Red Lanterns #26

If the Red Lanterns were drawn to irrational anger wherever it occurs in the universe, they'd spend all of their time at fast food drive-thrus.

Do Red Lanterns need to recharge their rings if they don't make light constructs? And if they don't make light constructs, does that mean they're not tapping the emotional spectrum? If that's the case then they're the only Lantern Corps that is fit to serve as Guardians of the Universe (if you buy into Relic's hypothesis and if they give up trying to replicate Rankorr's abilities). I suppose their rings work somewhat differently and tap straight into the emotional spectrum, pumping Red Light into the bodies of the Red Lanterns on a continual basis. Which would probably make them the worst wasters of emotional spectrum energy! Perhaps energy from the emotional spectrum is simply used up whenever anybody has strong emotions of any kind. Which would make Hal Jordan the worst waster of emotional energy as he willfully disregards the right, just, and non-selfish path to be taken in every single circumstance in his life.

That has nothing to do with this comic book because what the fuck do the Red Lanterns care about wasting emotional energy? And anyways, Peak Emotion is a myth at best and a huge con job at worst, perpetrated by arrogant, know-it-all scientists that are obviously making up everything just to get their hands on government grant money. If we're so low on emotional energy, how come I got so mad at my neighbor's kid yesterday that I stole his soccer ball, drew his face on it with a permanent marker, and fucked it straight in the eye? If we were running out of emotional energy, I probably would have just rolled my eyes and kept watching Judge Judy. Fucking scientists.

It is telling, though, that the people who blame scientists for being greedy, selfish narcissists are themselves greedy, selfish narcissists. People tend to live in a world where they automatically assume that everybody ultimately reacts the same way as they do and have the same needs and desires as they have. That's why I tend to believe that everybody hates Scott Lobdell, that they're all gorgeous geniuses, and that they all frequently engage in frank discussions about masturbation. The Non-Certified Spouse says that I give people the benefit of the doubt way too often. That's because I'm projecting my own superior being onto everyone I meet! Whenever I greet somebody, I say, "So, you must be an amazing lover." Then I glance down to see how strong their forearms look.

No wonder I always fall behind on my comic book reading. Why can't I stay on topic?

So, as you can see by the cover, The Red Lanterns had been captured by some jerk named Gensui. Except the cover shows Zilius Zox also captured (if you squint just right, you'll see him right behind Bleez!) and he isn't at all captured! He's upgrading the Red Lantern's ship with some super special upgrade that I bet is some kind of remote control doodad so that the ship can fly in to rescue them right before the firing squad kills them!

The Red Lanterns are captured in a Chill Field which gives Gensui a moment to explain to them the tricks of his trade.

If it was the fancy mustaches, 85% of the population in Portland would be dictators.

I have now taken some night-time sleepy time cough medicine so I hope I can make it through the entire issue before nodding off.

Zilius Zox skedaddles in Pirate Barg's ship, probably to go off and do it to his horse. But Gensui decides to go Full Empire on Zilius Zox's ass and demonstrate his Cosmic Death Weapon on Zox and Barg's ship. Barg is not very happy about this turn of events. But what can he do? He isn't going to betray his best friend just for some ship, right? He's no leader of a cloud mining colony that has gambling debts he needs to pay off! He'll probably just sit back and accept that he's Gensui's little bitch.

Gensui blasts Zilius Zox's teeny, tiny pub-shaped ship but not before Zox fists it with his ring hand. I bet that will get it moving!

Meanwhile on Goswam, Atrocitus fucks a giant in the ear.

After supposedly killing Zilus Zox, Gensui gives the command to kill the rest of the Red Lanterns. Except for Ratchet, they all take death in stride. Ratchet's ring seems to be wanting to abandon him, probably because he's been having kind and altruistic thoughts. Now it's going to leave him for sure because he's sacrificed himself to save the rest of the Red Lanterns as he blocks all the gunfire with his tentacles and his face. And that's when Zilius Zox returns with his fist up the ass of a star ship, blasting away at Gensui's army and saving the day! After Ratchet saved the day, of course. But Ratchet's Day Save didn't fully take because the guards still had more ammunition in their gun and Ratchet only has so much surface area with which to block bullets.

If I were writing this comic book, the ship would eventually gain Artificial Intelligence and it would have a huge crush on Zilius Zox.

Zox destroys the weapon that was producing the Happy Go Lucky Field around the Red Lanterns so that they can return to flipping the fuck out. Pirate Barg runs away because he probably has some secret means to reboard his ship so that he can cause trouble later. And Bleez kills Gensui because he's a weak-willed jerko that would rather not kill all the slaves on the planet and die quickly than kill them all and be tortured by the Red Lanterns for as long as their attention span holds out.

Speaking of attention spans which may or may not have anything to do with the next bit (depending on how you perceive shit), whatever happened to the female Czarnian Red Lantern? She just stopped being drawn in the background and then all the Red Lanterns died from Poisoned Red Energy and/or Relic and/or The Insatiables or whatever the fuck the creatures living under Ysmault's surface were called. How the fuck am I supposed to remember fucked up on cough medicine? Not that I'd remember anyway.

Ratchet dies from his wounds and he gives a really heart-felt and touching speech which I considered scanning but he speaks it in a much smaller font than the rest of the comic book and he makes sure to place his speech bubbles as far apart as he can in a panel that stretches the entire length of a page. That means even if I scan it, it would probably be really hard to read. So I'll just summarize what he said here:

"Never gonna give you up! Never gonna let you down! Never gonna run around and desert you! Never gonna make you cry! Never gonna say goodbye! Never gonna tell a lie and hurt..KKKKTT!"

That "KKKKTT" noise at the end was the death rattle sound effect of a brainy blob of tentacles. So sad.

Back on Goswam, Atrocitus comes inside the giant's head and the giant dies.

Red Lanterns #26 Rating: +1 Ranking. I can't wait to see who Ratchet's ring chooses as the new Red Lantern! I bet it'll be some super villain from Earth because that would be exciting and the Red Lanterns could use more people from Earth, right? Maybe it'll choose a puppy! No, puppies don't have rage. Perhaps a Gerbil?