Smashing Herald is a member of the Incredible Smashers, Justice League, and Deputized member of the Green Lantern Corps.
Martin Herald was once a normal man living a normal life in incredible times. Then he was bitten by an alien space bug from the future that grants super powers. He was granted the mostly physical powers of a Kryptonian under a yellow sun. These super powers were then detected by the alien space bug's creator who had yet to create them. This alien master known as Braniac decided to abduct these new metahumans to examine them. Luckily, or unluckily the harvesting ship was disabled and the pod holding him broke down, allowing him to free himself. Unfortunately, Herald was new to his powers and too slow to escape. He was taken down with the ship and spent days inside the wreckage, wounded and dying, but not giving up. A passing green lantern named John Stewart detected his willpower with his ring and dug him out of the wreckage before deputizing him as a new Green Lantern. Since then he has been going by the name Smashing Herald! Because he smashes stuff, and his name is Herald. That or he's heralding a new dawn of heroism to the world. But probably not.
Crushing Herald is a recurring ally of the Sinestro Corps when overdosing on yellow sunlight.
When yellow light builds up within Herald, he is empowered similarly to a Kryntonian, but without the occular or breath powers, instead being able to release a sonic scream. Unfortunately this is not without costs, as the light that empowers him also creates paranoia that builds as his reserves grow. As his paranoia grows, fear takes hold of him and begins to lose control of his power of the green light of will. As a common enemy of the Sinestro Corps, they took notice. After the first incident, they took steps to have Bizarro capture himm, allowing them to corrupt Herald with the yellow light of fear. They did this by dumping simulated yellow sunlight into his body and overloading his mind with paranoia until he accepted fear completely. His fear is so powerful that it can overwhelm the green light of will and push through his ring to create powerful fear constructs. Despite being freed from this fate by the Parasite of all people, it is always possible for him to be consumed by fear now that it has it's hooks in him. Those that call Herald an ally must be forever wary of him striking them down in his paranoia. That, and make sure he wears his sunscreen. The green light of Kryptonite as well as simulated Kryptonite radiation from a Green Lantern can be used to drain the yellow light from his body much like a red sun does to a true Kryptonian. As a Green Lantern, Herald can regulate his yellow sun reserves in times of emergency to strengthen himself, but only at great risk to himself and those around him. The Crushing Herald personality is always waiting for the chance to take over once again.
When wearing his Crash Armour, Herald will often go by the name Crashing Herald as he uses the full power of yellow sunlight, using his ring mostly for weapons to wield.
When Herald requires a little more insurance that his use of the yellow light will not get out of control, he activates the House of El Warsuit. This suit is made from Kryptonian technology with a Kryptonite core and was provided to him by Power Girl so that he may use his Kryptonian originated powers to their full potential, without harming his allies. The suit also comes with several technologies built-in that add to this advantage, giving him the egde needed to face off against Bizarro or Parasite, both of which have defeated him in the past. In fact, it was with Bizarro's assistance that he was captured by the Sinestro Corps and soaked in yellow light. It was his defeat at the hands of Parasite that freed him from its influence when drained from his body. This Crash Armour will help ensure that never happens again and that Herald remains fighting for what's right and not fear's light.
When filled with the light of a new star, Smashing Herald becomes the newest incarnation of Crashing Herald, and is filled with the light of Hope.
Soon after Herald's use of the Crash Armour to defeat Bizarro, the Sinestro Corps decided that he was too big of a threat and too big of an asset to leave in the hands of the Justice League and Green Lanterns. To rectify this Arkillo would lead a team to ambush Herald by capturing Supergirl and transporting her to a system with a new star, and ensure his rescue would not have time to include the Crash Armour itself. They would keep her powerless while assaulting him from afar and several directions until his ring was drained of power, leaving them free to turn him to their cause once more. Little did any of them know that the light of a blue sun did not supress Herald's unique take on Kryptonian powers, but released them in nearly their full potential. While unable to use the occular powers, Herald gains all of the enhanced breath powers of a Kryptonian on top of a much stronger version of physical powers than what a yellow sun will provide. Most importantly, much as a yellow sun, a blue sun will imbue Herald with an emotional high the greater his reserves gathered. In the case of blue, it fills him with hope. This is important because of the affect it has on his green ring, for he cannot fully control his constructs beyond simple weapons as he is far too emotional to do so. However, this does allow for his ring to receive a constant energizing effect from the blue light of hope that combines to create a long term weapon construct that will not drain the power ring. This unexpected strength surprised the yellow lanterns and allowed him to quickly incapacitate several of their numbers, even freezing Arkillo for a time with his breath. Eventually they realized that the simulated yellow light of their rings was not being absorbed, and that they would not be able to turn him at that time after suffering so many losses. The corps fled with their wounded and Herald was able to move Supergirl into a yellow system to recharge before heading back to Earth with this newest discovery.
Thrasher is the name taken by Herald's rage, and often allied with Zod or Atrocitus in fighting the House of El or Green Lanterns.
Tasked by Superman to rescue Power Girl, Herald went with the assumption that the green light of will would be his only reliable ally, knowing Parasite would simply drain his solar reserves to add to Power Girl's stolen powers. Unfortunately, Lex Luthor set that trap to capture him and provided a small army of armoured goons and turrets to drain his ring the closer he got to Parasite. In the end he would be unable to match the power of Parasite and was capture along with Power Girl. When Parasite tried and failed to drain him, he realized the trap was for him as well. Lex activated the red sun weapons and attacked the three Kryptonian powered beings. But Herald's powers were not all Kryptonian born and the light of a red sun will not weaken him, but supercharge him. In fact, he receives so much more power from red sunlight than yellow that his regular body cannot handle it and he undergoes a metamorphosis which enlarges his muscles and expands his skeletal structure. In the end, Bane is not the only berzerker in town and Lex's robots were made into melted scraps in record time with the help of his eye beams to replace his sonic scream. The damage was done however, and Lex's recordings of the incident were stolen by Zod, recently freed from the Phantom Zone by Lex himself. He saw an opportunity to create a soldier, one that would hate Superman as much as he does, with the correct conditioning under the red sun of Roa as he himself was, simulated of course. Under this conditioning it became clear that his rage was powerful enough to overide even the green light of will, allowing his supercharged rage to flow through the ring and create simulated red light on its own. This created a cycle of hatred that kept him in the state almost indefinately. With this enraged berzerker he would have a tool to weaken his enemies before his grand deput. And then, "All will kneel before Zod!"
Crashing Herald empowered by the simulated light of a new star, filling him with hope's might to diminish fear and rage's lights.
With the War of Light came the need to make full use of his powers. Herald and the House of El decided that he needed to harness the power of the blue sun when under any sun to do so. The Crash Armour would be redesigned to do this without the need for a Kryptonite core. It would convert any spectrum of the sun into blue, filling Herald with the strength of hope, even if not as a full ring bearer of it. With it, his green ring would be supercharged, providing the added benefit of constuct weapons to fit the situation. His new strength would place him on par with his red lantern form, but without the double edged sword and risk to his allies. The armour would have two modes, the Crash Mode that focussed the power of blue light, and the Smash Mode which blocked all foreign energies and emotions, to better retain control of his ring constructs and a clearer mind. With this new power he will take the fight to the Sinestro Corps and emerging Red Lanterns.
