Red Lantern Corps

The Red Lantern Corps is a supervillain and sometimes anti-heroic organization appearing in DC Comics. Their power is derived from the emotional spectrum relating to anger.
They debuted in Green Lantern (vol. 4) #25 (January 2008) and were created by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver. Some of their characteristics were inspired by 28 Days Later, one of Van Sciver's favorite films.
The Red Lantern Corps are first mentioned during the "Sinestro Corps War" storyline. Foreshadowing another major crossover event in the DC Universe, former Guardian Ganthet reveals the Blackest Night prophecy to Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Kyle Rayner. The prophecy describes a War of Light among seven Corps powered by the lights of the emotional spectrum. Part of the prophecy reads: "A force of hate will rise as the red lantern is anointed in blood, the bearer's rage unfiltered and unchecked."
According to DC continuity, before recruiting sentient beings to the Green Lantern Corps, in an attempt to bring order to the universe, the Guardians of the Universe created the Manhunters, a group of robotic peacekeepers. However, the Manhunters massacre the inhabitants of space sector 666, and the survivors form the Five Inversions, a terrorist cell bent on destroying the Guardians of the Universe. Five Inversions member Atrocitus is consumed by rage, becomes the first Red Lantern, and kills the other members.
Geoff Johns describes the Red Lantern Corps as likely being "the most violent of the Corps [...] based on violent reaction driven by emotional eruption – rage – instead of any clear-cut plan of war." He describes Atrocitus as "the most coherent and in control of the Red Lanterns," but notes that he will have trouble controlling the other, more feral members. Sinestro is their primary target.
In Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns, the Red Lanterns capture Sinestro and recruit former Green Lantern Laira. Hal Jordan obtains a Red Lantern ring before Saint Walker uses his powers to free him.
In Green Lantern Corps, the Green Lanterns imprison Vice on Oa. However, Vice escapes, attacks warden Voz, and causes a riot before being defeated and reimprisoned.
During the Blackest Night event, the Guardians of the Universe are shown observing the War of Light unfolding among the various Corps of the emotional spectrum; one of the scenes depicting the Lost Lanterns confronting the Red Lantern Corps to retrieve Laira's body from Ysmault. As the seven Corps battle one another, a new eighth group powered by death is introduced to the DC Universe: the Black Lantern Corps. Black Hand, a leader of the new Corps, releases black power rings that reanimated the deceased to recruit members to their ranks. Just as Atrocitus steps into the fight against the Lost Lanterns, the black rings descend on Ysmault, seeking the bodies of Laira and the four deceased Inversions.
The passage taken from The Book of the Black at the end of Blackest Night #3 states that rage will be the second emotion to fall in the Black Lantern Corps' crusade against the colored lights. Love is depicted as being the first which is fulfilled in Green Lantern (vol. 4) #46, when the Black Lanterns devastate the Star Sapphires' homeworld of Zamaron. On Ysmault, the four Inversions attack Atrocitus and rip out his heart. However, the insatiable wrath contained within his ring prevents him from dying (having functionally replaced his heart), and temporarily destroys the Black Lantern Inversions. Later, Atrocitus is seen temporarily destroying the Black Lanterns in pursuit of Larfleeze, and demands that he surrender the Orange Central Power Battery. After a brief conflict over the Orange Central Power Battery, the two characters are joined by Hal Jordan, Sinestro, Carol Ferris, Indigo-1, Saint Walker, Ganthet, and Sayd. The group needs Larfleeze and Atrocitus to represent their respective colored lights in the emotional spectrum in a group effort to create a collective white light that will destroy the Black Lantern Corps. Atrocitus initially refuses to cooperate, but after deciding that the Black Lanterns are as much a creation of the Guardians as the Manhunter droids responsible for destroying his world, he changes his mind and complies. During the fight on Earth, Mera is temporarily inducted into the Red Lantern Corps as a 'deputy' to help hold the line against the Black Lanterns, but Wonder Woman is able to use her Star Sapphire ring to hold back Mera's rage and grant her a degree of control, with the ring being removed completely when Aquaman is resurrected as Mera's love for him compromises her rage (although Carol and Saint Walker are required to restart Mera's heart).
During the Black Lantern siege of the Green Central Power Battery, Kyle Rayner and Guy Gardner release Vice; hoping that the Red Lantern will be able to destroy the Black Lanterns faster than they can regenerate, thereby weakening a giant black construct attempting to destroy the battery. Believing that Vice has escaped (rather than being released), Alpha Lantern Chaselon kills him. Vice's ring later attaches itself to Guy Gardner, who has become full of rage following Kyle Rayner's death. Using both his green and red power rings, Guy slaughters dozens of Black Lanterns. After the planetary Green Lantern Mogo manages to neutralise the Black Lanterns, Guy turns his rage on his fellow Green Lanterns. Mogo uses a special pool of antibodies to remove most of the Red Lantern energies from Guy's body, telling him the only way to completely cleanse him is to bathe in the light of a Blue Lantern. Guy temporarily returns to the Red Lanterns when he uses Atrocitus's ring to fight off the Green Lantern Corps under Krona's control- Guy's green ring being compromised and reasoning that he has some experience with the red ring, while Atrocitus has been trapped in the Book of the Black by Krona- with Kyle Rayner's temporary blue ring allowing him to fully heal Guy of the red ring's influence once the crisis is over and Atrocitus has been freed.
In September 2011, The New 52 rebooted DC's continuity. In this new timeline, the Red Lantern backstory, despite having not been radically altered, was explained and expanded in the eponymous series written by Peter Milligan, ultimately released after the end of the "Flashpoint" storyline.
After the end of the War of the Green Lanterns, disappointed at the fact that he was not the one who killed Krona, the culprit of the Ryut Massacre, Atrocitus, feeling his rage dimming, is left without a purpose and faced with the drawbacks of leading an army of devolved, animalistic underlings driven by rage only. He decides to choose an individual to be his equal and right hand, on whom to bestow his or her full mental faculties. He chooses Bleez, but soon believes she may have manipulated him into doing this. At the same time on Earth, after watching his brother being beaten to death, a young Englishman named Jack Moore becomes a Red Lantern, subsequently helping Atrocitus when other Red Lanterns turn on him due to his rage having lessened.
Bleez becomes the Red Lantern representative in the New Guardians team consisting of seven representatives from the seven different Corps working together for mutual interest. The group investigates a mysterious Orrery in the Vega System, traveling back to Earth with Kyle Rayner to recover his power battery after he is officially discharged from the Green Lantern Corps – while retaining his ring and access to the Oan network – to protect him if the Guardians should try and capture him.
Following the defeat of the powerful Volthoom, Hal Jordan sends Guy Gardner to join the Red Lanterns as an undercover operative to keep them in check, with Guy swiftly defeating Atrocitus and taking command of the group. It is revealed that part of his decision to join with the Red Lanterns is feeling as if he has never fit in as a Green Lantern. As a Red Lantern Gardner manages to keep his rage in check, successfully leading most of the Red Lanterns; Atrocitus leads a splinter group and allows new Red rings to cause murderous justice-based rampages to continue. After joining with the Green Lanterns to defeat the cosmic terrorist Relic, Hal promises to give the Red Lanterns a sector for them to watch over after Guy rejects the initial offer of being released from his new role in the Corps. However, this sector becomes Sector 2814, where Earth resides, giving guardianship of Earth to the Red Lantern Corps.
Both Gardner's Red Lanterns and Atrocitus' Red Lanterns come into conflict with each other, which ends when a recently inducted Red Lantern, Judge Sheko, determines that Atrocitus, his Red Lantern splinter group, and herself are all guilty and she destroys them. However, Atrocitus and Dex-Starr survived but are apparently killed when Guy takes control of all of Atrocitus' newly created Red Power Rings, stripping them of their rings and removing their life support.
In Green Lantern: The Lost Army, Guy Gardner is flung into the pre-Universe and is suddenly wearing both a Green and Red Power Ring. He manages to reunite with the Green Lantern Corps who were also trapped in the pre-Universe. During the last fight between the Green Lantern Corps and the various Lightsmiths, Guy's Red Power Ring is turned green. In Green Lantern Corps: Edge of Oblivion, Guy is once again a fully fledged Green Lantern and helps the others to try and escape the impending death of the pre-Universe and back into their own.
As part of DC Rebirth, it is revealed that Atrocitus and Dex-Starr are alive and Red Lanterns once again, with the former regaining his title as their leader, and Bleez is once again allied with Atrocitus. Atrocitus wishes to bring forth the Red Dawn and obtain a mysterious new power ring that has been recently discovered. Atrocitus begins to bring forth the Red Dawn by implanting a Hell Tower within Earth and converting humans into rage conduits, waiting until the Hell Tower is ready to insert a Rage Seed. The Red Lanterns head to Earth to make sure their plans proceed on schedule and Bleez heads off to deal with Green Lanterns Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz. Simon Baz somehow heals Bleez, restoring her to her original form. Bleez reveals Atrocitus' plan to Simon but when Jessica intervenes and attacks Bleez, she succumbs to rage once more and returns to her Red Lantern appearance, deciding to go into hiding from the Green Lanterns and Atrocitus. Jessica Cruz inadvertently becomes a rage conduit and attacks Simon. Simon is able to purify her in a similar way he did to Bleez, and the two are then confronted by Atrocitus and a group of Red Lanterns.
Only a few of the Red Lanterns have been identified by name in Green Lantern titles. Many of the known Red Lanterns were victimized by the Sinestro Corps before becoming Red Lanterns.
The Butcher is a bull-like entity and embodiment of rage who is the power source of the Red Lanterns. In Green Lantern: Lights Out, the Butcher and the other emotional entities sacrifice themselves by returning to the Source Wall to restore the emotional spectrum. However, a new entity is born and begins gestating in Earth's core.
Like other Corps in the DC Universe, Atrocitus created an oath for the Red Lanterns to use when recharging their rings. As the other members of his Corps are rarely seen as being capable of speech, it's unknown how often they use it (if they are able to at all). However, it has been shown how Atrocitus is able to restore intelligence and abstract thought, along with full speech capabilities, to his fellow Red Lanterns by the use of his shamanistic magic, making them able to recite the full oath. The Red Lantern Corps oath is recited as follows:
Green Lantern: The Animated Series features an adjusted version of this oath:
Aya also created an alternative that was ultimately unable to activate the ring and battery:
Red Lantern power rings are fueled by rage and force their wielder into a feral, mindless state that can only be cured by the Blood Lake of Ysmault. Like all Lantern Corps, the red power rings give their users the ability to fly at light speed and survive in deep space. Red Lanterns possess corrosive plasma-like blood capable of destroying the constructs and protective auras of other Lanterns. Furthermore, the red ring replaces its user's circulatory system and cannot be removed without killing them.
In the universe prior to the current one, groups managed to tap into the wellspring of power created by the Emotional Spectrum. In this universe, those who tapped into the red light were known as the Lightsmiths of the Red Light of Fury and were the ones that rejected Relic.
Critical reception for the Red Lantern Corps has been mixed. Their first appearance, during the Final Crisis event in 2008, was met with a mostly positive critical response. Jesse Schedeen, writing for IGN, remarked that "the Red Lanterns are an excellent addition to the increasingly crowded Lantern mythos." J. Montes, writing for Weekly Comic Book Review, noted that "The Red Lanterns are vicious and make the relentlessness of the Sinestro Corps almost wimpy by comparison." Likewise, Red Lantern Bleez's origin story, as told in Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps #2, received widespread praise, particularly for Eddie Barrows's artwork.
Their solo series, launched in 2011 as part of the New 52, initially received a negative response. Most reviewers praised the artwork by Ed Benes and Miguel Sepulveda, while criticizing the weak plot, inconsistent characterization, and uneven pacing.
The Red Lantern Corps appear in Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Aquaman – Rage of Atlantis, consisting of Atrocitus (voiced by Jonathan Adams) and Dex-Starr (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker).