Art By: J. Calafiore, Gabe Eltaeb
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: March 25, 2015
Rage Be Damned
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
It's been a hell of a ride as we've moved through the world of the Red Lanterns and now that it's over...... I don't know where I'm going to get my rage outlet. Hopefully Guy Gardner returns in something during this summer and knowing Guy, he most certainly will. He's like a bad penny, he always turns up........ I don't know what that expression means but I'll go with it here. In the last issue of Red Lanterns, we saw Guy go up against a rage infected baby......... Well, a baby imbued with a manifestation of rage and after Guy got his ass kicked up and down the town, he finally overcame that teething terror and went on the road with the youngster in search of the lasting rage of the Atrocitus War. Let's see where our hero ends up with his new sidekick and see how Red Lanterns will end. Let's check it out.
Explain It!:
When our final issue opens we see that Guy has returned to Baltimore and has looked up his sister Gloria for a cup of coffee and so someone will listen to his problems as he continues his mopey trend. This is a very odd issue because it's like a lot of television shows that don't really know what they're going to do at a season finale and have a clip show wrapped around a basic story. Yeah, we see Guy's recent greatest hits as he runs down the story of what he's been doing since the Atrocitus War and how he came to keep the company of a baby. Even though Guy is talking about some horrifically exciting, adventures, it doesn't seem like Gloria is all that concerned and really just sits there looking at Guy like he owes her money.
After Guy gets to the part of the story where he's been absorbing all of the world's anger since the rage fallout of the Atrocitus War, it doesn't seem like he can keep the anger contained any longer and like we saw last issue with the manifestation of rage, it seems like all this energy wants out of him and to protect his family, Guy uses a device to teleport his sister and the baby to an old spaceship that he's had orbiting Earth ever since the Third Army invasion and an automated message shows old crewcut Guy explaining that the Earth is in danger and that if anyone is listening, a signal has been sent out to John Stewart and Guy hopes that they will be safe. Now at this point, Gloria goes and rips out some wires and it looks like she somehow actually got the Green Lantern ship to broadcast to Guy's red ring, which even he doesn't know how she accomplished this but I like to think that her anger at her brother for sending her away and acting like a dope was enough to get her to access his ring. As Guy wrestles with all the rage inside of him, Gloria calls him out on his bullshit of trying to absorb all the anger in the world instead of inspiring hope like he does in her and at that point Guy says "fuck it"......... I'm sure he says it to himself and decides to let the rage monster out.
In the end, Guy reenacts the scene from the 2003 Hulk movie where Hulk gives all his rage to the Absorbing Man and even shouts "Take It All!" as he sends the the rage out into the world, but something new is going down. It seems that his sister's pep talk has sparked something inside of our angry hero and as he's being burned up by all the rage, his hope for humanity comes forth and destroys all the rage he's emitting and even allows him to survive his ring coming off. As our issue closes we see that Guy has gotten himself a shave and a haircut........... two bits........ and plans on doing some traveling......... with the baby........ and it looks like Guy Gardner is no longer a Lantern......... I have no idea how people keep surviving the removal of their red ring but I'm calling shenanigans.
That's it for this series of Red Lanterns and I'm not too sold on this ending. Everything that Charles Soule did with Guy Gardner has been removed by the end and it kind of feels like everything that Guy's gone through since joining The Reds doesn't matter anymore............ as he travels with a baby. Now I loved that we got to see Guy's sister Gloria again, but having her there just so she can give him a "hope" pep talk that somehow removes his ring seems like kind of a cop out. Yeah, I knew that DC wouldn't let Guy die at the end but it just seems like this ending is out of nowhere.......... and that it's rage that is making me grow my hair and beard out. J. Calafiore continues to impress with his art in this book and he did a damn fine job on this final issue, I just wish the story was as strong.
Bits and Pieces:
While I've loved the Red Lanterns for a long time now, this finale decided that it wanted to take everything that I loved about Guy Gardner as a Red Lantern and throw it away with a clip show of Guy's latest and greatest hits and an ending that doesn't make much sense to me. Landry Walker was put in a tough spot when he was hired onto this title and even though I don't care for this ending, I would have really liked to see what he would have done if it had continued.
5/10
I didn't know Guy was color blind.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know Guy was color blind.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe he is, I think he was just using that as an example to show that even though there are all these colors to the spectrum, they're all the same in the long run.
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