We finally know what those mysterious portals are in Lanterns, and it makes a disturbing amount of sense. Lanterns is an unusual TV show, with every episode reinterpreting everything that went before it. Lanterns episode 3 was John Stewart’s origin story, and it radically changed our understanding of the character. John has been groomed to become a Green Lantern all his life, trained to be what his parents thought a perfect Green Lantern would be – something so much less than human.
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But the backstory also revealed another secret of the Guardians: an aspect of their technology we’ve never really seen before in the comics. Trailers for Lanterns had given glimpses of mysterious black portals, and we had no idea what they meant. Finally, we saw John Stewart interact with one of these portals, and we learned just what they can actually do.
These Portals Are Gateways – But We Don’t Know Where To
This scene in Lanterns reminded me of Backrooms and liminal spaces. So bizarrely cool that the Guardians use an abandoned shopping mall as their hideout on earth pic.twitter.com/yqAHRk1N7D
— DCU Brief (@DCUBrief) August 31, 2026
Lanterns has already established that the Guardians have mastery over space (and likely time, as well). In Lanterns episode 2, John discovered Hal Jordan has his own personal pocket dimension where he stored the Lantern. It comes as no surprise, then, to see that the Guardians have created what seem to be wormholes. From either side, these portals appear perfectly black, presumably meaning no light escapes the wormholes. But they can be used to transport people or objects for an unknown distance.
In the flashback, John is put to a test by an unidentified Guardian. He steps into one of these portals, and he’s immediately transported to what seems to be an abandoned shopping mall. In narrative terms, this serves as something of a “liminal space,” a place between the cosmic and the terrestrial. Notice that the Lanterns use this as a fear test, because John has no idea where he’s going, and falls a great height before hitting mattresses they’ve arranged.
It’s worth noting that we don’t know whether or not this shopping mall is real. The Guardians know how to conceal themselves, and there’s no reason to assume they couldn’t deliberately create a liminal space that’s loosely analogous to a real environment on Earth. In that scenario, rather than a wormhole, the black portal is in fact the gateway to another pocket dimension – one deliberately designed to freak people out. That possibility can’t be ruled out at this stage.
Lanterns trailers have hinted the Manhunters possess this portal technology, too. If these are wormholes, then these portals would mean the Manhunter conspiracy could easily span the globe – with Rushville serving as the main base. Alternatively, if these are gateways to pocket dimensions, then anything up to and including alien spaceships and entire armies could be concealed beneath Rushville. We’ll have to wait and see as more is revealed.
Lanterns: 4 Biggest Questions to Ask After That Game-Changing Episode 3 Origin Story
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