Red Lanterns #33 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Charles Soule
Art By: Alessandro Vitti
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: July 23, 2014

Cantina Scene

Last issue was a real downer for us Guy Gardner Red Lantern fans because Atrocitus went on an all out offensive strike crippling our heroes.  First when the team went to rescue Rankorr, they found him driven insane.  But what's an insane Red Lantern between friends when they can just bathe him in a magic blood pool?  But Atrocitus took care of that as well, by poisoning the blood on Ysmault, which looked to me like he scabbed it over and to add insult to injury he destroyed the Red Lantern's statues and power battery.  So it looks like the war might be over before it ever really started.  Let's take a look at what this issue has in store for us as we ebb closer to the all out war between the two Red Lantern factions.

Explain It!:

We begin our story in the cantina scene from Star Wars with Guy Gardner drowning his sorrows and waiting for John Stewart to arrive.  Once John shows up we periodically go back and forth between the main story and the two friends bullshitting about what's been going on in each other's lives, commiserating about the things that have gone wrong and Guy getting John to see that anger and rage have a purpose when you're feeling down in the dumps.  I really love seeing these two characters back together and seeing the fun that they can get into.  At one point Guy excuses himself to go to the bathroom and before he returns it's almost like Luke in the cantina scene with "My friend doesn't like you, I don't like you either".  But really Guy told a bunch of aliens that that Green Lantern over there was talking shit about them.  So our buddy cops get into a barroom brawl that is very cathartic for the two dealing with their individual problems.

The meat of the story we're looking for is that Skallox has found a red energy signature on his home planet Styge Prime and decides that he'll go see if Atrocitus is there without telling anyone.  Well yeah Atrocitus is there and he's got a whole new group of Reds at his command and has converted this area of Styge Prime into a new HQ for the Red Lanterns, including a magic blood moat around the base.  Skallox finds out that Atrocitus has killed the men that wronged him when the red ring found him and since Atrocitus has carried out Skallox's revenge, he's willing to say the hell with Guy Gardner and join back up with Atrocitus.  Even though Atrocitus tells Dex-Starr to hold off on killing him, it still doesn't seem like Skallox is welcomed to the fold because the entire issue he's kept in a red energy bubble.

In the end we see Atrocitus call up a shit ton of rings from the magic blood moat, sporting his new revival preacher look he's going for and it looks like our Red Lanterns are even more screwed than they were last issue.  My only problem at the end here is that the art doesn't really convey that these are rings coming out of the magic blood moat.  I looked at the final page for a couple of minutes because I didn't understand if it was raining blood out of the moat or into it and then I finally realized that my eyes are fucked and I'm a big dummy.  But even with my self deprecating conclusion, I still think that this could of been drawn better, so that even a blind bastard like me could understand what I was looking at.  But like I said, who knows maybe it's just me.  Take a look.

So a pretty quick and easy review with not much going on this month.  Hopefully next week with Red Lanterns Annual we'll see our guys get on the offensive, or the defensive, or hell do something that will let us know that they know that they're in a war.  So see you next week for hopefully the start of the war against Atrocitus.

Bits and Pieces:

While there isn't a lot of action to speak of this month, I did find enjoyment in seeing a calm before the storm between Guy Gardner and this month's special guest John Stewart.  But even though I enjoyed the slower paced issue, I have to say that I'm getting antsy for this war to begin already.  It just keeps building and building and right when you think it's going to be an all out rage fest, it builds some more.  So if you're looking for a break from the rage then pick this issue up to chill out and watch two old friends share a brew and a bar fight together, while we wait for the war to start.

6.5.10