Spoilers for HBO’s Lanterns follow.
Though a potential Season 2 is in early development, and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) and Guy Gardner’s (Nathan Fillion) stories are set to continue in other DC Universe projects, Lanterns’ first season finale was mostly conclusive, giving this specific story of John and Hal Jordan’s (Kyle Chandler) dysfunctional partnership and two-part mission to Rushville, Nebraska, a firm ending. But while the resolutions of the main mysteries and major emotional arcs were mostly satisfying, stylistically the finale left a bit to be desired, with its surprisingly low-key vibe reemphasizing one of the most divisive aspects of the series.
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Lanterns is the latest live action superhero adaptation to cause controversy because of its decision to downplay the more outlandish aspects of its comic book source material. Portions of the Green Lantern comic fanbase have been weary of the decision to frame the series (or at least the first season) as an Earth-based mystery drama since it was initially announced, and similar concerns were raised and exacerbated when promotional materials began to demonstrate the show’s limited and discreet approach to the superpowers and outer space mythology from the comics. But once the show actually began airing it won over many of the doubters. It was immediately obvious that the relatively grounded style was important for the tone of the show’s emotional narrative, which focused simultaneously on the end of Hal’s long career as a superhero and John’s complicated road to becoming one. But as effective as those arcs largely were, now that it’s over it’s clear that the season could still have benefitted from embracing the more fantastical tropes of superhero storytelling more often. This point is best exemplified by the finale’s last scene, in which John chooses to protect Earth as a new kind of Green Lantern, though it’s also apparent throughout the episode and season overall.
John Stewart Should Have Gotten a Costume in The Lanterns Finale
After solving Hal’s murder, John once again calls Guy to Rushville with the Lantern signal the latter ostentatiously donated to the town. He tells Guy to inform the Guardians of the Universe that he’s going to use the lantern power battery created by rogue former Green Lantern Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen) and Hal’s old power ring to become Earth’s new Lantern, protecting the planet independent of the Lantern Corps while Guy continues to patrol the rest of Space Sector 2814. After Guy reluctantly agrees to deliver the message and departs, John says a last farewell to “Halogram,” the AI copy of Hal’s consciousness stored in the ring, before charging it with Sinestro’s lantern and speaking his own personalized version of the Green Lantern oath. John then begins to levitate and flies out of the town past the signal that is still shining the Lantern logo in the sky.
Lanterns is hardly the first live action superhero TV series in which the protagonist doesn’t take up their iconic comic book mantle until late in the narrative. Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) doesn’t do so until the end of the first season of Marvel’s acclaimed Daredevil. And DC’s own modern classic Smallville famously didn’t let its version of Clark Kent (Tom Welling) actually suit up as Superman until the finale of its tenth and final season. But the minimalist visuals and special effects of the Lanterns scene prevent it from being as cathartic a conclusion. Particularly problematic is the choice to have John begin to fly while still in his street clothes, as Hal usually did throughout the season. Once John’s doubt about whether he should become a Lantern or not was established as one of the show’s main themes, many viewers began to suspect that he would not take up the ring until the finale, but they assumed he would also don a proper superhero costume while doing so, as his onscreen predecessors like Matt and Clark did. Even for those viewers aware that Pierre will reappear as John, almost certainly with a costume, in next year’s Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow, the lack of one in Lanterns itself makes the end of his origin story much less triumphant.
Lanterns Didn’t Show the Green Lantern Powers Enough
Although they tell similar stories about their protagonists figuring out what exactly a superhero is and if they should commit to being one, shows like Smallville and Daredevil Season 1 also kept fans entertained by regularly giving the characters chances to be genuinely heroic. Both Matt and Clark have most of their powers and abilities and are active crime fighters throughout their shows, long before their traditional alter egos are fully created, picking up new skills and allies along the way. Before donning his first true Daredevil uniform in the Season 1 finale, Matt conceals his identity with a simpler, homemade costume and while Clark saved the day in regular clothing for most of Smallville in the last seasons he did use a couple different costumes while operating as the hero Metropolis dubbed “the Blur”, before taking on the Superman identity and suit.
Given that Hal’s an experienced veteran, Lanterns was also able to delve directly into its main heroic plot, while still maintaining suspense about whether John will actually become a Lantern or not. But the new series doesn’t let itself cut similarly loose with the superhero spectacle enough. While its understandable that the series would choose to have its alien characters mostly appear in human disguises for both the sake of the plot and so the actors’ performances are often fully visible, having antagonists like Antaan (Paul Ben-Victor) and Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan) remain in these forms even while in open battle against Hal and John feel like decisions made more by budget concerns than anything else. And while John’s clothes should have definitely transformed into a Lantern costume in the final scene, his lack of one throughout the series would not have been as frustrating if Hal used his more. Hal only donning the costume for special occasions after decades as a Lantern is a believable explanation, but one still can’t help but think that the scenes of him making heroic saves during the fifth episode’s elaborate battle of Rushville could have been even more epic if he were fully suited up. Conversely, him being in full hero costume would have also provided an interesting visual contrast when his failures and questionable decisions were shown elsewhere in the same episode.
Costumes, powers, and inhuman-looking characters are cornerstones of the superhero genre. There are sometimes legitimate storytelling reasons for a specific project to downplay one of these aspects, as the Marvel film Logan did with costumes. But in Lanterns’ context within the DCU, in which Hal and other superheroes have been publicly known for decades and most, including Guy in his guest appearances, wear costumes and openly use their powers, the scenes that opt for the more “grounded” style sometimes come across as forced. They can also imply a level of disdain for the source material and/or that the production simply wasn’t equipped to more faithfully adapt the comics’ aesthetics.
Do you think Lanterns needed more ambitious visuals? Discuss in the comments.
