By: Dr. Michael Robinson | Communications Studies Professor
Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler in ‘Lanterns’ | John Johnson/HBO Max
Six episodes in, I am starting to realize that Lanterns is a show that I have to watch rather than a show that I want to watch. With each new episode, I am convinced that my early theory was correct. Lanterns is not so much trying to be a superhero show as it is aspiring to be a slow-burn prestige crime drama.
Don’t get me wrong. When the superhero action happens on Lanterns, it looks sharp. For the unfamiliar, each Green Lantern is given a ring that channels their willpower and creativity into solid constructs of green force energy. These effects could easily spiral into the cartoonish, but great effort is clearly being made by the show’s computer effects team to make these creations look real and complex.
The effects also look expensive. And that’s part of the issue here. Lanterns cannot afford tons of these effects. Like superhero shows of old, the super moments are parsed out sparingly (with the exception of the fifth episode where the effects fly). This shifts the use of a Green Lantern’s power from constant sci-fi wonder to special moments of awe.
All of this means that the show has to find another way to motivate its story. While the original comics centered heavily on the adventures of a galactic police force full of fascinating alien beings, Lanterns has gone into a mode more like Fargo or True Detective. The series has centered its story on the small and somewhat depressing fictional town of Rushville, Nebraska. Without spoiling, mysteries arise in both 2016 and 2026. While there are some cosmic premises at the core of these mysteries, much of this series unfolds like a rural town mystery that GL Hal Jordan and his trainee John Stewart must solve.
This has made it increasingly hard to turn off my comic book history knowledge. I am not the sort of fan that expects every series to be an exact duplicate of some comic book. After all, what’s the fun in that? I do enjoy seeing comic book ideas weave through new stories and recognizing the qualities of characters that I have long known.
The problem is, I really don’t know if I like Lanterns’ takes on Hal and John. In order to make Hal into a crime drama’s requisite tired/washed up older detective, the show has turned his test pilot bravado into a sad loneliness. This is unfortunate because I normally don’t like Kyle Chandler at all as an actor but he is doing great work here. I wish this was more the Hal I know from the comics.
Meanwhile, John’s entire backstory has been spun around in ways that I find unrecognizable. Gone is the most stalwart of Green Lanterns from the comics, replaced by a younger man struggling to fulfill a destiny forced upon him throughout his whole life. Again, this is good character drama that gives Aaron Pierre something to work with in the role. However, I am not sure I like this version of John Stewart at all.
There are only two more episodes left. I will see Lanterns through to the end. But right now that’s mostly because I feel a duty, like I have to do so to stay current on this new DC universe.
