How to judge the worthiness of rage is at the heart of Atrocitus’ problem right now.
What They Say:
On a war-torn world where invading forces fight insurgent forces, the innocent always suffer the most. When a child screams with red-hot rage at the madness around her, she is answered by her weapon of retribution: Atrocitus.
The Review:
The opening issue of Red Lanterns was a good bit of fun and since I’m avoiding the Green Lantern books entirely at the moment, this series is the one that gives my my cosmic fun. With Atrocitus having realized what his mission should be by bringing the cries of rage that the universe cries out to have dealt with, he’s come to the main problem with what he’s decided to do. How to decide whose rage is worthy of being resolved. With the range of the universe at hand and the simple fact that rage is ever present across all of it for a myriad of reasons, this is a bigger problem that one might think at first, especially for someone like Atrocitus. I do like that he does seemingly consult Krona in a way, discussing his problem out loud in the presence of his corpse while dealing with the scale of things that Krona did see in his lifetime.
Naturally, the first instance of rage he has to deal with comes quickly and it’s rather blunt in its approach. The book takes us to the planet Ghan IX where the world has been engulfed by a war that has gotten completely out of hand. Initially, it has a race known as the Yuevers that came there to help stop a indigenous war between various Ghanites. The Yuevers became caught up in it and it’s gone on so long that nobody knows the root causes anymore. It follows both sides as we have a pair of Yuevers doing an aerial strike after being attacked by something and we see a group of child survivors that have held together after losing their parents that become the accidental-ish targets of the Yuevers. It’s straightforward material with how everyone acts down to the way the one little girl survives that new attack and her cry brings out Atrocitus.
The cry of rage is pretty well done here and that it draws Atrocitus so quickly lets it play out in the quick fashion of justice that he deals in. The dialogue for it is obvious with what it wants to say, but it fits for everyone involved, from those going by orders as they no longer know what they’re really fighting for and how the child reacts to Atrocitus himself. With what he wants to do to the universe at large, the event on Ghan IX is like a microcosm of things of what he has to deal with and it does expand his problem even more since he knows he can’t do it by himself. While he’s dealing with it piecemeal, it is well paced here to show the stages of things that he has to deal with and this issue works well in giving him more of a distinct voice and sense of presence while clueing in where it’ll go next.
Digital Notes:
This Comixology edition of Red Lanterns contains the main cover as seen with the print edition with no variants or other extras included but it does include an ad for the first issue of Green Lantern.
In Summary:
While the opening issue of Red Lanterns didn’t knock my socks off, it got me back out into the cosmic universe of the DC Comics mythology and it did it without using the usual Green Lanterns and other characters familiar to me. While I would have preferred a Darkstars series since I loved the last one they had in the 90’s, Peter Milligan and Ed Benes do a great job here of slowly personalizing Atrocitus more and building up what it is that he’s going to want the Red Lanterns to do. With it at the moment at least keeping away from other parts of the known universe, it gets to operate on its own and that is a huge, huge appeal. I love the look of it, I’m thoroughly enjoying the writing and the characters have a lot of room for exploration, even if Milligan does engage in a bit of preaching when it comes to the Ghan IX situation here. Good stuff and definitely a same-day purchase again for me next month.
Grade: B+
