Red Lanterns #7 (Review)

Do you get mad and sometimes want to hit something?  Do you sometimes fill with rage as your face turns blood red and you think, "I'd like to give you a piece of my mind!" ?  Does occasionally the thought of releasing your rage on some deserving imbecile get your eye twitching with delight?  THEN RED LANTERNS IS FOR YOU!! (the previous questions were all in fun by the way, Jon Q. Citizen &/or this site does not promote or encourage violence in any manner)

Surviving members of the Sinestro Corps; having escaped to Sector 666, feel uneasy about their futures after becoming victims of "Sinestro's Purge" (see: Green Lantern #5)....and are a finger short for it. But just as a little reassurance washes over them in this lost and remote sector, vengeance comes calling!! It is the Red Lanterns!

"The age of Atrocitus is over. The age of Bleez has begun."
So says Bleez, as she and her compatriots crash through the hull of the ship hiding the forsaken ex-Sinestro Corps members. Meanwhile, Rankorr (Jack Moore) is having trouble understanding words and communicating as the rage of the ring fills his mind....Green Lantern Guy Gardner; however, is all too familiar with the rage (having been a Red Lantern for short periods of time in the past) and wants to protect innocents and try and help Rankorr as well.  They "duke" it out for a while, Rankorr speaks (surprising Gardner, since all the other Corps are still under the assumption that Red Lanterns can't think or speak), saves Gardner from an accident, then is pulled by the ring toward the planet Ysmault.

Bleez; now leading the Red Lanterns and seeking vengeance for her past suffering at the hands of the Sinestro Corps, tortures her captives while promising to wage war on the Sinestro Corps now that she is in control. A great statement in the Red Lanterns "mythos" from Bleez, explaining the process of the new, more intelligent Red Lanterns:

Lest we forget, Atrocitus is still on Ysmault....obsessed with finding the corpse of Krona. He journeys into the  "Abominable Zone", and we get a glimpse of the complex built from the bones of marooned space travelers...where Atrocitus first "made" Red Lanterns.  Apparently the "experiments" went awry, so he buried them outside the complex. The obscene corpses fertilized the ground and a reverse-garden-of-paradise sprung up.

Suddenly, Atrocitus comes face-to-face with Abysmus!!  A grotesque abomination created by Atrocitus in the Complex of Bones, who has survived and was the one who stole Krona's corpse and....ate it, stealing Krona's power from it. Abysmus and his "brothers" (the Abysmorphs) attack Atrocitus, but do not fare well....then Rankorr appears!  Distracted by Rankorr, Atrocitus does not see the stake through the back coming from Abysmus!  The issue ends with Rankorr standing over the body of Atrocitus realizing that to be a Red Lantern means you're dead, which he may very well be is Abysmus gets his hands on him.

Citizen's Grade: Impressive.  This is a great issue all-around, but especially from the writing standpoint. Peter Milligan now has 3 story arcs going simultaneously, Bleez & company in Sector 666, Atrocitus on Ysmault, and Rankorr dealing with becoming a Red Lantern. This is wonderful, and takes me back to the "old days" of Peter Tomasi running 4 or 5 story arcs at the same time in Green Lantern Corps (pre-New 52).  Milligan is adding to the mythos and building the legacy of The Red Lanterns....it's exciting to see!

Ed Benes & Diego Bernard are becoming a good art team, as they work together again in this issue.  The only criticism of this issue is editing....as Gardner and Rankorr are fighting, editing missed the panel that has Rankorr saying Gardner's line and Gardner grunting in place of Rankorr....such a thing should be a huge embarrassment to Pat McCallum & Sean Mackiewicz.  I'm not sure how many titles they are editing, but how could they not catch this before it went to print?

All-in-All, a great issue with a lot of potential building for future issues of....RED LANTERNS!!