The Red Lanterns work on rage, and this book is full of rage.  Lots of angry beings being angry.  It is kind of odd that story revolves around one Red Lantern who is afraid that he is loosing his rage.  Most books are about loosing rage and replacing it with peaceful emotions, but not this book.

The writing is strong, but sparse.  The back story about Atrocitus is strong.  It introducing a very angry character and gives him some pathos.  Most of the other Lanterns in the book stumble around and grumble incoherent things to each other.

The art is by one of my favorites. Ed Benes is probably not rates as highly as he deserves, and I think a high profile book will show what he can do.  His lines are sharp, but better yet he has a keen sense on how to show a story.  The panels flow from one to another with an effortless grace.

Interesting premise, and great art.    B      —-   Don

There are a lot of lantern books in the new launch, so you’d think a different color would stand out. And to a point, it does – it doesn’t look like a GL book on the cover, and despite origins (retold briefly in this issue) mired in GL continuity, it doesn’t read like the other lantern books either. With most of the Red Lanterns being so consumed with rage that they can’t even put together a sentence, the book isn’t dialogue driven so there’s a lot more showing than telling, which is a plus for a comic.

There’s not much else that makes it stand out from the other launch titles, though – the Red Lanterns looks cool, and if we were still in the 90s a bunch of characters who essentially vomit blood at their enemies would go over well. This is also yet another book that is just a lead-in to a continuing storyline, so we definitely don’t get much of a “done-in-one” story, unless the origin of the Red Lanterns was the only info you were looking for. The art and writing are above average for the high standards set by most of the new 52 books, though, and that will keep me coming back for a few more issues at least.

B  —- Ed