Saturday, January 1, 2011

One Good Thing And One Bad Thing About Green Lantern #61



BAD THING: This issue, which centers entirely upon the three-way battle between The Spectre (aka Wrath of God), Acrocitus (aka the leader of the Red Lanterns) and The Butcher (aka The Avatar Entity of Rage/Red Energy) over the soul of a father consumed by rage over the rape/death of his daughter raises some rather conflicting questions over the cosmology of the DC Universe.





For instance, The Spectre makes reference to having ordered The Butcher off of Earth... yet surely The Spectre, as a servant of The Presence/God Almighty, has jurisdiction over the whole of reality and not just the souls of humans on Earth? I seem to recall some stories where The Spectre went after alien killers.


GOOD THING: Cosmological problems aside, this issue is a great character study of Acrocitus, similar in tone to the Rogue Profile issues Johns wrote during his popular run on The Flash. We've already seen some signs of a deeper depth to Acrocitus' character in the past and how he became an agent of Rage out of some twisted sense of justice. The scenes here - where he defends a man from The Spectre's wrath at the risk of his own soul in the name of justice - suggests that perhaps he is not so twisted as we've been led to believe, despite his dark powers.







The Final Verdict: A great character study of the character of Acrocitus and a wonderful story that raises some interesting questions about the nature of spiritual power in the DC Universe, even if the answers seem to be at odds with what little we know.

2 comments:

  1. "Apology NOT accepted."
    First, loved the issue as usual.
    Second, Atrocitus is one of the characters I look forward to reading the most. I'm giddy that the Reds are getting their own series in 2011.
    Third, I don't really see any problems with the cosmological issues here. We really don't know the details of his previous run-in with the Butcher. And I think something like banishment from Earth is actually somewhat fitting since the Butcher (and all of the other emotional embodiments) are more like forces of nature that are more a part of the universe than even the Spectre is. That's my theory anyway.

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  2. Re: "Apology NOT accepted."
    Well, the ratings of the Cosmological players have been up in the air for a while now.
    http://www.comicvine.com/dc-comics/57-10/dc-power-grid/92-529769/ has what appears to be a fairly well updated list of the rankings, based off the old Mayfair DC Comics RPG (they have Elaine from Lucifer listed at the top, along with the big G himself) and according to the listings Parallax and Ion (as entitites) are on par with The Spectre at full-power.
    So my best guess is that Spectre may have been able to hold his own and convince the Butcher it was better to leave one planet alone.
    Problem is The Spectre isn't the bargaining type and - again - his scope should be the whole or reality, rather than just Earth.

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