After speaking about villains, character development and future crossovers, Red Lanterns writer Charles Soule spoke with ComicVine about the series. As usual, check the highlights below.
Soule on Atrocitus’ plans as issue #21 kicks off:
Yeah. Atrocitus is a gigantic part of the Red Lanterns story. You can’t tell a story that doesn’t include Atrocitus. When we start, he is basically in a position where he’s thinking, “We’ve spent most of our existence relating to issues that the Greens have had. We get called in as heavy hitters at the last minute to sort of save the day as a big nuclear assault. But where does that get us? What are we supposed to be for?” Some of his Reds are asking him those same questions as the leader so he’s trying to figure some of that stuff out.
When the first issue begins, he has a plan that he’s going to put into effect. You’ll get a sense of what he wants to do and where he’s going to take them. When Guy Gardner shows up, sent in as almost a…I think ‘spy’ is maybe a little strong but certainly, Hal sends him to the Reds on purpose, on a mission to keep tabs on them. He doesn’t want to be blindsided by anything that the Reds might do. Integrating those two viewpoints is going to make some sparks.
Guy Gardner vs Atrocitus for leader of the Red Lanterns?
Guy isn’t really looking to run the Red Lanterns. Who wants that job? Certainly not Guy Gardner. But at the same time, if you’re doing something Guy Gardner thinks is idiotic, he’s going to let you know about it. There will be significant conflict between Guy Gardner and Atrocitus. No doubt about it.
Soule lists the core cast of the series:
You’ll still see all of the other Red Lanterns. I should say I’m focusing on the ones that are sort of sentient, the ones that can think. I think it’s tough to write a book that’s all about just screaming rage monsters. The ones that are the core cast are Ratchet, Rankorr, Skallox, Bleez, Zilius Zox, Atrocitus and Guy Gardner. The ones we’ve seen, up to this point, as the thinking talking ones that have personalities and different power sets.
As far as whether or not we see them, yeah, we see a lot of them. Guy Gardner is a big part of the book. I would say he’s certainly one of the leads. When you take on a team book, it’s a ‘team book.’ I think it’s doing a disservice to the work that other people have done in creating those characters and obviously the readers to not treat them that way. Everyone gets their moments. Certainly with that big a cast, not everyone’s at the full front of each issue at every moment but you can bring them out and pull them back. Hopefully it’ll all work out nicely.
Soule talks Dex-Starr:
Yeah, I think Dex-Starr is one of the coolest things about the Red Lanterns and it would be idiotic of me not to use him. He does something pretty cool in the first issue. Then he continues to have a pretty sweet role going forward. I like Dex-Starr quite a bit, just like everybody else does. He’s a cool, weird space cat.
