Following years of drought, suffering, and humiliation for Green Lantern fans, the time has finally come to an end with DC Studios’ and HBO’s Lanterns officially landing in Sector 2814.
Delivering on its promise of tackling a string of murders in the American heartland, they only left one minute detail out…one of those bodies is Hal Jordan. Yes, the final moments of the series premiere saw the story pushed 10 years into the future, sometime in 2026, revealing the unfortunate fate of the sworn protector of Earth’s first Green Lantern and, with it, a whole new cosmos of questions.
Has Hal’s Light Gone Out?
In the final moments of the pilot, we return to Rushville in 2026, ten years after the series begins in 2016. Seemingly at the request of Sheriff Kane, John Stewart returns as winter rages on in Nebraska to discover a startling crime…Hal Jordan is dead. An apparent gunshot(?) wound to the head sealing his fate, of course, the surprises don’t end there, with John quickly realizing that Hal’s ring is nowhere to be found and all that remains is a human popsicle, sat atop the bleachers of the local high school football stadium, a likely place Kyle Chandler to be.
This demise was a major shock to many fans and viewers; conversations of Chandler’s age aside, many presumed a character like Hal Jordan was set to stick around as a mainstay of this fledgling shared DC Universe. Killing off a character like this could be seen as an incredibly bold choice moving forward, especially following the drought of Green Lantern media in the past 15 years. So could this be the end already? Could there be a (green) light at the end of this tunnel? Or has this lantern been blown out?
Looking For Answers
A detail very quickly established in the first episode and featured is that there are multiple races of aliens that have been known to be capable of mimicking human appearance and behavior. This detail is where most minds would jump, as it’s featured just moments before the reveal of Hal’s death. Most may go on assuming that the Hal we saw could very well just be an alien that posed as Jordan, but this immediately sticks out as a red herring; it couldn’t possibly be that simple…it could actually be much more rooted in the history of the character, a heel turn many fans have been dying to see.
When news of an older, more grizzled Hal Jordan hit the internet, many fans became abuzz with the potential of seeing the Emerald Twilight storyline play out in the DCU and Hal Jordan become Parallax. Reeling from the destruction of his hometown of Coast City, Hal Jordan travels to Oa after a scolding from the Guardians of the Universe for using his ring for personal gain. Enraged, Jordan seeks the entire might of the power battery, fighting his way through the Corps, the Guardians, Kilowog, and eventually a newly freed Sinestro. His conquest is successful, soaking up every drop of power on Oa and dubbing himself Parallax.
In their final moments, the Guardians cede their power to Ganthet, who travels to Earth and bestows the final lantern ring to their final hope, a young illustrator named Kyle Rayner. This story could be somewhat mirrored in Lanterns, with the first episode revealing that John Stewart had been handpicked by the Guardians as Hal’s successor, an uncommon practice for the notoriously autonomous jewellery.
A Hard Truth for The Future of Lanterns
Flat out, Hal Jordan is dead, and there is no grand reveal coming; lights out, man. No, but this is absolutely a real possibility, especially with reports of Chandler having only signed a one-year deal for the role with no options for any film appearances. People have also called the actor’s age into question, a common discourse amongst fans that doesn’t just follow this casting and isn’t exclusive to just DC. This reality may disappoint fans, purists, and chuds, but truthfully this could be a good thing.
in the past few decades, we’ve seen the DC Universe initiate more and more humans into the Green Lantern Corps, and the DCU has already introduced 3 of them. An opportunity presents itself here to be able to incorporate corps members like Kyle Rayner, Simon Baz, Jessica Cruz, and even Jo Mullein, with opportunities to even integrate a non-canon lantern like Tai Pham.
It would be akin to a situation like Ant-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The films still incorporated the original bearer of the mantle, Hank Pym, but embraced Scott Lang as the present Ant-Man. It feels safe to say that move did work out well for the MCU, with Paul Rudd becoming a mainstay in the franchise and a fan favorite character to many. The point is that sometimes creative liberties are taken that at first may upset fans, as it’s not seen as the ideal, but it leads to an opportunity that, in the long run, works out well and allows other, lesser-known Lanterns to grow a much larger fanbase.
The first episode of Lanterns is now streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes releasing every Sunday. Check out the weeks-ahead trailer below:
