From Superman to The Suicide Squad, the DC Comics universe has always been about good versus evil. With HBO’s fabulously inventive new drama Lanterns, centered on DC’s intergalactic enforcers, however, it’s not so black and white.
“I think of it as a grounded story about two cops and one not wanting to be replaced by the other,” offers showrunner Chris Mundy (True Detective, Ozark). “It’s a very human story — their beat just happens to be extraterrestrial.”
And that approach lets Lanterns shine bright. Which is a major win for fans, given that previous live-action efforts involving DC’s Green Lanterns Corps have been either reviled (Ryan Reynolds’ 2011 feature) or relegated to vague nods (Arrow‘s series finale tease that Diggle would join the team). And in all fairness, that probably has more to do with the fact that floating space cops in verdant bodysuits wielding magic rings is a hard sell on a good day.
Wisely, Mundy and company — his co-creators include DC Comics writer Tom King and Damon Lindelof — have figured out how to dodge that pothole by steering away from the fantastical and into a vibe way closer to his previous works.
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“I really went into it from a drama standpoint of trying to craft the most sort of human, for lack of a better word, story that’s still completely inside the world that we live in,” Mundy explains, admitting that he was the one who knew the least of the Lantern lore going in. “By the end of doing it, I knew the canon very well, but I was really trying to come at it from that and all of us were. And I think it was a nice balance between all of us.”
Opening with a mass shooting at a Nebraska high school, we meet Friday Night Lights favorite Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan, a former fighter pilot recruited by an alien group to protect Earth from all sorts of threats. Armed with a disdain for rules and a power ring that turns his thoughts into physical form, Jordan and his by-the-book trainee John Stewart (Genius triumph Aaron Pierre) begin an investigation with the reluctant aid of local sheriff Kerry Kane (scene stealer Kelly Macdonald). Within the show’s first few minutes, it becomes clear that the Green Lanterns are seen as just another law-enforcement organization and that this isn’t just another comic-book show.
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“There’s the scene when they first get to the football field and Kyle and Kelly are talking,” Mundy sets up. “And it’s just one of those [scenes] out of the movies from forever where it’s just them talking about jurisdiction. But being able to talk about jurisdiction between extraterrestrial and terrestrial, we were just like, hopefully this grounds it in the sweet spot of what we are, which is like, ‘Oh, this is weird, but it’s also not weird for them.’ If people accept that, then we’re doing OK.”
It’s also a testament to the casting that Lanterns is an easy all-in early on. Chandler is at his scruffy best, infusing his cavalier Jordan with ample doses of charm and grizzled crimefighting fatigue. “I think Kyle, you almost take for granted how versatile he is,” agrees Mundy. “And the humor was a big part of this. You don’t think of Kyle playing humor, but he actually plays it incredibly well. We kind of talked about Hal as being a Chuck Yeager type, there’s a real Americana in that and Kyle has that in spades, obviously from Friday Night Lights, but also just sort of in his DNA.”
He continues, “The other big thing is we’re playing for the first half of the season, he’s really hazing John pretty hard. I mean, we play it funny, but we needed that character to still be likable despite the fact that he’s really hazing John. And that’s a tricky thing to pull off. You have to have an actor that’s just eminently likable to be able to give them that material and trust that the humor and empathy is still going to come through.”
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Thankfully, Mundy adds, “[Aaron Pierre] is such a perfect foil to Kyle. Aaron’s got this crazy combination of size and strength and charisma, but then a stillness and gentleness. You wouldn’t think those things usually don’t go in the same person — certainly not sincerely — but they’re both really sincere in Aaron.”
“So, the fact that you’ve got this character who’s a Marine and is also an artist, it just coexists kind of naturally inside Aaron and it’s really cool. I also liked that he was able to use that stillness,” he raves. “Hal is putting him through the paces, really trying to poke at him, and the only thing that would piss off Hal is not getting a reaction. And Aaron managed to be able to play not reacting while also reacting really well.”
As the duo set out to see if the Nebraska incident is tied to an interstellar threat, they begin to find a common ground and a mutual respect, while also discovering that things in this small town are way more complicated than they expected. Not only is there a conspiracy-obsessed cowboy (Garret Dillahunt) seemingly hiding something on his compound, there’s also a posse of residents who aren’t entirely thrilled to have Lanterns hanging around and mounting evidence that even the scariest of ETs have nothing on mankind’s darkest side.
Along the way, expect comic book callouts and bursts of sci-fi fun. “We tried to find a balance with all that stuff,” promises Mundy, confirming that Nathan Fillion is set to reprise his Lantern, Guy Gardner from Superman and Peacemaker, in the back half of the season. “Obviously, we didn’t want to have none, [and also] we didn’t want to be overwhelming.”
They always said it wasn’t easy being green!
Lanterns, Series Premiere, Sunday, August 16, 9/8c, HBO and HBO Max