Red Lanterns #26 – Review

By: Charles Soule (writer), J. Calafiore (artist), Gabe Eltaeb (colors)

Who could have known that a book about DC’s least interesting band of ring-slingers would still be going strong months after established properties like Static Shock or cult hits like Dial H were axed? Not I. Nevertheless Red Lanterns plugs on, now under the guardianship of Charles Soule.

This issue finds a team of classic Reds at odds with the dictator of a backwater planet looking to make a name for itself. The plot is straightforward and generally doesn’t deviate too much from expectation, but Soule takes this as an opportunity to add some color to the story, and thankfully not more red.

Field Marshall Gensui has been preparing for a scrap with the Red Lanterns and reveals a wonderfully direct countermeasure for such a situation. Apparently the Field Marshall keeps his civilian workforce in line with a pacification weapon that prevents the expression of strong emotion. It’s the kind of sci-fi contrivance that we often shrug off and accept without a second glance at this stage, but implement it in a story about a group whose power comes from their anger and you’ve got quite an appropriate plot device. It’s really quite amazing no one’s thought of this before, at least not to my knowledge.