Contains spoilers for “Lanterns” Season 1, Episode 3 — “OutKast”
The cold open to the season premiere of “Lanterns” took us back in time to 1996, when Hal Jordan (played by Kyle Chandler, the latest live-action version of DC’s Green Lantern) first sat down for a “60 Minutes” interview and a young John Stewart was at home, sneakily trying to watch as much as he could before his dad returned home. There wasn’t anything massively different from the comics about the origin story Hal revealed both in that interview and directly to an older John (Aaron Pierre) later on — he’d followed in the footsteps of his pilot father, who died when he was young, and one day was transported to a dying alien who gave him his Power Ring. However, John’s home life is noticeably different to any of his comic book origins to date.
Before we cut to John teaming up with Hal in the present day, we see his marine father pull him outside, trying to instill the no fear ethos required of a Green Lantern into his son by making him put an apple on his head for him to shoot off. This week’s extended flashback episode reveals that this was a very deliberately misleading cold open, painting a picture of an abusive father who had made life under his roof miserable due to his obsession with turning his son into a superhero. It wasn’t revealed how he knew about the no fear criteria to become a Green Lantern — that wasn’t made public until Hal’s TV interview, which he wasn’t in the room for — and we didn’t circle back to the ’90s until this week’s stellar third episode. Here’s what Episode 3 told us about John Stewart’s origin story and how it differs from the source material.
John Stewart’s origin story in Lanterns
The Guardians of the Universe don’t typically hold job interviews for prospective candidates, but they’re organizing secret meetings to find someone they hope will replace Hal Jordan, with the only parallel to the comics being the suggestion that they’ve been watching John Stewart throughout his life. The biggest difference is that his marine father, John Sr. (J. Alphonse Nicholson), was previously taken by the Guardians and asked if he was afraid, and when he said yes, he failed their test to become a Green Lantern, something baby John saw from his crib in the corner of his room. When Hal’s identity is revealed and he discusses being asked that question as his test to become the Green Lantern, it sends the elder John into a meltdown, with an offhanded reference that he’s become an alcoholic (although not the abuser he was in the comics).
Later, a representative of the Guardians (played by “Ozark” star Laura Linney) visits the family home to try and offer compensation for any distress caused to the family; due to cultural differences, they hadn’t realized that their selection process could have caused PTSD in a country where unprovoked racial violence is sadly a norm. In sitting down with John’s mother, Bernadette (Nicole Ari Parker), Linney’s character reveals that the same qualities in her husband’s DNA are present in their son’s, but for him to be taken seriously as a potential Green Lantern, he’d need to be raised without fear. She gives the family her word he’d be given a fair shot at becoming a Lantern when the next spot on the Guardians opened up. It recontextualizes the cold open of the season and John’s relationship with his family; oddly, training his son in this way made the older John less of a tyrant than his comic book counterpart.
John Stewart’s various comic book origins
Introduced in “Green Lantern” Vol. 2 #87 in December 1971, John Stewart was initially depicted as the only son to a single mother, a budding architect who was chosen by the Guardians of the Universe to be Hal Jordan’s backup after Guy Gardner was injured in action. John and Hal had the same testy dynamic we’ve seen in this series, with John’s first mission of protecting a racist politician from an assassination attempt initially going as badly as you’d expect when entrusted to a Civil Rights activist. Hal was quickly won over when John proved it was staged to suit a right-wing agenda.
The character’s origin was rebooted twice during DC’s New Earth period, with the post “Crisis on Infinite Earths” and post “Zero Hour” iterations both having more tortured childhoods. The latter version’s father was an alcoholic who abused his wife regularly. In both cases, he had a far closer relationship with his Aunt Loretta (not depicted in this series so far). It was her who motivated him to become an activist and architect, in the latter origin because he stole her car to joyride at 15 and crashed into a drunk-driver, affirming that he wanted to change and do good.
“Lanterns” lifts more from the 2011 comics reboot, in which John’s a former marine (something that was introduced in the animated series “Justice League Unlimited” before being slowly incorporated into the comics by Geoff Johns in the late ’00s). Here, his childhood is different once again: He was constantly in trouble with the police and had a little sister who died young. Nobody in his life was aware of his destiny, and although the Guardians kept an eye on him, they put him through a heroic test rather than an unconventional job interview like in the series. While many of his traits from the comics are present in “Lanterns,” DCU John had a very different childhood to any incarnation we’ve previously seen.
If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, re
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