Red Lantern Corps (Prime Earth)


Barg, Guy Gardner, Graxus, Itro, Judge Sheko, Klarn, Laira, Nayk, One-Heart, Phist, Ratchet, Razer, Sarp, Shadow Thief, Skorch, Supergirl, Vice, Votun, hundreds of unnamed humans

Allies

Butcher,
Lantern Corps,
New Guardians

Enemies

Black Lantern Corps,
Blue Lantern Corps,
Guardians of the Universe,
Relic,
Sinestro Corps,
Volthoom,
Formerly Krona,
Third Army

Origin

Place of Formation

Ysmault

Creators

Geoff Johns · Ethan Van Sciver

First appearance
Red Lanterns #1 (November, 2011)

With blood and rage of crimson red,
ripped from a corpse so freshly dead,
together with our hellish hate,
we'll burn you all, that is your Fate!

—Red Lantern Corps Oath^src

The Red Lantern Corps is the Lantern Corps that harnesses the red light of rage. For much of its existence, it was divided into two factions, one led by its founder Atrocitus and one by Guy Gardner.

History

Agents of Vengeance

Red Lantern Corps (New Earth) Red Lanterns Vol 1 2 — Atrocitus plans to elevate a Red Lantern.

After obtaining Krona's corpse from the Guardian Ganthet, Atrocitus faced a dilemma: the death of Krona had absolved the cause for his rage and thus left him without purpose. Atrocitus realized that he may lose control of his Red Lantern Corps. To prevent that from happening, Atrocitus resolved to restore the members of the Red Lantern Corps their sanity and with it their ability to think for themselves, he then gave them a new goal to punish the guilty.^[1]

The Red Lantern Corps soon came to a violent power struggle between Atrocitus and former Green Lantern Guy Gardner, who had enlisted as a mole. Atrocitus was subsequently defeated by Gardner, who took his leadership while Dex-Starr took Atrocitus away in order to heal him.

New Management

Red Lanterns Vol 1 21 Textless — Guy Gardner takes over the Corps.

After Guy took over the Corps, he led the Reds in protecting the universe in the usual Red Lantern fashion: through violence and murder. However, he wound up bonding with his corpsmen and helped them learn to rein in their rage as well. At the same time, Atrocitus began his return to power by attempting to form a new Red Lantern Corps and lead them against his former allies, by gaining the Butcher's power. When the anti-Lantern villain Relic began targeting the other Lantern Corps, Hal recruited Guy and the Red Lanterns in the fight against him. Guy agreed to help, but only on the condition that they are given the right to exclusively patrol a sector. Hal agreed—although he wasn't happy when Guy later demanded Sector 2814^[2]—and while the Reds fared no better against Relic than the others Corps, they were there to witness when Kyle Rayner defeated Relic and replenished the depleted wellspring of emotional light, returning all of the Corps to full strength.

Not long after Relic's defeat, a new development arose: at the same time that Supergirl was inducted into the Red Lantern Corps,^[3] the Corps ran into Atrocitus and Dex-Starr in middle of recruiting another new Red Lantern, Judge Sheko.^[4] While Supergirl and the Reds repel Atrocitus, Sheko refused to choose a side in the power struggle, but followed Gardner's team around anyway. Guy later gave Kara his blessing to leave and found a way to safely remove her Red Lantern Ring.^[5]

The internal conflict came to a head on Earth, when Atrocitus turned hundreds of people across the globe into Red Lanterns. While Guy's side eventually emerged victorious, the cost of victory is the death of most of the Reds on both sides. In the aftermath, Guy left the survivors to their own devices and asked that they let him protect Earth alone.

The Reds Return

However, with Guy gone, Atrocitus was restored to life, retaking his Corps (including the similarly restored Zilius Zox and Skallox), and rebuilding with the help of the Rage Mother. Before he could get far, Lobo, hired by Sinestro to eliminate the other Lantern Corps, tracked them down and killed them all, save Bleez and the Rage Mother.

Red Lanterns: Rebirth

Some time later, the Red Lanterns reappeared under Atrocitus' control. The Reds attacked the Earth, establishing a base from which they infected people all over the world with unquenchable rage, as two rookie Green Lanterns, Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz were partnered together to be Earth's Green Lanterns. Because of their inexperience, the two initially failed to stop the Reds. However, Simon temporarily caused Bleez to abandon her allies, and she gave details of Atrocitus' plan until Jessica caused her rage to return, forcing her to forsake both sides. Though they were pushed against the wall when they confronted the Reds, Jessica managed to tap into her willpower and to destroy their base and drive the Reds off-world. However, everything they did was part of Atrocitus' plan to plant a Rage Entity, designed to replace the long dead Butcher, in the Earth's core.

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Paraphernalia

Equipment: * Red Lantern Power Battery

Red Lantern Central Power Battery

Weapons: * Red Lantern Rings

Notes

As they have no use for their hearts, the Red Lanterns are unaffected by the heart-ripping attack of a Black Lantern.

Links

Red Lantern Corps at Wikipedia

Footnotes

Green Lantern Villain(s)

This character has been an enemy of the Green Lantern of Earth, or the Green Lantern Corps as a whole. This template will categorize articles that include it into the category "Green Lantern Villains."

[1] Red Lanterns #1

[2] Red Lanterns #28

[3] Red Lanterns #29

[4] Supergirl (Volume 6) #31

[5] Red Lanterns #32

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]