Abin Sur is a fictional character from the DC Comics universe.
Character Biography
Originally a history professor on the planet Ungara, Abin Sur was soon appointed Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814 in the mid 1860's.
While on patrol, he was attacked and pursued by the being know as Legion while on its way to Oa. Badly injured and with his spaceship seriously damaged, he made an emergency landing on the nearest habitable planet (Earth) and began using his power ring to search for a successor to wield the ring after he passed on. The ring settled on Hal Jordan as the most suitable replacement right before his death.
In the afterlife, Abin Sur assisted Swamp Thing in rescuing his daughter Tefe from Hell.
For a brief time during Zero Hour, he was pulled to the present, where he assisted the Darkstars in their battle against Entropy before being returned to his own time.
Spaceship
In Tales of the Green Lantern Corps ANNUAL #2 (1986), writer Alan Moore pointed out an odd discrepancy in Hal Jordan's origin story: why would Abin Sur, capable of flying through space on his own, need a spaceship? He answered this question with a story of how the hero once vistited Ysmault, a prison planet for an ancient race of demons, the Empire of Tears, vanquished millennia ago by the Oans.
While there, Abin Sur met a demon named Qull of the Five Inversions, a humanoid with a gaping mouth in his chest and a tongue-shaped head, crucified by three glowing spikes topped with the symbol of the Green Lantern Corps. This unholy messiah predicted the hero would die when his power ring ran out of energy at a critical moment, while he was fighting an opponent or unprotected in hard vacuum. Abin Sur, worried by this prophecy, began using a starship for interstellar voyages, as an additional safeguard.
A decade later, fleeing his enemy, his spaceship collided with a girdle of yellow radiation around Earth that rendered his starship and his power-ring useless within moments. Had he relied on his ring alone, he realized, he might have tested the planet's magnetosphere before rashly entering it. Thus, while Legion may have wounded him, it could be argued that it was Qull that was actually responsible for Abin Sur's death, having sown the seeds of doubt in the Green Lantern's mind.
