Rage of the Red Lanterns Review

Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Shane Davis and Sandra Hope

The problem I have with Rage of the Red Lanterns is that is a remake of the Sinestro Corp War one-shot with Red Lanterns instead of yellow ones. I think another big problem is the fact that there seems to be no reason for the Red Lanterns to form. Johns teased us with the forming of the yellow lanterns as he would make yellow rings appear and you would see it building so when you saw the full numbers it was believable to the reader but here I believe you have seen one example of recruiting in the form of the former Green Lantern. I would hold the fact that there is no explanation for the Red Lanterns’ power source but I think that will be addressed later so I’m willing to let that go. Scar the Guardians continues to provide plenty of intrigue as she pushes her agenda through and you notice in the art how her eyes switch allegiances between the various established corps. I thought it was a nice little touch for the Red Lanterns to be as brutal as they are. Since they deal with anger there can’t be any finesses there and the choice of them not being able to make fantastic constructs but instead they just spit fire. The flip side of that is that they are unable to have complex stories with them are the Superboy-Prime corps in the sense that they are one-sided. Green Lanterns often have a break since “will power” is there emotion that you allow yourself to explore the various other motivating factors of a Green Lantern but with a Red Lantern, they’re just mad. The inconsistent art along with what seems to be a trend in epic war story telling makes me weary of the direction Green Lantern is heading but Geoff Johns has some real bright spots which is the complex villain he has Sinestro along with some great character moments from Hal Jordan. The Blue Lanterns look interesting but I think making so many corps may be a bad idea as there could be a limiting factor in what you can do. This was a dependable read and is worth a look even though it suffers from inconsistent art.

Art: HIT AND QUIT IT

OVERALL:GET IT