Of all the superheroes to give the gritty realism treatment, the Green Lantern is an odd choice. Tasked with enforcing intergalactic order with a magic ring bestowed by a group of blue aliens (before the Na’avi, there were the Guardians), the character occupies the opposite end of the tonal spectrum from Bruce Wayne stalking the streets of Gotham City sans powers. The larger DC Universe, as creatively overseen by the filmmaker James Gunn, already skews in a goofier, more cartoonish direction that embraces the inherent silliness of classic comics; last year’s “Superman” featured an appearance by a Green Lantern, Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner, as de facto comic relief, with an atrocious bowl cut to match.
But the HBO drama “Lanterns” is just that: an HBO drama. And while the prestigious network has made some concessions to our current era of IP, airing multiple “Game of Thrones” spinoffs and prior DC productions like “The Penguin,” there are still limits in place. Its wry humor and grounded fantasy recall “Watchmen,” the 2019 series that marked the platform’s initial toe dip into superhero stories; sure enough, “Watchmen” boss Damon Lindelof is one of three credited co-creators on “Lanterns.” The title characters, 2016-era Lantern Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and his trainee John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), are mismatched partners in (space) law enforcement whose fraught relationship plays out over a split timeline, á la “True Detective.” Lo and behold, “Lanterns” co-creator and showrunner Chris Mundy worked on that anthology’s most recent season, as well as other crime shows (“Ozark,” the Chandler-starring “Bloodline”) known for a color palette as gloomy as their mood. (Frequent DC Comics writer Tom King completes the trifecta.) It’s of course common for comic book media to take inspiration from other genres, the way “WandaVision” paid homage to vintage sitcoms.
Yet “Lanterns” is unusually direct in assembling its components, down to the typecasting of its leads. As the burnt-out Hal, an aging maverick forced to stare his own redundancy in the face, Chandler is back to playing a middle-aged mentor with folksy charm and a Texas twang. (Some of Hal’s pivotal scenes even play out on a high school football field, lest one miss the parallels to “Friday Night Lights.”) Pierre’s Stewart is taciturn, imposing and responds to an endless series of irritants with a steely reserve punctuated by bursts of controlled violence. That doubles as a description of Pierre’s breakout role in the action film “Rebel Ridge,” down to the premise of an ex-Marine spending time in an unfriendly small town against their will.
This particular small town is Rushville, Nebraska, where Hal and John pause their bickering to investigate a shooting Hal’s gut tells him has an extraterrestrial element, putting the incident in the Lanterns’ jurisdiction. (Hal’s a big fan of vibes-based decisionmaking.) He’s right, much to the annoyance of local sheriff Kerry (Kelly Macdonald, back on HBO more than a decade after “Boardwalk Empire”), an exasperated woman with an accent just a few clicks to the left of Marge Gunderson. But “Lanterns” doesn’t bloom into Technicolor CGI when the aliens show up. Instead, these visitors take on human form, including a Guardian who bears a striking resemblance to “Ozark” star Laura Linney.
It’s part of a suite of aesthetic choices that keep “Lanterns” on Earth in more ways than one. Hal almost never wears his suit, a symptom of his disillusionment that also lets him sport a more understated brown jacket. He’s the first-ever human Lantern, but the only other ringbearer we meet is Hal’s disgraced mentor Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen), who could pass for homo sapiens apart from his pointy ears.
Because John doesn’t wear the ring full-time yet, the pair has to accommodate his lack of flight and travel by car. (Though Hal likes to punk John by jumping out, leaving his younger companion to think fast or suffer the consequences.) There are flashes of the Lanterns’ typical terrain, like the flesh-eating plant Hal keeps for a pet, but they’re always brief. If “Lanterns” excises so much of what characterizes this corner of the DC Universe, then what exactly is the show’s interest in the Green Lantern? The answer turns out to be the nature of a position that’s assigned rather than assumed.
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