DC’s Atrocitus is an alien who leads the Red Lantern Corps on a self-imposed mission to avenge the deaths of his family and people. Geoff Johns, a writer, and Ethan Van Sciver, an illustrator, collaborated on his creation.
Before founding the corps, Atrocitus embarked on a perilous trip in search of power to confront the culprits of his misfortune. In the process, he learned a lot about the universe, especially about prophecies, made allies and adversaries, and discovered a dark power that was far more powerful than the Lanterns’ light.
Despite his status as a supervillain, numerous fans regard him as an anti-hero. In fact, even though his values are not the best, he is a victim in his situation. We shall go over his journey from a survivor of slaughter to a deadly antagonist in this video.
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From Escaping Death To A Dreaded Villain
Before we get to the details, let’s go over the power of emotion, shall we? After sentient life began in the universe, an interesting spectrum was created – the Emotional Spectrum. It branched out into seven colors where each color was representative of an emotion. And these emotions powered the corps of their respective colors.
The Green Lantern Corps are powered by green, the color of willpower. Yellow is the representative of fear, think Parallax. Blue is hope, violet is love, orange is avarice, indigo is compassion, and lastly, red is rage.
This red light of rage powers the Red Lantern Corps, which has been founded and is led by Atrocitus himself. Characterized by his uncontrollable rage, he often makes his opponents succumb to their own anger. However, it’s not all black and white or good and bad with him since there’s a reason he’s so angry.
A group of robotic sentinels a.k.a. the Manhunters were created to safeguard the universe or act as the universal police force. These robots were devoid of any emotion and they only ruled by logic. As a result, they couldn’t differentiate between right and wrong from a moral point of view.
At first, the plan worked out perfectly, i.e. until the Manhunters experienced a simultaneous glitch where they believed that as long as organic life exists, there cannot be order in the Universe. And so, they slaughtered almost everyone in the world of Sector 666.
During the massacre of Sector 666, the Guardians of the Universe caused the death of Atrocitus’ family. As a result of this atrocity, he swore revenge and made an enemy out of the Guardians.
There were five remaining survivors. And Atrocitus was one of them alongside Roixeaume, Quill, and two others.
Together, they formed the Five Inversions to avenge those who were killed. Since the Manhunters were unleashed by the Guardians, the Guardians directly came under Atrocitus’ line of fire, who became the leader of this organization.
The Five Inversions used sorcery and blood rituals to find a power that they could use against the Guardians. Somewhere down the line, they saw a future where the Universe was devoid of life i.e. the Blackest Night.
Now, they wanted to harness the power of Black. Interestingly, this is a power system where several living beings are fueled by powers stemming from colors and light. But when every color is absorbed, it creates black – a color that signifies the absence of color.
Anyway, they formed the Empire of Tears, a domain that spanned almost three galaxies. However, the Guardians took on the Five Inversions in their own domain and crucified them on Ysmault, their throneworld. The planet was also declared to be off-limits to the Green Lantern Corps. So you can see how Atrocitus had a very rough start.
Later, they were sought out by the Green Lantern named Abin Sur who tried to find the survivors of a crash. Atrocitus refused to be of assistance to him but Quill, one of the Five Inversions, helped him out. Qull told Sur about the location of the survivors, Sur’s fate, and the prophecy that predicted the Blackest Night. After this, Sur would often go back to Ysmault to learn how the Blackest Night could be prevented. He even freed Atrocitus to take him to Earth, which was the origin planet of the ‘black’.
During this time, Atrocitus used the yellow impurity to instill fear in Sur to weaken him. He then escaped after wounding Sur mortally and landed on Earth. Atrocitus violently rampaged the planet, killing innumerable troopers. Here, he performed a ritual that made him seek out Black Hand or William Hand, the herald of the Blackest Night. Atrocitus created a cosmic weapon to seek out a Hand and tracked a human who would supposedly play a big role in the Blackest Night.
Atrocitus believed that Hand’s insides held the doorway to the darkness so he tried to take him back to Ysmault. But, he was stopped by a rookie Hal Jordan and Sinestro. William Hand was saved but Atrocitus attacked with his new device. It depleted the Lantern rings of their powers but Sinestro’s power battery came to the rescue. However, they still weren’t strong enough to overpower Atrocitus. However, Hal Jordan saved the day, and Atrocitus was contained and taken to Oa.
Later, Sinestro was given a prophecy by the Five Inversions, one about a rebellion plaguing Sinestro’s homeworld of Korugar.
Rage of the Red Lanterns
After the Sinestro Corps War, Atrocitus became the first person to wield the power of rage with a Red Lantern power battery. He sought out Sinestro, who used to call himself the greatest Green Lantern in the past.
Atrocitus’ power battery needed blood for activation and he got that blood after he used the ring to beat his ally Qull to death. He then founded the Red Lantern Corps to destroy Sinestro. He killed the other Inversions, formed a Central Power Battery with their blood, and created a red power ring.
No matter how rageful he was, he could not go against Sinestro by himself. Mainly because Sinestro would obviously have aid and allies. So, Atrocitus gave out the Red Lantern rings to some of Sinestro’s victims to form his own army. They were able to absolutely demolish several Green Lantern Corps as well as those from the Sinestro Corps. In the end, Sinestro was captured, and Atrocitus and co. headed back to Ysmault.
In the capital, Sinestro was crucified as Atrocitus vowed to destroy Korugar, Sinestro Corps, and the Green Lantern Corps by using Sinestro’s blood for new rings to power his Red Lantern Corps. To take a huge toll on Sinestro and instill him with fear, Atrocitus decided to kill his daughter. However, the Sinestro Corps and the Blue Lanterns arrived to rescue Sinestro when Jordan was able to injure Atrocitus. They saved Sinestro and retreated to Qward while Atrocitus tracked down the homeworld of the Blue Lanterns.
Blackest Night
The most anticipated storyline with reference to Atrocitus, Blackest Night saw the descent of black power rings onto Ysmault. It revived the bodies of the other Inversions after which Quill tried to kill Atrocitus, who survived because the Red Lantern ring can replace the heart.
After taking an L against Hal Jordan and co., Atrocitus agreed to aid them in their battle against the Black Lanterns. However, he would go back to his original scheme of killing the Guardians after the conflict. During this time, Atrocitus sensed the spirit of a Black Lantern Specter and wished to obtain its powers after freeing the spirit. Parallax ended up freeing the Specter but Atrocitus could not harness its power as it was the true spirit of rage and vengeance and it wasn’t up for being trifled with.
Brightest Day
Atrocitus is once again made to work alongside Guy Gardner and Ganthet for a mission. He arrives in New York City to find the entities of the emotional spectrum. He uses their blood to perform rituals that allow him to locate every entity except Parallax and Ion.
In this storyline, it is also revealed that despite being the embodiment of rage, Atrocitus had developed some heart and sensitivity as he did not want to kill the innocent. That shouldn’t be a surprise since this guy is taking things this far to avenge his people and not because of some unjustified rage and bloodlust. In fact, he had a wife and children who were killed during the Manhunters’ massacre.
Atrocitus locates the rage entity known as the Butcher and imprisons it. During this time, he comes across Krona, the Oan whose actions created the Guardians. Atrocitus took out his pent-up anger against him after years of waiting. However, Krona exorcized the rage entity that Atrocitus had captured to harness its powers and ended up defeating Atrocitus and the New Guardians. Following this, Krona left with the entities while the New Guardians and Atrocitus had to find Krona again.
War Of The Green Lanterns
Following Krona’s departure, Larfleeze detects Ophidian, the entity of Avarice, at Ryut. The other New Guardians and Atrocitus follow suit to find Krona, who is missing in action. Here, they come across the Book of the Black which reveals that the glitch that caused the Manhunters to wipe out Sector 666 was programmed by Krona himself.
Later, Guy, Ganthet, and Atrocitus made a pact that stated that after Krona was defeated, he would be handed over to Atrocitus for justice.
The First Comic Book Appearance: Explored
For his very first appearance, Atrocitus did not get a specific storyline of his own. He appeared kind of in the comic version of a cameo role in Green Lantern Volume 4 Issue 25. The comic was published on November 5, 2007, but had a cover date of January 2008.
It was written by Geoff Johns, who has a plethora of big names under his belt such as Flashpoint, several Green Lantern comics, Justice League: Origin, and so on.
This issue revolves around the Sinestro Corps and ends with the birth of the Black Lantern. Within the first ten pages of the story, after the colors of the Emotional Spectrum are introduced, a two-page spread of a battle reveals Atrocitus for the very first time in the bottom right section of the page.
As the Green Lantern Corps and the Sinestro Corps battle each other, Ganthet and Syd discuss the situation with the exiled Green Lanterns on Earth. They talk about the Blackest Night, which will unfold as the seven colors of the Lantern Corps fight one another. Of course, Atrocitus would be a part of this as the leader of the Red Lantern Corps.
What Makes Him So Powerful?
The Green Lantern is powerful enough to be one of the primary members of the Justice League. Naturally, as the leader of the Red Lanterns, Atrocitus’s strength and abilities put him in a very powerful position.
He has a red power battery and a red power ring, the origins of which we have briefly discussed previously.
Starting with the obvious red power ring, it can help Atrocitus affect and use the universe’s fundamental forces such as radiation, gravity, light, heat, and powerful blasts. He can also create force fields with energy from the user’s will. Atrocitus can use it to make people succumb to their own pent-up rage.
It allows Red Lanterns to obtain the unique abilities of other red lanterns provided the former drinks the blood of the latter. Vampire but make it cooler.
It can also absorb rage energy and affect the electromagnetic fields to allow the user to fly. So far, these are just the abilities of the ring that Atrocitus can wield. But that’s not all that makes him dangerous.
With his alien physiology, Atrocitus has superhuman strength and durability. One of his most OP abilities that he uses time and again is his magic. Atrocitus uses blood magic borne from ancient rituals to use the powers of the Empire of Tears and the Five Inversions.
He can also use the blood rituals to discover the future and attain knowledge of prophecies such as that of the Blackest Knight and the fall of Sinestro. He also uses it to track down someone, which he did to find William Hand and the entities of the colors of the Emotional Spectrum.
With magic, electromagnetic fields, impressive physical stats, and an unimaginable rage at his disposal, wanting to make an enemy out of Atrocitus would be…atrocious.
He has villainous instincts but a layered and complex personality. As a result, Atrocitus has occasionally expressed his grief in front of his foes. In fact, a smooth and happy life is not the type that births seething rage in one’s heart, making Atrocitus a character who people can sympathize with. And, it’s good to blow off some steam once in a while eh?
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