Why you should watch HBO's 'Lanterns,' even if you hate superhero TV series

To be honest, I’m getting really tired of the superhero TV/film “fatigue” debate.

Every time a big project comes to film or TV, there’s the requisite hand wringing and teeth gnashing over whether the public is fed up with so many stories about people flying and writing wrongs with their laser eyes.

Comic nerds rise up to defend their geekdom and critics use every hiccup in the process to justify their own prejudices against the genre – whether it’s a misguided crusade against wokeness or a deep-down feeling that stories about people fighting crime dressed like old school wrestling stars cannot possibly be serious cinema.

My humble take – as a comics nerd who nevertheless understands how annoying it can be when a genre you don’t like hijacks the Hollywood machine – is that audiences love a really well-made superhero story with characters they care about. But their patience has evaporated for superhero projects which are just okay, or seriously flawed, or a good idea which just didn’t gel into excellence.

All of this to say: HBO Max’s new superhero series Lanterns is good enough to rise above all of that noise. Seriously. It’s a great story which feels grounded in a sort of realism even while featuring guys who can fly and make stuff out of green energy with a pulsating power ring they wear on their finger.

And best all, at a time when rival Marvel Studios seems to be shying away from the idea of crowding its Marvel Cinematic Universe into TV series – perhaps admitting that churning out effective blockbusters and compelling television at the same time is a bit too much for them as a company – Lanterns is a boldfaced argument for continuing to tell these stories over a longer canvas on the small screen.

If you’ve seen any of the exquisitely positioned trailers, you already know the basic story. Friday Night Lights icon Kyle Chandler is playing traditional Green Lantern Hal Jordan as a grizzled adventurer near burnout -- given to brusque, off-putting measures in pursuing his goals. He’s forced to train newbie John Stewart, played with steely resolve by Rebel Ridge star Aaron Pierre, as a backup Lantern, though they both know it’s entirely possible Stewart might also replace him.

One thing I love about this series is how it slowly unfurls the backstory of the Green Lantern Corps —something a TV show is uniquely equipped to handle. We don’t need to get an awkward scene downloading the entire concept of the Corps – essentially a galaxy-wide organization of space cops, organized by a collection of blue-skinned immortals who gifts each of them with a power ring that is one of the most powerful weapons in existence. (see how awkward that sounds when you put it all together?)

Instead, we slowly learn the boundaries of this new Lanterns concept – reimagined under the stewardship of new DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran. Thankfully, this take on the Lanterns doesn’t feel like a cardboard cut-out lifted from Gunn’s higher-profile reinventions of Superman and Supergirl – it has its own vibe, which borrows liberally from another twisted crime story hit for HBO, True Detective, while leaving no doubt it is connected to the new DC universe Gunn has masterminded. (including rumors Pierre’s John Stewart will pop up in the next Superman movie).

In Lanterns, Stewart is a younger, more rigid figure - an ex-soldier in the military who grew up fixated on Jordan for reasons I don’t want to spoil here. In Gunn’s DC universe, Lanterns don’t have secret identities – so the world knows Jordan was the first human to join the Corps – Earth seems to be considered something of a galactic backwater, of course – and the series has a sly way of explaining how Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner winds up as the Lantern featured in Gunn’s Superman film.

There’s a lot of hay made around the idea that Jordan doesn’t fear anything and that’s a job requirement (okay, comic book nerds, we know Daredevil is the superhero most often referred to as the “man without fear.” Pipe down). Watch Lanterns long enough, and you’ll learn that even these space cops who claim to fear nothing aren’t exactly being honest with themselves or the world on that score.

The series was created by a trio with hefty credentials in comics and quality TV: Chris Mundy, showrunner of Netflix’s Ozark; Damon Lindelof, creator of one of HBO’s other hit DC comics adaptations, Watchmen and Tom King, a former CIA officer-turned-comic book writer who has written Batman, Mister Miracle and Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.

(Here’s my conversation with Chris Mundy, back in the days of COVID lockdowns, talking about the twists behind his work on Ozark.)

So it’s a small wonder the story in Lanterns feels expertly balanced between its creators’ sensibilities. At its heart, is a rural crime drama – Jordan drags Stewart to rural Nebraska to investigate a murder he believes has extraterrestrial dimensions. Jordan bristles at training someone he thinks is gunning to take his place; Stewart is eager to shoulder aside a burnout he thinks is past his prime.

Of course, the audience knows each man is a little bit wrong – and a little bit right – about the other. And that’s where the long arc of a TV series comes in handy, as the story shifts their perspectives and the audience’s feelings about each of them over eight episodes (critics only got to see seven of them before tonight’s premiere).

As the murder mystery unfolds, we meet a local powerbroker played by the always compelling Garret Dillahunt and his daughter-in-law, who is also the local sheriff, played by Boardwalk Empire alum Kelly Macdonald. Lanterns does a great job of depicting a universe where superheroics are a fact of life – Macdonald’s sheriff treats Jordan like a federal officer trying to usurp a case in her jurisdiction and when he flies into action, he just takes off, easily as a cop on Law & Order might run down the street.

Since this is a superhero series in the modern age, I guess we have to tackle the culture war element of the story. Fortunately, since Stewart has existed as a Black man taking on the Lantern job in comic books since the early 1970s, we have been mostly spared grousing about the wokeness of placing a Black character at the center of a superhero project. Stewart has more than earned his place in DC’s pantheon of heroes, particularly in the company’s animated movies. Pierre plays him as a character cut from similar cloth – tough, with a definitive set of ideals and a no-nonsense attitude about working hard to achieve them.

I do wonder what the comics culture warriors will make of his positioning as a Black man setup to replace the original white hero. In some ways, this is the ultimate nightmare for those who rage against the inexorable spread of diversity in pop culture; a flawed white icon about to be nudged aside by a strong, younger modern man of color. But the show does a masterful job of uncovering the strengths and weaknesses of both characters, highlighting how both men have complicated reasons for wanting to wield the power ring.

The rural setting, crime story and Odd Couple-style dynamics between Stewart and Jordan do lend credence to the True Detective comparisons. But I urge viewers to take Lanterns on its own terms: as a compelling series which builds a convincing universe around two space cops struggling to solve an intergalactic crime, navigate untrustworthy bosses, handle flawed mentors and somehow survive working with each other.

See? Comic books series can be more relatable than you thought!

CORRECTION: A previous version of this column mischaracterized the connection between Kelly Macdonald’s sheriff character and Garret Dillahunt’s William Macon.