Lanterns is bringing the Green Lantern Corps to HBO Max with a new series this year, but one DC legend is not happy about it. The series was created by Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof (HBO’s Watchmen sequel), and Tom King (DC’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow comic), and it looks a lot more like the TV series Yellowstone than it does like a DC Comics property. That is the point, though, as James Gunn doesn’t want everything to be a cookie-cutter superhero movie and series, as he saw for years at the MCU. That said, not everyone is sold on the idea of Lanterns being what looks like a quiet, small-town mystery series.
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This includes DC legend Grant Morrison, a man who has several controversial storylines in his past, but also wrote one of Batman’s most acclaimed DC Comics runs. However, Morrison’s comments come more in reaction to something Lindelof said while promoting the series and saying they called it Lanterns because Green Lanterns was “stupid.” Morrison took issue with this on his Substack newsletter, Xanaduum. “The ‘Green’ in ‘Green Lantern(s)’ green is not ‘stupid’. Why does a writer attach himself to this kind of narrative if he thinks it’s fundamentally ‘stupid’?” Morrison wrote. “The only people who give a f**k about the Lanterns TV series are Green Lantern fans. Why alienate them at the start? That feels more like ‘stupid’.”
Grant Morrison Is Right About the Lanterns Title
Grant Morrison admitted that Damon Lindelof is a creative man and someone who has proven he can create great things on his own (he was the co-creator of Lost). However, this also made Morrison question why someone who was “ashamed” of the title Green Lantern(s) would want to be involved at all. Morrison immediately said that Green Lanterns is a much more “evocative” title than Lanterns, and it would have sold it better to the fans who actually care about the comic book characters.
Morrison believes that Hollywood would rather give the projects to people “embarrassed” by the source material, which will only water them down and kill the projects. At the moment, there is still a lot of excitement about the Lanterns series, and with names like Tom King involved, it adds to the excitement level. Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow was a fantastic series that reinvented Kara, and the movie adaptation looks to be almost like a Western in space, which is exactly what it needs to be. If Lanterns is a John Stewart origin story, and it starts off with a smaller adventure, that could work perfectly as well.
Calling the show Lanterns isn’t going to hurt it too much for people who know it is coming, and fans who are excited about James Gunn’s growing DCU properties. However, not calling it Green Lanterns eliminates a huge promotional tool because comic book fans and people who were kids when the Green Lantern animated movies and TV shows (as well as the old Justice League cartoons) aired know the name well. While people like Grant Morrison take the name change in an insulting manner, that likely isn’t what Damon Lindelof was thinking when they made this decision, and they have to hope fans won’t think they are embarrassed at the property as well.
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