‘Lanterns’ Is The Superhero Show For People Sick Of Superheroes

It is no novel observation that the superhero genre has grown creatively exhausted. There are still films that find compelling iterations of the formula — the recent “Spider-Man” among them — but they remain variations on a theme. DC’s “Supergirl,” by contrast, was a much more conventional iteration. Which makes HBO’s “Lanterns” all the more refreshing.

“Lanterns” wears superhero trappings while operating as an eerie, deadpan detective mystery. A mass shooting at a high-school football game in Rushville, Nebraska, draws veteran Green Lantern Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and his trainee, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), into an investigation that Hal suspects involves aliens (not the sort from MS-13). From there, the series unfolds across 2016 and 2026 in Faulknerian fashion, its fractured chronology conveying how the past haunts and shapes the present.

There is a distinct merit to this narrative inaccessibility. Where the broader MCU has spent years sanding down its storytelling for frictionless mass consumption, “Lanterns” is comfortable being withholding and occasionally confusing. I know virtually nothing of the comics on which it is based, but as standalone noir detective television, it is as good as anything DC has done in years — at least since “The Penguin.”

Chandler and Pierre are superbly cast and share an infectious chemistry. Jordan is a weathered veteran; Stewart is his trainee and, much to Jordan’s chagrin, eventual replacement. Jordan is also something of a prick, but what senior associate being forced into retirement after training his own replacement wouldn’t be? He condescendingly calls Stewart “Junior” and dispenses wisdom such as, “This ring is a dangerous weapon. When and if to use it, that’s the whole ballgame.”

The show’s greatest asset is its restraint. “Lanterns” allows Rushville to feel quaint and inhabited before it unfurls any real action. The cinematography lingers on empty highways, dive bars, football fields, motels, and the vast Midwestern landscape, imbuing the series with an eerie atmosphere before revealing its supernatural elements. Its humor is sparse and character-driven, a welcome reprieve from the goofball cadence of “Creature Commandos” and “Peacemaker.”

The series occasionally loses that restraint while exploring Stewart’s childhood. His father was considered for the Green Lantern ring before Hal but answered honestly when asked whether he was afraid. His mother, Bernadette, responds by lecturing a blue extraterrestrial on American racial politics. “Do you understand how unfair it is to ask a black man in America if he’s afraid?” she demands. “We are terrified daily of persecution.” Later, she insists Hal was “privileged enough in this life that he didn’t have to know fear.”

Bernadette makes Jemele Hill sound like Thomas Sowell. Unsurprisingly, scenes like these fed complaints that “Lanterns” had succumbed to the usual woke sermonizing. (Subsequent interviews from one of the writers, Vanessa Baden Kelly, where she ranted about racism and sexism did not help dispel these notions). But I never read John himself that way. After being nearly burned alive in one scene, he jokes to his doctor, “If you make me white, I’ll kill you.” Race exists in his life without consuming his personality.

More interesting are the consequences of his parents’ worldview. Convinced their infant son can succeed where his father failed, they effectively turn John into a sociological experiment. Displaying the sort of deranged disregard for a child’s wellbeing that would elate Nikole Hannah-Jones, John’s parents condition him against fear (by shooting apples off his head with a 9mm), isolate him, and occasionally deposit him in crime-ridden neighborhoods to make him walk home alone at night (but you didn’t see them bragging in the pages of the New York Times). Their abusive obsession explains John’s discipline and emotional detachment while making his eventual rebellion against everyone who has planned his life for him feel earned.  

That rebellion collides with the Manhunter mystery in the season’s strongest stretch. The Manhunters are an ancient race of dangerous androids, and Hal and John spend much of the investigation trying to identify one hiding in Rushville, like Harrison Ford hunting replicants in “Blade Runner.” Their quarry has spent years cultivating the town’s loyalty through miraculous healings and favors, giving the mystery an increasingly sinister dimension as the extent of its influence becomes clear.

Despite the protestations of pacifist naysayers, Hal Jordan’s case for military engagement with the Manhunter is far stronger than the show allows. The Guardians (the Green Lanterns’ management) really had sent John to replace him, vindicating the paranoia that everyone treated as vanity. His instinct that the Manhunter represented an intolerable threat was also plainly correct. It possessed alien weaponry, had embedded itself inside an American town, and had cultivated enough local loyalty to complicate any attempt to confront it. Hal’s gambit contributes to the catastrophe that befalls the locals in the ensuing battle, but once extraterrestrial ordnance enters the equation, even Donald Rumsfeld could have classified the threat as a known known. Hal Jordan did nothing wrong.

That is where “Lanterns” succeeds. It uses Green Lantern mythology to tell a mature story about fear, duty, legacy, and institutional authority while keeping its characters entertaining company. DC should take the hint: build superheroes around story, character, and atmosphere. The universe will survive without another formulaic apocalypse.

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Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner. He is a software engineer, holds a master’s degree from the University of Toronto, and writes about wine at BetweenBottles.com.

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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