Charles Soule Talks Red Lanterns War, Futures End

From Newsarama

Anger may seem like a pretty straightforward emotion. But in DC's Red Lanterns title, writer Charles Soule is exploring the different facets of anger - and the war that results from those differences.

This summer, Red Lanterns gets some newly designed members and a whole lot of action, as Guy Gardner's "good" Lanterns battle Atrocitus and his rage Lanterns.

In a storyline titled "Atrocities," the war between factions will begin in next month's issue #32 and continue through July's Red Lantern Annual #1 and issues #33 and #34.

Then the results of "Atrocities" tie directly into September's Futures End issue.

Former Green Lantern Guy Gardner has been leading the Red Lantern Corps for the last dozen issues of the comic, ever since Soule took over writing duties with issue #21 last June. But Guy actually stole leadership of the Corps from Atrocitus, who's back for revenge, along with his loyal rage kitty Dex-Starr.

Newsarama talked to Soule about the "Atrocities" storyline and what readers can expect from September's Futures End "Five Years Later" issue.

Newsarama: Charles, everything seems to be coming to a head this summer, as Atrocitus and his team are gearing up to battle Guy Gardner and his team. Can you explain what's brought them to this point, and what this war between the two factions will bring to the title over the next few months?

Charles Soule: What I've been building toward since the start of my run on Red Lanterns — and I don't think this is going to come as any sort of surprise to anyone who's been reading — is really a big battle between Atrocitus and Guy Gardner.

They both have very different views about what the Red Lanterns should be and can be. And now those views are going to come to a head.

It also doesn't necessarily help Guy that in his first five minutes as a Red Lantern, he basically beat Atrocitus to death, stole his ring and stole his corps out from under him. So Atrocitus has a huge vendetta that he wants to satisfy.

And Guy is now trying to preserve this thing he built. He's turned these people who didn't really like each other, didn't really like themselves, and he turned them into… I hesitate to say team; it's more of a family unit. They don't really go against super villains, or that kind of goal. But they certainly have each other’s backs. And he feels like he's responsible for Atrocitus being so angry, so now he's basically trying to save his family, pretty much.

Atrocitus is going to do everything he can to stop him, and that's what we're building up to.

Nrama: The end of this week's issue said it's time for them to rescue Rankorr, which is probably going to contribute toward the war between these two factions (although as you mentioned, there are a lot of things leading toward this battle). But the next issue sees this rescue and the confrontation begins?

Soule: I think that's pretty fair to say.

I cued up kind of a million dominoes, let's say, over the series. There are a lot of things that will start to play out in the next several issues. The whole thing, for me, has been writing a strong revenge saga. I wanted to give Guy something to lose, and I wanted to give Atrocitus something that he really wanted to gain back.

You can kind of sympathize with both of them, in a way. You understand why Atrocitus would be so ticked off.

But now all these plotlines have been set up, and now it's time to let the chips fall where they may.

It's really fun, you know, when you get to write kind of a long story like this. It's hundreds of pages, at this point. So it's very fun.

Click here to read the full interview.

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