Lanternson HBO Max turned into the surprise hit of the year, and coming at a crucial moment for DC Studios. It’s one of the highest-rated comic book series in HBO’s history, and has received glowing reviews almost across the board. Especially for its leads, Kyle Chandler (Hal Jordan) and Aaron Pierre (John Stewart). It single-handedly revived a DC Comics brand considered toxic (outside of comics) for fifteen years. And yet, this series is not at all what I wanted from a Green Lantern-centric show. But it proves that sometimes getting what you didn’t know you needed is better than getting what you asked for.
Although Green Lantern isn’t my favorite DC Comics series, it’s definitely one I’ve kept gravitating to over the years. And like most readers, I’d cite writer Geoff Johns’ nine-year stretch on the character as Green Lantern’s defining run. It’s big, it’s grand, it features aliens and cosmic entities, murderous space robots and ancient prophecies. It’s one of the best DC Comics series of the 2000s, and one I always hoped to see adapted in live-action properly. Alas, what we got was the 2011 Ryan ReynoldsGreen Lantern movie, and it killed the franchise in live-action for fifteen years.
Every piece of early promotion for Lanternsfilled me with dread. Yes, I knew the pedigree of the creative team was fantastic. Damon Lindelof, the man behind Watchmen, Lost, and The Leftovers? Tom King, writer of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow andVision? Chris Mundy, of Ozark andTrue Detective fame? These are guys with fantastic credentials. But everything I saw kept making me think of one of the most disappointing TV series DC adaptations of recent years, Titans. The Titansvibes were all over this project, and it filled me with dread.
LikeGreen Lantern, DC Comics’ Teen Titans is a series that is often big and cosmic. It may be led by urban vigilante Nightwing, but its membership includes an alien princess, a half-demon witch, and a green dude who turns into animals. Yet, the producers of that series looked at the source material and said, “This needs a gritty, realist approach. One with few costumes and lots of f-bombs.” The resulting show somehow made it to four seasons, and putting it mildly, it never became a fan-favorite. Whether you loved Teen Titansfrom the cartoons or the comics, the live-action show felt like it was constantly trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
On paper, Lanterns looked like more of the same thing as Titans. A “grounded” (cheaper to produce) take on very fantastical material. Unlike with Titans, there was at least some precedent for this in the Green Lantern comics. Namely, the revolutionary 1970s Green Lantern/Green Arrow run by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams, which introduced John Stewart. But what I wanted, and what most fans wanted, was not a Green Lantern series where the characters were so Earthbound, and barely wore costumes or used their powers. To many fans, this sounded like exactly the wrong approach.
LANTERNS Episode 5 Showed Us Pure Good and Evil
Yet the creative team on Lanterns somehow pulled it off. Despite “not being what I wanted,” it’s incredibly well-acted and well-written. Everyone involved is on their A-game, and somehow the “True Detective meets DC Comics” angle worked. Sometimes, a piece of art doesn’t deliver what you want, but gives you what you never knew you needed. And what’s amazing is that Lanterns does it all without disrespecting the original
Everything fans know and love about Green Lantern is (basically) still canon, even if you don’t see it onscreen often. In other words, you can fit a square peg into a round hole as long as the writing and acting are on point and there’s a compelling story to tell. If the creators actually have something to say. And they do have something to say—about age, race, masculinity, and both family and societal pressures. If you can deliver those things successfully, my “nerd needs” become secondary.
Of course, no matter how good it all is, as a DC Comics fan, I still bump up against some of the choices made here. The exact same show could have been delivered with some more actual Lantern powers on display. This show almost feels terrified of showing the Lanterns using their powers, as if it’s the early 2000s, an era when comic book movies were afraid to use bright colors and comics-accurate visuals. And where are the aliens? They talk about Mogo and Ch’p and Abin Sur, but everything non-terrestrial is strictly off-camera. A grounded show can maintain its grounding and not feel so embarrassed by its source material to this extent.
Nerdist’stake: If Lanterns Is a Good Show, That’s Ultimately What Matters Most
But at the end of the day, with Lanterns being so good in its execution, these are quibbles. If you’re not open to a quality series just because it’s not exactly what you imagined in your mind, then all you’re being is closed-minded and having a tantrum. And Green Lanternsuper fans should maybe stop making angry posts, and acknowledge that Lanterns has given credibility back to one of DC’s most important properties after the movie killed it and buried its corpse. It also means that more comics-accurate versions can arrive later, and they won’t automatically be met with collective eye rolls from the general audience. But all that aside, if it’s good TV, then that’s all that should matter in the end. And we’re lucky, because Lanterns makes for very good TV. Sometimes, that’s enough.
