james_desantis's profile picture

james_desantis 's review for:

Red Lanterns, Volume 1: Blood and Rage by Ardian Syaf, Andres Guinaldo, Landry Walker, Charles Soule, Thomas Giorello, Jim Calafiore, J. Califore, Ed Benes, Rob Hunter, Alessandro Vitto, Will Conrad, Alessandro Vitti, Peter Milligan, Miguel SepĂșlveda, Jorge Jimenez, Tony Bedard, Diego Bernard
3.0

Story: Atrocitus is at a midlife Rage crisis. He is one of the strongest lanterns out there thanks to his ring of rage but he feels like he's losing it. I mean he only talks to a dead body of the person who killed his entire family and people to get on track. That's normal, right? So when he finally frees the mind of one of his other red lanterns, let's them think for herself, he begins to worry someone...or everyone is betraying him. On top of that we go around the galaxy to see other people meet their breaking point to turn to rage.

Art: Blood. Everywhere. Seriously, anytime a red lantern fights you can bet blood splatter goes on every single panel. You got big sweeping battle scenes with tons of great fights. Green Lantern series also gives huge ass shots of women, so that hasn't changed. Colorful, brutal, and lots of death. This books art hits all those notes.

Enjoyment: I actually dug Atrocitus. Sure, he kind of comes off a bit mopy, emo, yet he has the rage within that makes him kind of fun. I also liked learning more about the rage lanterns and why they are who they are. The stories of losing it all to break was pretty cool. Oh yeah and I enjoyed the ending and could lead up to something interesting.

What didn't work: Not huge fan of the "enemy" here. Came out of nowhere. I also thought the sweeping ass shots were kind of annoying. 90's much?

Overall, it's fun story. Probably better than I could ever expect from a Red Lantern title. A 3 out of 5.