The Red Lantern Corps are first mentioned during the "Sinestro Corps War" storyline. Foreshadowing another major crossover event in the DC Universe, former-Guardian Ganthet reveals the Blackest Night prophecy to Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Kyle Rayner. The prophecy describes a War of Light between seven Corps powered by the lights of the emotional spectrum. Part of the prophecy reads: "A force of hate will rise as the Red Lantern is anointed in blood, the bearer's rage unfiltered and unchecked."

According to DC continuity, before recruiting sentient beings to the Green Lantern Corps, the Guardians formed a robotic army called the Manhunters to maintain order across the universe. After eons of service the renegade Guardian, Krona, altered their central programming, leading them to believe that the only way of maintaining order was to completely rid the universe of all known life. Sector 666 falls victim to this new philosophy when the Manhunters slaughter all but five of its inhabitants. The five survivors become known as the Five Inversions, a terrorist cell bent on the destruction of the Guardians of the Universe. They are incarcerated on the planet Ysmault, where one member, Atrocitus, is so consumed by his rage that it results in the formation of the first red power battery. Atrocitus had previously escaped at times, only to be defeated and returned. On one such occasion he fatally attacks Green Lantern Abin Sur; but Atrocitus is returned to confinement by (then Green Lantern) Sinestro. Atrocitus uses his power battery to bludgeon Qull and the other Inversions to death; however, he expresses more interest in exacting revenge on Sinestro.

Geoff Johns describes the Red Lantern Corps as likely being "the most violent of the Corps [...] based on violent reaction driven by emotional eruption -- rage -- instead of any clear-cut plan of war." He describes Atrocitus as "the most coherent and in control of the Red Lanterns," but notes that he will have trouble controlling the other, more feral members. Sinestro is their primary target.

As the power of rage consumes and drowns the intelligence of the users, the average Red Lantern is left in a barely animalistic mindset, with limited speech abilities and lacking any ability of abstract thought and understanding, and of every other form of volition but endless rage, driven by hatred and a dim memory of his past life, focused on the circumstances forcing him to hate in the first place. Atrocitus is able to restore his fellow Red Lanterns to their previous mental acuity with his shamanistic magic. The ritual, employed only once on Bleez, restored her previous mindset and ability for coherent thought, without dimming her rage. As such, Bleez, as Atrocitus, is still consumed by rage, but also loathing her endless suffering.

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