Kai-ro

Kai-ro is a fictional Asian character that has appeared in both "Batman Beyond" and "Justice League Unlimited" in the DC Comics Animated Universe as the Green Lantern of the future. He is voiced by actress Lauren Tom.

The character's name is a tribute to Kairo, Hal Jordan's young alien sidekick featured in the 1967 Filmation series "The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure".

Character history

Kai-ro was created for the animated series "Batman Beyond" as a member of Justice League Unlimited, the future incarnation of the Justice League.

Like all Green Lanterns, his powers are derived entirely from his "power ring", an alien device that allows him to create a near limitless variety of objects out of green energy, as well as give him the ability to fly and project an energy shield around himself and others. His origins and why he was selected to become a Green Lantern are never revealed, but he was depicted as being very young in his original appearance during the two-part episode "The Call". While most Green Lanterns are selected at a much older age, Kai-ro appears to be a sort of child prodigy that has both the mental capacity and the will for the job. He assisted Terry McGinnis, the Batman of the future, in finding the supposed traitor within the JLU ranks.

A two-issue story in the "Batman Beyond" comic revealed Kai-ro had been raised in a Buddhist monastery prior to receiving the ring. In this story he returned there to battle Black Light, a character with a black power-ring, somewhat similar to Sinestro. The story mentioned that Kai-ro's ring had no yellow weakness.

With "Batman Beyond"'s cancellation, Kai-ro seemed destined to fall into obscurity, but the character was resurrected in another DC animated series, "Justice League Unlimited", during its season finale episode, "Epilogue", which focused primarily on McGinnis's character. In it, Kai-ro is still a member of the future JLU, but is now a young adult, and after defeating a group of supervillains with Batman's help, he pleads with McGinnis to stay with the team despite his growing animosity and disillusion upon discovery of his true origins. Despite this entire event being a fantasy of Terry's (the black and white portions of "Epilogue" were confirmed by Bruce Timm and Dwayne McDuffie as happening in Terry's imagination), it nonetheless shows that Kai-ro still lives and fights in the future. (Kai-ro was presumably among the Justice League members killed by the Jokerz in the alternate future of the episode "The Once and Future Thing, Part II," but Batman and Green Lantern (John Stewart) managed to stop the events of that episode from ever occurring.)

External links

* [http://www.worldsfinestonline.com/WF/beyond/bios/greenlantern/ The World's Finest: Justice League Unlimited Bios (Batman Beyond)]