In an alternate timeline, in a discarded future, the New God known as the Black Racer would have been the Fourth World's Lord of Death. So powerful was the Black Racer that a shadow continues as the Black Flash, the grim reaper of speedsters. The demise of the Black Racer had a profound effect on the cosmos, for he was unable to fashion an afterlife for anyone in the Fourth World. The gods of the Fourth World seeming had no future after death; apparently only oblivion.
The essence of the Black Racer was forged into what was known as the Soul Stone. As the most powerful of the Stones, it was least understood. The rest of the Infinity Stones instilled an instinctive knowledge of how to operate them, the result of the vestige of the New Gods' personality. The Soul Stone conferred little in the way of understanding, requiring that the user was gifted with unusual insight, or decades worth of patience.
The first time the Soul Stone appeared in history was when it found its way to the hands of Jim Corrigan, the man that served as host to the Spirit of Vengeance known as the Spectre. Understanding its great power, the Spectre utilized the Stone for many years granting him almost omnipotent power to punish the guilty and right wrongs. While Jim was content with this newfound strength, the Spectre was less so.
Delving deep within the Stone revealed a horrible truth - because the Fourth World had not progressed far enough to develop its own afterlife, the Soul Stone itself contained the souls of the departed. Every life that a wielder of the Stone took was destined to be drawn into this Soul-World within the Stone, never to emerge. This fate included the slain New Gods as well.
Unable to deal with the thanatological ramifications of Soul-World, the Spectre abandoned the Soul Stone. Concerned that another might use it for ill, it was buried in the unclaimed Lands of the Dead in a Tomb of an underworld warlord whose domain had perished along with his worshipers.
Neither Corrigan nor the Spectre could have envisioned someone entering the forgotten deathlands. Yet the man would become known as Nekron was no ordinary soul. Seeking out lost artifacts and knowledge to use against his father Hades, Nekron had chosen to scour the portions of the Lands of the Dead far from the brimming lands of the Greeks and Egyptians.
Finding the Soul Stone, Nekron set to using it to forge himself and a weapon against his enemies. Corrupting a Green Lantern Power Battery, he has created a host of Black Lantern rings, capable of resurrecting the dead and turning them into emotional draining zombies.
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