Other shows should be green with envy over Lanterns.

       Lanterns, DC’s latest foray into its unsteady cinematic and streaming universe, is a triumph not because it sticks so closely to its source material, but because it ultimately strays from it. It takes a leap into waters that can be either promising or the wrong decision – that of taking a critical lens to its iconic hero and his creators, the Guardians of the Universe. The result is far less of a superhero story and more of a dark Sci-Fi tale with superhero elements, an edgy, irreverent (you’ve never heard Green Lantern drop so many F-Bombs), but ultimately compelling piece of storytelling sure to spawn more seasons.

            Rather than diving right away into a Green Lantern origin story, Lanterns jumps in some twenty years after Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler)  took the ring. After a career of superheroics and, in essence, space policing as a member of the Green Lantern Corps, Hal has been given the task of training what is to be his eventual replacement, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), a man who has been raised his entire life for this task and this task alone. The two are called to the small town of Rushville, NE, the scene of a mass shooting at a high school football game in which the veteran Hal suspects the victims were aliens. The show toggles between 2016, during Stewart and Hal’s investigation, and 2026, after Hal Jordan has been found dead; John Stewart did NOT replace him, and the current Green Lantern of Sector 2814 is Guy Gardner (Nate Fillion, reprising the role he first played in Superman). The show plays out as a two-tiered mystery, first revealing what exactly is going on in Rushville in 2016 and who killed Hal Jordan in 2026.

            Lanterns is a superhero story, but don’t expect a lot of villain/hero battles. The drama in the show stems from the increasing tension between Stewart and Jordan, who becomes increasingly wary of the young upstart, and the town of Rushville itself – its ambivalence to aliens and outside interference and then to the Green Lanterns themselves. HBO does its typically good job of integrating current issues into even its fantastical series. Stewart’s parents put him through torturous training from young childhood in order to prepare him to take the ring from Jordan, hoping to provide better opportunities to him than they had, despite his father being a career military man, and Rushville is a fictionalized, Sci-Fi version of a small town in Trump’s America, its literal xenophobia a metaphor for our current political climate.

            Some fans have criticized the show for its gritty, unflattering portrayal of an iconic superhero who barely even wears his uniform anymore, but that is missing the point. While this version of Hal Jordan is not your typical Silver Age DC icon, the incredible powers and campy goodness are precisely what has made DC characters hard to adapt, even inaccessible to modern cinematic audiences. While Hal is surly, he’s not unlikeable, and is very clearly a man broken down by 20 years of being a space cop, having to arrest his own mentor, and now train his own replacement. He’s a man who is good at what he does and knows it, a man who has seen the worst the world (and the galaxy!) has to offer, and he has not escaped unscathed. Pierre’s John Stewart is the heart of the story, a man who has prepared his whole life to be a Green Lantern against his will. In his time with Hal, seeing the broken-down version of the iconic hero and reflecting on the “training” his parents put him through – things that would get them charged for child abuse – he asks himself, do I even want this? Do I want to turn out to be like Hal Jordan? Can I take on the ring and remain myself?

            Laura Linney as a Guardian of the Universe, Fillion’s Guy Gardner, Kelley Macdonald  as a small-town sheriff with secrets of her own, Ulrich Thomsen as Sinestro, and others round out an eclectic and dynamic cast, each offering depth and complexity to their characters.

            While there is one pretty epic battle in the series, fans wanting a thrill a minute superhero story will be disappointed. The ending of the show, while not entirely surprising, is sudden and a trifle bit anticlimactic, but the show is solid, and very clearly the beginning of something more. Lanterns can and should serve as a type of blueprint for showrunners and filmmakers. If superhero stories are to survive, then finding new, compelling, even daring ways to tell them might be the way to ensure it.