Villain Profile: Atrocitus

Hate is a powerful emotion. Some might even claim it is the most powerful emotion. It motivates people to do the most awful, horrible things; from assault to murder to even Genocide, if said hatred is strong enough. Now, imagine if there was a group of people that had weapons fueled by both their own hatred, and the blood of others. It’s a pretty terrifying idea, isn’t it? That’s Atrocitus in a nutshell. Let’s get to it.

Funny how the former Psychologist could
really, really use a Shrink.

The being known as Atrocitus was originally named Atros. He was a psychologist on his home planet of Ryut. He had a family, a steady job and was very good at his job. His life would have been simple, and uneventful, if not for the Manhunters. The Manhunters were the immortal Guardians of the Universe’s first attempt at an intergalactic police force, and while they initially excelled in their peacekeeping duties, they kind of lost it. Believing that emotions were the source of all evil in the universe, they decided to destroy the source of evil. Specifically, we intelligent life forms. They purged Atros’ home sector of 666 of just about all life. Keep in mind, a GL sector consists of multiple galaxies, so yeah, that’s a staggering amount of dead bodies. As a matter of fact, only five beings survived the slaughter, one of them being Atros. Atros, driven pretty much insane at seeing his wife and children butcher in front of him, decided to do something about it. He renamed himself Atrocitus, and rallied the other four survivors of the destruction together into a terrorist cell known as the Five Inversions. Their mission, to gain vengeance against their hated enemy, the Guardians. Using an ancient mystic ritual, The Five Inversions were able to peer into the future, and were the first to hear the prophecy of the Blackest Night, which foretold the end of all life in the Universe. They apparently weren’t too fazed by this, and focused on their main goal of Guardian destruction. They created an empire they called “The Empire of Tears,” and attacked the Guardians, but were defeated and imprisoned on the planet Ysmault.

A few years later, Abin Sur, the Greatest GL to date, started making trips to Ysmault. He had somehow learned about the prophecy of the Blackest Night and was questioning the imprisoned Inversions on it. Sur learned enough of the Blackest Night to be certain that it would come to pass, and was willing to make a deal with the devil to learn more. He freed Atrocitus from his prison on Ysmault, and in exchange Atrocitus lead Sur to Earth. Why? Because the prophecy stated a human called “the Black” would be the one to begin the end of all things. They flew to Earth on a starship, due in part to another Inversion, Qull’s, prediction that Sur’s ring would fail him when he needed it most. Sur held Atrocitus in Hard-Light restraints, which proved his undoing. Atrocitus, knowing of the weaknesses of the GL Corps, used his keen psychological skills to attack Sur mentally. He filled Sur with Fear, which weakened the willpower created constructs, allowing Atrocitus to escape. He slashed Sur across the chest, mortally wounding him. Atrocitus escaped the crashing ship, while Sur’s ring flew off to collect HalJordan.

Atrocitus landed near an Air Force Base. He slaughtered most of the troops, and uttered what would become the Red Lantern Oath for the first time. “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!” After that he performed a ritual that told him the name of the he who would initiate the Blackest Night, William Hand. Atrocitus created a device using stolen computer parts and a gun to build a “cosmic diving rod” to lead him to Hand. After tracking Hand down, Atrocitus planned to rip out his innards and bring them to Ysmault as a trophy. The man has issues. He’s thwarted by Sinestro and the rookie GL Hal Jordan. Atrocitus initially overpowers Sinestro and Hal by using his machine to overload their rings, but the two quickly recover and capture Atrocitus. Atrocitus is brought back to Ysmault, where he makes a prediction about Sinestro’s home world of Korugar falling to chaos and disorder. It’s heavily implied that this was the first domino in Sinestro’s fall from grace.

He's all about the blood.

It was after Sinestro’s fall from grace that Atrocitus’ greatest and most terrible creation, the Red Lantern Corps was born. Using mysticism and his own fury, Atrocitus forged the first Red Lantern Battery. He anointed the battery in blood, using it to bludgeon fellow Inversion, Qull, to death. This was Qull’s punishment for telling Sur of the Blackest Night prophecy, which lead to the Inversions continued imprisonment on Ysmault instead of being moved to Oa’s sciencells. Atrocitus wanted to be closer to the enemy. Atrocitus then murdered the three other members of the Five Inversions to use their blood to create more Batteries, the first Red Power Rings, and finish the Red Central Battery. He dawned the first Red Power Ring, and was forever transformed. I’ll get into that a little more in a few minutes. Atrocitus began aggressively recruiting members for his Red Lantern Corps. Many had been personally wronged by Sinestro and his Sinestro Corps, and Atrocitus used that hate as part of his recruitment speech. He promised Sinestro’s head to his Corps. His recruits included a former GL named Liara.

Atrocitus lead his new corps into a fight between the Green Lantern and Sinestro Corps, killing Lanterns on both sides, indiscriminately.  They captured Sinestro, gravely wounded Hal Jordan, and brought Sinestro to Ysmault for execution. Now, Atrocitus had been planning his vengeance for years now, and he was going to enjoy every second of it. He nailed his hated adversary to a cross, I guess crucifixion is a popular form of execution even off world, and went about torturing him. And I don’t mean whipping, or pulling off his nails, Atrocitus has always preferred mental wounds. He wanted to make Sinestro watch as the Red Lantern’s razed Korugar, and tortured Sinestro’s previously hidden daughter. Those Blood Prophecies of Atrocitus’ are a real cheat. The weird thing is, it’s Atrocitus’ sadistic nature that lead to Sinestro’s escape. Putting off the execution allowed Jordan enough time to gather a group of his allies, the Blue Lanterns, to fly in and free Sinestro. Blue Lantern powers cancel out Red Lantern powers, so Hal had a major advantage. They freed Sinestro, and Atrocitus made another prediction, claiming the Guardians would take away Hal’s greatest love and that he’d go renegade again because of it. Sinestro claimed that Atrocitus was simply using the “prophecy” to attack Hal’s lingering guilt at being Parallax’s avatar. Atrocitus and his forces were defeated, but not forever. Atrocitus and his minions have continued to menace the Green Lantern Corps to this day.

He'll rip your heart out and show it to you.

The Red Lantern Power Ring that Atrocitus forged is the main source of his power, which is fueled by his hatred and rage. With it, he can create powerful barriers, fly, and after some practice he learned to make Hard Light constructs. His most well-known attack is… well, vomiting a huge amount of Red Lantern energy from his mouth. The Red Lantern’s energy is one of the most parasitic and destructive energies on the emotional spectrum. Other Lantern’s, save Blue Lanterns, lose their power while in close proximity to a RL for too long. The Red Lantern Energy is even harmful to their wielders. Most RL’s completely lose their minds after being exposed to the ring for too long. Atrocitus has overcome this particular problem with Magic, a benefit that he rarely shares with his lesser minions. Atrocitus leads his lesser RL’s like an alpha wolf, his command is absolute, and anyone that has enough mind to disagree is killed violently.

An interesting side note about the Red Lantern Ring is that the ring actually replaces the wielders heart. The ring quickly replaces the wielders blood with corrupted red energy. This energy works just like normal blood, but is much more…virulent. If Atrocitus or any Red Lantern is separated from their ring too long, they’ll die of blood loss. They can be healed by a Blue Lantern, but such cases are rare.

Atrocitus has only been used to his full potential once. This is most likely due to the fact that he’s a relatively new character, having only been created back in 2007. I imagine that as more time passes, we’ll see more of Atrocitus.

Atrocitus was the main antagonist for the first half of the only season of Green Lantern: The Animated Series. His face was completely redone for the series, having been smoothed out to give him a more organic look. Aside from the scar on the side of his face. Got to make him intimidating looking. Atrocitus leads an army of Red Lanterns and plans to lead an invasion out into Green Lantern Space after they reach the appropriate strength. This plan is somewhat derailed when Hal Jordan and his friend Kilowag arrived in the Lantern Frontier. It’s revealed through the course of the series that this Atrocitus is even more manipulative than his comic book counterpart, going so far to actually insight wars on other worlds to hopefully make new Red Lantern warriors. He’s ultimately defeated in the midseason finale and imprisoned. Had the series continued, I imagine he’d have made several more appearance. But, sadly, it will never be.

The Atrocitus I know best is the Green Lantern: TAS, and just based on that, I love this bad guy. He’s cruel, he’s sadistic, and all he cares about is sating his own appetite for revenge. While “grey” bad guys are all the rage, I do love seeing the bad guy that is as closed to black as possible. Granted, he has a tragic background, but I highly doubt anyone could say that give him the right to cause all the evil that he does. He’s the wrathful Red Lantern, the shaman of blood, the atrocious Atrocitus. Next time, we’ll be discussing Larfleeze, aka Agent Orange. 

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