What Is the Red Lantern Oath & What Is Their Origin Story?

Green Lantern Corps are by far the most popular Lantern Corps in the DC comics, but they are not the only one. Over the years, six other Corps were formed, and each had its own color of the spectrum and something that makes them stand out, be it negative or positive. We’re all used to “In brightest day, in blackest night” oath that Green Lanterns traditionally use, but what about other Lantern Corps? Despite being almost the second most popular Corps, the Red Lantern Corps Oath is little known among fans. We’re going to change that today as we bring you both Red Lantern Oath and their origin story. 

Who created the Red Lantern Corps? 

Red Lantern Corps were established by Atrocitus, but there’s a bit of a backstory to it. Atrocitus discovered the red spectrum while imprisoned on the planet Ysmault, blaming the Guardians of the Universe for the massacre in his sector. 

Fueled by years of hatred, he succumbed to his rage, brutally killing a fellow survivor named Qull with a Red Lantern Power Battery. After slaughtering other Inversions and using their blood, Atrocitus employed blood magics to create his own Red Lantern Central Power Battery, vowing revenge against the Guardians and Sinestro, the Green Lantern, who were basically to blame for his imprisonment.

Atrocitus soon started distributing Red Lantern rings across the universe to form an army aimed at destroying his aforementioned captors. Some of Red Lantern’s newest recruits included Vice, Dex-Star, Bleez, and Laira. Each transformed into a rage-fueled beings upon accepting the ring. 

The rings corrupted their hearts and, most importantly, bonded with them so that they managed to replace the organ, causing violent blood expulsion upon activation and throwing them into an almost animalistic state. 

Once Atrocitus gathered enough recruits, the Red Lanterns sought to capture Sinestro during his transfer for execution on Korugar. A chaotic and devastating battle occurred as the Sinestro Corps ambushed the Green Lantern escort, only to be counter-ambushed by the Red Lanterns. Successful in capturing Sinestro, Atrocitus ordered the Red Lanterns to retreat to Ysmault.

Back on Ysmault, Atrocitus bound Sinestro to a giant Red Lantern symbol as a form of revenge, torturing him and vowing to use his blood for new Red rings. Despite everything, Sinestro defied every request that Atrocitus had. Atrocitus, further angered, used a fallen Sinestro Corps member’s heart to uncover a hidden truth—the existence of Sinestro’s daughter, becoming Atrocitus’s new target for destruction.

What makes Red Lanterns special?

Red Lanterns are special and differ from other Lanterns in many aspects. First, they are totally dependent on their rings, and they can never take the ring off because once they do it, they will most likely drop dead because the ring replaced their heart. We’ve seen something similar happening when Supergirl unknowingly bonded with a Red Ring, becoming a Red Lantern.

Supergirl was filled with rage and at first loved her new group but eventually gained enough clarity and wanted to return to her former state. She managed to circumvent the major weakness by flying close to the sun and taking the Red Lantern Ring off. Even though the act initially killed her, being so close to the sun fueled her with additional solar radiation that allowed her healing factor to kick in and restore her heart. 

Allegedly, only a Blue Lantern can remove the Red Ring for its host, and only two Red Lanterns in history managed to take it off without dying. Guy Gardner and Supergirl, who we already mentioned. 

Red Lanterns are also notoriously difficult to control due to their, well, anger issues. Being fueled by rage means that you will not always be in control of your emotions, and most of the time, you will spend cleaning up after your own “assignments.” They are also extremely weak to love. Since love is on a completely opposite spectrum of emotions from hate and rage, their ring might reject them and kill them on the spot if they fall in love with someone. 

How powerful are Red Lanterns? 

Red Lanterns are extremely powerful, their main source of power being the Red Lantern Ring. The Red Lantern ring harnesses Red energy from a Power Battery, granting its wielders one of the most powerful weapons in the Universe. 

They can manipulate fundamental forces such as gravity, radiation, heat, light, and concussive force, with the extent determined by the user’s skill and imagination. A Red Lantern can unleash Rage Plasma, their most powerful ability, described as a napalm and acid mixture capable of burning through anything, including living beings and other power rings. 

The ring allows them to utilize energy projection, firing blasts of rage-energized blood with highly destructive consequences. 

 Red Lanterns can also create energy constructs, shaping tangible forms of pure rage limited only by the wearer’s imagination using their own anger as fuel. But only a few Red Lanterns use this ability, as most of them prefer attacking their enemies with bare hands or vomiting hot plasma on them.

Red Lantern Oath reflects their nature

Red Lanterns use the following Oath

With blood and rage of crimson red, ripped from a corpse so freshly dead, together with our hellish hate, we’ll burn you all, that is your Fate!

And I gotta say it’s quite brutal, but what’s interesting is that this quote had to be modified in ‘Green Lantern: The Animated Series’ due to its brutality. The revised quote went as following:

With blood and rage of crimson red,
We fill men’s souls with darkest dread,
And twist your minds to pain and hate,
We’ll burn you all–that is your fate!

What do you think about Red Lantern Corps? Let us know in the comments below!

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