You’ve all heard the flap that the devout fan base for DC’s Green Lantern was not overjoyed with the look of the first teaser that dropped for Damon Lindelof’s show LANTERNS. It wasn’t steeped in GL lore, it didn’t show enough green, the brief glimpse of a GL uniform fell flat, and such. That these two intergalactic cops were drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery didn’t trigger a lot of excitement. Be bold, don’t try to fit the tale into an HBO mold, no matter how aesthetic that mold is; you did it with GAME OF THRONES, you can do it again.
Other disrespect came the IP’s way when a quote from Lindelov from a while back came to haunt him. He said, “It’s called Lanterns because we all agreed that the green was stupid. Now, it’s just Lanterns.” GL comic book writer Grant Morrison called him out on it, stating, “The only people who give a fuck about the Lanterns TV series are Green Lantern fans. Why alienate them at the start? That feels more like ‘stupid.’”
And the backpedaling began. Lindelov responded at length but said, “I was sloppy and careless with my words, ironic considering I care so much about Hal, John, and the entire Corps. I can and will do better to be worthy of the oath…until then, I’ll let the show speak for itself, and I can’t wait for you all to hear what it has to say.”
The showrunner, Chris Mundy, worded it all much better when he declared, “It was less challenging than it was just exciting. Our take was that we have this incredibly rich mythology within the Green Lantern canon, and we have this incredibly rich history of Sunday night HBO shows – everything from The Sopranos to Game of Thrones and in between. The fun of it was to try to create a real, layered drama that dealt with who these characters are as human beings while still staying true to the spirit of what makes the comics so special. We wanted it to be accessible for anyone who doesn’t know the canon but, at the same time, satisfying for people who know the lore in minute detail. So, yes, it was challenging, but only in the way that the most fun things are.”
So, then the second teaser arrives, and it offers more of the comic-book tone that was expected. There was also some follow-up clarification of the show’s construct that makes it all a bit clearer what this superhero tale involves. So, to me then, the production sort of fumbled with its first teaser. If you’re going that route, then you should have visually explained the story’s setup a bit better, rather than doing PR to clarify your intent. Time was now spent digging yourselves out of the kerfuffle.
Dark Horizons tells us, Mundy confirms the series has scenes set in both 2016 and 2026, with almost everything seen in the trailers so far taking place in that 2016 period. In the series, Hal Jordan is convinced a shooting in Rushville, Nebraska was an alien incident – but the local Sheriff Kerry disagrees. His investigations take place simultaneously two months into training John Stewart, a second Lantern.
Munday says it’s “the old guard and the heir apparent. We lean into that tension quite a bit in that early time period”. When the time period jumps ahead to 2026, “that becomes a second mystery that we know is down the road for us. So eventually two different mysteries get worked out over the course of the show.” The duelling timelines allow for a real examination of the core relationship: “It was less of a whodunnit as much as like, what happened and why? We think of this as a relationship show between John and Hal, and there’s a lot to unpack over the course of the eight episodes.”
So, now we just have to trust that LANTERNS is going to be everything we want it to be. WATCHMEN pulled it off and so can this series. We will soon see if it draws in mainstream viewers and keeps the loyal GL fanbase happy. The production surely feels it has something solid, as it has already begun tooling a second season even before HBO has even greenlit a continuation. Christopher Cantwell, a prolific comic book writer and showrunner in his own right, has stepped in to be lead executive producer going forward. This puts to the fore someone knowledgeable in the comic book & superhero vibe, to perhaps help keep this series alive after its premiere season.
It will all come to light when LANTERNS’s first season rolls out beginning Sunday, August 16 on HBO.
(Source: Dark Horizons)
