Release Date: August 1, 2012
Cover Date: October 2012
Story: Peter Milligan
Art: Miguel Sepulveda
Cover: Miguel Sepulveda
Abysmus has nearly killed Atrocitus, so the latter lets out a massive red flare as a last-ditch effort. Rankorr sees it, and hurry to their leader’s aid. The human Red Lantern makes a massive construct representing all of the Red Lanterns killed by Abymus, and the villain is overcome by regret. He reveals that the Guardians hired him to kill Atrocitus in order to get his empathy back, but he can’t handle it. This is just what Atrocitus needs; he’d foreseen the fall of his Corps long ago, and he planted the blood of the other four Inversions inside Abysmus during his creation. Now it’s become a powerful Blood Seed; Atrocitus tears it out, killing Abysmus, and places it in the broken Central Red Lantern Power Battery, thus restoring it and the Red Lantern Corps. Far away on Zamaron, the captive Red Lanterns get their powers back, and even though Bleez was offered a Star Sapphire ring by Fatality, she refuses and takes off with her cohorts. Beneath the surface of Ysmault, however…the remaining four Inversions are slowly coming back to life.
Another fucking prophecy! I’m really getting tired of this shit, but at least we didn’t have a ridiculous splash page full of things that won’t come to pass this time. Here, the Blood Seed just seemed like a hastily written “get out of jail free” card to wrap up the plot. The entire issue felt very rushed; Abysmus killed, Rankorr accepting his role as a Red Lantern all of a sudden, the Corps instantly restored, and so on.
If that “Let me out!” shit is the Butcher, I’m going to be ill. (We’ll have to wait until Green Lantern Annual [Vol. 2] #1 hits the shelves at the end of the month to find out.) We haven’t seen the emotional entities since the “New 52″ started, and it’s been better without them. The four Inversions returning is also lame; we saw them as Black Lanterns during Blackest Night, so it’s yet another rehashed story.
Miguel Sepulveda’s art is generally pretty good, but it stumbled in this issue. Atrocitus face too often just looked like a generic skull-faced monster, and the Red Lantern rings were either drawn too simply or missing their symbols (sometimes both!). A few panels were skillfully illustrated with some cool perspective and whatnot, but overall, the art felt as rushed as the story.
I know I sound like a broken record, but I must reiterate: Red Lanterns has potential, but continuously squanders it.
