Red Lantern Stuff

It occurs to me, that I never actually posted a review of the latest Red Lantern book, at least I don't think I did.  God only knows where my head has been lately.  But it was certainly an interesting book, the last one before all of the "All Villains, All the Time" month that we are currently in the midst of.

Boy howdy, but DC sure does seem to like its Villains.  I like Villains too, it is pretty hard to tell a Superhero story without them.  But this isn't the first time that DC has concentrated on the Bad Guys, nor is it the second.  There were a lot of new origin stories, and man, those people have a tough life.  But then, at DC EVERYONE has a tough life, including the Heroes, whose new origins are pretty much exactly the same as the Villains.

But getting back on track...

Guy, at the request of Hal, has successfully entered into the remnants of the Red Lanterns, by rather soundly defeating Atrocitus.  In fact, he ripped his ring right off of his finger, which according to history, means that Atrocitus would be dead.  Dex-Starr, AKA the Rage Kitty ran off with Atrocitus's corpse, and somehow managed to restore him to life.  We aren't told exactly how he is able to do this, and even Atrocitus seems bemused.  The Cat is also able to make constructs because he managed to lap up some of Rankorr's blood, which seems icky, but hey...he's a CAT.    So, Atrocitus and Dex-Starr go off and manage to find the Red Avatar, who is being held captive by some Bad Guy, and somehow Atrocitus merges with  him, and is now he's up to power and out for revenge against Guy.

Naturally.

Meanwhile, things have actually been looking up for the few remaining Red Lanterns.  Guy said he wasn't interested in being their "Leader" per se, but weren't they sick and tired of sleeping on the ground, and they all had to admit that they were, so in the last issue they all took off after a set of particularly revolting Pirates, and stole their cool ship.

Now Zilius Zox, who I am finding to be something of an interesting character, and who also seems to be bonding with Guy a bit, is happy as a clam, working on the ship, which was in fairly poor shape, since Pirates aren't into preventive maintenance.  He asks Guy if he can soup up their new ship, and Guy tells him to knock himself out.  He also has a discussion with Rankorr, as they try to come up with a suitably Ragey name for it.

But Guy's heart isn't in it, and he's feeling a bit sickened by the fact that he was able to kill the Head Pirate so easily...and in fact may have enjoyed it.  This is exactly what he had tried to warn Hal about, when Hal was all set on sending him off to infiltrate the Red Lanterns.  It probably wasn't even necessary, since there are only a handful of them now, and they weren't even planning on doing anything all that nefarious.  Hal had promised Guy, that if there was a problem, he would have St. Walker or one of the Blue Lanterns standing by, ready to yank Guy out of there, and restore him.

Just one little problem.

When Guy uses the little bit of remaining power in his green ring to call up Hal, Hal has to admit that there is a wee problem at the moment, what with Relic, and the problems with the Batteries, and oh, no more Blue Lanterns.  So Guy is stuck...and he's not happy about it.  And Bleez just happens to have have overheard him calling Hal for help.

I wasn't much in favor of turning Guy into a Red Lantern, I much prefer him as the Best of the GREEN Lanterns.  And yet...I have to admit that this is an interesting story so far.  Guy didn't WANT to be a Red Lantern...he's been there and done that and he hates the way that the Red Ring makes you feel.  But Hal didn't want to listen, and since in spite of it all, Guy IS a superb Green Lantern, when Hal told him to go in, he did it.  And now he is stuck.  He can't take the Red Ring off, or he'll die, and there aren't any more Blue Lanterns, thanks to Relic blowing up their battery and incidentally annihilating the rest of them.

So where do we go from here?  What are the rest of the Green Lantern Corps going to do when they find out that their new "leader" Hal, has sent off one of their very best...Honor Corps in fact...and hung him out to dry?  Hal may have had good intentions, but he really doesn't think things through.  I don't believe that he actually consulted with Kilowog or Salaak either, which would certainly have been the prudent thing to do.  And just because the Guardians had a mole, doesn't mean that it was necessarily a good idea.  In fact it probably means that it was a terrible idea.

So, for the time being at least, Guy is stuck being a Red Lantern, and Hal is stuck with the consequences of that.  And I hope that there ARE consequences to this.


 

This is actually from last month's issue, but I find it to be amusing.  Oh Guy