‘Lanterns’ Shines Bright & Gets Dark In This Cutting-Edge Cosmic Crime Saga [Review]

“Don’t get hung up on the jewelry, junior. You’ll wear it when it chooses you.”

Green Lantern is one of the richest corners of DC Comics that has the scope and depth to rival Star Wars when properly executed. It’s basically Jedi Knights, but with even greater powers. And yet, Green Lantern has proven to be one of the hardest nuts to crack in live-action with 2011’s disastrous feature film turning the Green Lantern Corps. into a universal laughing stock. A lot has changed in the past 15 years and the totemic team of Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King have brought Green Lantern back with a vengeance in HBO’s Lanterns. 

Lanterns is a sci-fi superhero story, but it’s also so much more than that. It’s a dark mystery thriller with a dose of cosmic horror thrown in for good measure that’s also a moody meditation on power, legacy, and fear. It’s a bold, bewildering experience that requires a lot of trust on the audience’s part, but it’s a risk that pays off and works. Lanterns isn’t the superhero show that you’re expecting, but it’s the superhero show that you need and an incredibly promising step forward for the DC Universe.

Lanterns’ “Pilot” achieves that signature Lindelof gravitas that was very much present in Watchmen, along with Mundy’s panache for gritty small-town crime that he cultivated so well in Ozark and True Detective. Lanterns begins in 1996 and quickly establishes that Hal Jordan’s Green Lantern (Kyle Chandler) stopped a meteor from destroying Victoria Falls, which makes him a national headline and legend. “Pilot,” while steeped in superhero lore and mythos, is all about Jordan reiterating that he’s “just a regular person.” Lanterns elegantly presents this cosmic story in a deeply grounded fashion.

“Pilot” is a slow-burn start that spends the majority of its runtime in 2016 as it fleshes out John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) before it even gets to most of its superhero mayhem. “Pilot” is Lanterns’ premiere, but it feels even more like an extended prologue or “Issue #0.” Those who are hoping that immediately gets into its supernatural madness will potentially be disappointed through its drip-feed approach to space cop shenanigans. However, this patient, methodical storytelling helps reiterate that this is a very different breed of superhero series. As much as it stays true to the DC character’s roots, it constantly brings Lindelof’s to mind regarding its atypical and character-driven approach to storytelling. wants to establish the “hero” aspect of this journey before it gets lost in the “super” aspect of it all.