DC’s Lanterns has released its first official trailer, months after HBO teased the series’ first footage in its 2026 preview featurette. The new DCU series features an older version of Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), the Green Lantern comic fans are most familiar with, who is training a younger recruit to the intergalactic policing force, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre). However, as the training commences, and Hal hopes for retirement, dark forces from the cosmos and some long-buried secrets of the Green Lantern Corps start to get unearthed.
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HBO had originally intended for the trailer to be revealed on Thursday, but it was erroneously uploaded to YouTube early and naturally went wide on social media. As a result, HBO (and James Gunn) pushed it early, claiming fans had “manifested” the release ahead of schedule. Early reactions weren’t exactly universally positive, and focused heavily on the tone (and the notable lack of green), but this is what we’ve been promised from the start. Here’s the full trailer for HBO’s Lanterns:
Lanterns‘ First Trailer Is A Confusing Introduction to the Show
The first trailer could fairly be described as a vibe-setter, giving us a sense of the tone and aesthetic of the DCU Green Lanterns. It would also be fair to say: this is not the show that most DC fans were expecting when it came to the task of reintroducing the Green Lantern Corps to mainstream audiences. The earliest pitch for Lanterns being a superhero flip on HBO’s True Detective seems to have been spot-on; from the washed-out coloring to the hard-boiled banter and ominous murder mystery, this indeed looks like it could be True Detective Season 5 – now with Power Rings!
That’s not an immediate deal-breaker, mind you: DC’s The Penguin limited series got so many comparisons to, and critiques of being a knock-off of classic HBO crime-dramas like The Sopranos or Boardwalk Empire, which ultimately did not stop it from earning major acclaim, respectable ratings (for a superhero movie spinoff), and some major awards (Emmys and Golden Globes).
That said, Penguin was ‘borrowing’ from classic TV shows that were in its same lane of genre; Lanterns is giving a Neo-Noir-Western makeover to one of the most fantastical pieces of sci-fi superhero lore there is. A lot of longtime fans are going to be thrown (if not put off) by that; newcomers may not know what to make of this at all, or what the appeal is (as a superhero franchise, or a mystery-crime-drama).
Lanterns Still Seems to Be Holding A Lot Back
The other conspicuous thing about this first Lanterns trailer is that it is almost completely devoid of any of the fantastical elements of Green Lantern lore. The Power Rings are present, but we never get to actually see them in action; numerous characters played by veteran character actors look human onscreen, but may actually be revealed as some prominent alien characters from Green Lantern lore. Even the Green Lantern uniform is seen as a practical costume, like an astronaut’s flight suit, rather than the costume the hero manifests onto his body via his ring. Right now, it’s unclear if this is just a slow-burning marketing approach, a delay necessitated by visual effects that still need completion, or if Lanterns simply won’t feature much of any of those fantastical elements of lore for much of this first season.
There are hints that it’s the first option: notice the amount of cutaways in the trailer anytime someone starts to do something superpowered. Whether it’s John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) somehow getting out of that car safely, or Hal Jordan suddenly taking flight, or about to use his ring for a very unique form of interrogation, there are bigger, more colorful visuals coming our way. Perhaps with the next trailer?
Lanterns stars Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre, and will also feature Nathan Fillion reprising his role as Guy Gardner, the Green Lantern who was introduced in James Gunn’s Superman movie. Other cast members include Kelly Macdonald (Boardwalk Empire) as Sheriff Kerry; Garet Dillahunt (Raising Hope) as William Macon, who may be an alias for a pivotal DC villain; Ulrich Thomsen as Sinestro, a defector of the Green Lanterns who seeks his own power source; Nicole Ari Parker (Boogie Nights) as John Stewart’s mother Bernadette, and Sherman Augustus (Stranger Things) as his father, John Sr.; Jason Ritter (Gravity Falls) as Billy Macon, William’s son who is married to Sheriff Kerry, and Paul Ben-Victor as “Antaan,” another alien being who is theorized to be another major DC villain.
Is HBO’s Lanterns Teasing The First Big DCU Crossover Event?
This first trailer makes those early comparisons between Lanterns and HBO’s True Detective seem very accurate. Take away the space rings and DC lore drops, and the show very much feels like two men of the law investigating a case that possibly dips into the realm of the supernatural. For DC fans who know, there are already plenty of Easter eggs and foreshadowing that indicate some pretty big lore could be explored in the show. If nothing else, the dynamic between Chandler and Pierre feels a bit like a flip of Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke in Training Day, in terms of having a veteran (and at times rogue) cop putting a newer cop through the paces, to make him realise what a complex world he’s stepped into.
However, a lot of fans are focused on the more mysterious castings in the show. William Macon seems like a cover for Black Hand, a Green Lantern villain who is the catalyst for one of DC’s biggest crossover events, “Blackest Night”. Antaan seems like an alias for “Atrocitus,” an alien from a sector of space (“666”) that was wiped out by the Green Lanterns’ predecessors, the robotic force of peacekeepers known as “Manhunters.” Atrocitus, like Sinestro, creates his own power rings and corps (Red Lanterns) to rival the Green Lanterns, leading to a “War of Light” that ends with a death entity unleashing black rings on the universe, which re-animate dead heroes and villains into zombie soldiers.
Everything about the tone and East egg clues in this Lanterns footage potentially leads to both the War of Light and (later on) Blackest Night. That’s the kind of long game pacing a lot of fans want from the DCU. Hopefully, we’ll get them.
Lanterns premieres on HBO Max in August.
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Official art by Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme -
Image courtesy of Tor Books/Macmillan -
A photo of the Retrovolt Arcade taken in 2017, showing several classic arcade cabinets and stools. -
Courtesy of TOHO Animation
