isn't surprising.
- Noble Savage: The members of the Indigo Tribe give up their possessions and names to the service of compassion, and dress as primitive aboriginal tribespeople.
- No Need for Names: With a few exceptions for convenience.
- Power Copying: The Indigo Light can mimic any other color in the spectrum.
- The Sociopath: Left to their own devices the rings will seek out people who are legitimately compassionate (as seen during the Blackest Night when Ray Palmer was temporarily deputized), but they are intentionally guided to these kinds of people by the Indigo Tribe; without the rings, every single one of them is an unrepentant sociopath, and generally a murderer of some variety.
- Teleportation with Drawbacks: Cast from Stamina. It's a power that is unique to the Indigo Corps is the ability to transport themselves and a number of other people instantly across interstellar distances.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: They're willing to brainwash and force compassion on people.
Notable Indigo Tribe Members
The leader of the Indigo Tribe, first among equals, is a mauve-skinned alien woman called Indigo-1. She knows more about the secrets behind the War of Light than any other and offers cryptic hints on how to fight the Black Lanterns. She has a mysterious past with Green Lantern Abin Sur, whom she refers to as her savior.
- The Atoner: She was an unrepentant sociopath, like all Indigo tribe members until Abin Sur forced her to feel compassion by inducting her into the Indigo Tribe. However, after the ring came off, she is now this willingly.
- Dark and Troubled Past: She was one of Abin Sur's greatest foes, and even killed his daughter.
- Good Feels Good: After the ring comes off and she reverts to her old, cruel personality, she decides that she actually liked being a compassionate person.
- Good Is Not Nice: Just see what she did to Black Hand.
- Heel–Face Turn: Legitimately. Her time under the indigo ring showed her what she was like, and when it came off, she voluntarily wanted the Tribe to be put back together because she was now truly repentant for her actions.
- Mercy Kill: The first thing we ever saw her do was smothering a badly-injured Green Lantern.
- Tears of Remorse: During her legitimate Heel–Face Turn mentioned above, the remorse for her past crimes hit her hard and she shed a tear with an indigo shine on it. This spark of genuine compassion gave Natromo what he needed to rebuild the Indigo central power battery.
- Would Hurt a Child: She was a child murderer before the Indigo Ring made her compassionate, and is said to have killed Abin Sur's daughter.
- You Are Number 6: She wasn't identified by name at first, and gave Indigo-1 as a pseudonym for the other Lanterns to use.
Indigo-1's second-in-command, a large alien male. In Blackest Night, he accompanying Indigo-1 to Earth at Coast City in order to recruit Hal Jordan then departed to Oa in order to assist the Green Lantern Corps who were being assaulted by the Black Lanterns. Once there, Munk aided Vath Sarn and Isamot Kol who were defending their position from Black Lanterns. Through his manipulation of the light of compassion, Munk managed to sever the Black Lanterns connections to their Power Rings. He later assisted Soranik Natu in preventing Black Lantern Power Rings from claiming the recently deceased Kyle Rayner.
Munk later sought out Kyle Rayner, as an Indigo Power Ring had sought the Green Lantern on Earth on its own. Calling Rayner a Ring Thief, Munk used his Power Ring's teleportation ability to enable the other Lanterns to follow Kyle Rayner to Oa, and then to Okaara when Larfleeze battled the Guardians on Oa.
- Big Damn Heroes: His arrival gave enough time to Isamot and Vath to not get swarmed and killed by Black Lanterns.
- Dark and Troubled Past: It's implied he has one, like all the Indigo lanterns, when on a mission with Fatality, she notes he's built and moves like a warrior, and how when he shows up he analyzes the situation to find all the tactical advantages. She asks who he was before joining the tribe, and he merely looks down, not saying anything.
- Depending on the Artist: He can have three
◊ or five◊ fingers on each hand, depending on who's drawing him. His skin color may also vary from caucasian to pink. - Gentle Giant: He's pretty tall, but thanks to his ring, a pretty cool guy.
- Number Two: He's Indigo-2 for a reason, and that reason is being second-in-command of the Indigo Tribe.
One of the last survivors of his race after war devastated his homeworld, Natromo created the Indigo tribe with his ally Abin Sur after describing the unique compassion-related properties of certain elements of Nok. Together they planned to defeat the inevitably despotic Guardians of the Universe by forcing compassion upon them, as they did to all Tribe members.
- Chekhov's Gunman: His name was mentioned long before he was introduced. Apparently, he asked the Indigo Lanterns not to use his name in their oath, but they did anyway.
- Cool Old Guy: He's ancient and helped Abin Sur found the Indigo Tribe.
- Despair Event Horizon: Discovering that Abin Sur was dead convinced him that all was lost and drove him into destroying the central power battery of the Indigo Tribe.
- I Will Wait for You: A non-romantic example. He stayed behind forging indigo rings, waiting for Abin Sur to return when he needed his help.
- Last of His Kind: Close, but there's still a few natives of Nok left. He's the only one who hasn't returned to the jungles though.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Destroying the central power battery of the Indigo Tribe when he believes his plan is doomed to failure with Abin Sur's death, reverting some of the greatest psychopaths of the sectors to normal.
- Retired Badass: Helped repel an invading army with Abin Sur in his younger days.
The Compassion Entity — the living embodiment of the Indigo Light, given life and strength from the empathy and concern every sentient being has for other creatures. Unlike with the rest of the tribe members, Proselyte seeks out those with compassion rather than without.
- Meaningful Name: To proselytize is to attempt to convert someone from one religion/belief/opinion to another. A proselyte is a person who has been converted.
- Abin Sur (co-founder; see Green Lantern Corps)
- Black Hand (see Black Lantern Corps)
- Ray Palmer was temporarily deputized during the Blackest Night.
- Token Good Teammate: The first Indigo Lantern member who was chosen because of his compassion, not because of a lack thereof.
