Written by Peter Milligan
Illustrated by Ed BenesAtrocitus and his Red Lantern Corps return in their own series, battling against injustice in the most bloody ways imaginable!
It’s been a few years since writer Geoff Johns introduced the concept of multi-colored Lanterns into the DC Universe and many people (myself included) wondered when a non-Green Corps would land in its own book. I’m not sure anyone would have called that Corps being the Red Lanterns (I had hoped for Blue and the odds certainly slanted more in favor of Yellow), but it is what it is and Atrocitus and his moody little bunch now have their own playground. But how well do they use it?
Click below and find out.
Sometimes reading a comic as a singular, isolated story is hard to do. In this case, it was damn near impossible to disassociate my circumstantial thoughts from the story at hand and my mind began to wander. And where did it wander, you may ask? That answer is simple: I just could not stop trying to figure out how this story fit into absolutely anything DC had intended for this reboot. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been following the Green Lantern universe in sum for the last six years or so and I PERSONALLY understood everything I needed to to have this story make sense — but it baffled me how a new reader would be anything but lost reading this book.
Sure, we do get the full, heartbreaking origin of Atrocitus recounted and expanded on here, but much like the Batbooks before it, the Green Lantern side of the DCnU seems to have forgotten that there was a reboot that happened. However, unlike the Batbooks that synced up the inevitable return of Bruce Wayne to Gotham with a period of massive flux within the entire DC line, the Green Lantern books are literally continuing RIGHT where they left off at the end of the War of the Green Lanterns Aftermath, including the presence of the corpse of Krona on the Red Lanterns homeworld of Ryut. Simply put, there was a LOT of damn continuity on the table for a book that exists as 1/52nd of a supposedly brand new universe.
Now, that having been said, Milligan does a great job with the continuity he was given to work with. He made the giant Atrocitus recap session make sense within Atrocitus’ current mental state following the death of Krona (or rather, the death of Krona at hands that were not his) and opening the book with a vicious Dex-Starr sequence was probably the best decision he could make given how big the fanbase for that little angry kitty is. Plus, the possibility of his Corps turning against him is certainly enough motivation to continue on past this set-up issue.
On the art side, I’ve traditionally never had as much of a problem with Ed Benes as my fellow reviewers have. I guess my biggest complaint is that nothing about the art REALLY stands out. It does its job, it makes the fierce characters look fierce and the weird characters look weird and inserts the right amount of emotion into the faces of the characters, no matter how alien they happened to be. Simply put, the work did what it needed to; it just didn’t do it in such a way that it made me stand up and take notice. It ended up being what the book needed it to be, no less and certainly no more. This type of adaptability is certainly worth noting, especially given the fact that the last book I remember him on was pretty much the exact opposite of a monster filled space romp (AKA Birds of Prey, a street level crime book starring some very human looking humans). Still though, I can’t find any way to talk his work up. In so many words, it very simply “is”.
Overall, as a continuing fan of the Lantern side of the DCU, I enjoyed this book enough to see where it was going. But as a piece of this new, fresh, continuity unhindered universe that DC claims to be building, it really manages to screw the pooch. I just feel bad for all those fresh, moviegoing Green Lanterns fans that picked up this book looking for something new and accesible, because what they got was the exact opposite.
Final Verdict: 8.0 – Buy With Care
