Lanterns Gives Me Hope That HBO's 7-Year-Old Superhero Masterpiece Is DCU Canon

Lanterns was a big swing — an ambitious construct, if you will — bringing the space cops down to Earth. When DC Studios announced its Green Lantern show as a grounded, Mare of Easttown-style HBO murder mystery, comic book fans who were used to seeing the Lanterns travel the cosmos were baffled. But that big swing seems to have paid off. Based on record-breaking viewership, universal acclaim from critics, and fervent discussions among audiences online (only some of which is coming from the usual hateful trolls), it seems they’ve knocked it out of the park.

It can’t be easy to turn an iconic DC Comics property into a gritty HBO drama, but Lanterns makes it look effortless. The show is the best of both worlds; it’s not shying away from the Lanterns’ spacefaring adventures — it still has magical rings and pocket universes and big, blue extraterrestrials — but it’s also taking a look at their regular human lives, and it’s all rooted in emotion. The series is anchored by this uneasy buddy-cop dynamic between Kyle Chandler’s cocky Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre’s resentful John Stewart (both perfectly cast in their respective roles).

Lanterns was a three-way collaboration between Ozark showrunner Chris Mundy, Woman of Tomorrow writer Tom King (a legend of modern comics), and Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof. Together, those three creators have managed to concoct a show that simultaneously satisfies as a dazzling, action-packed adaptation of the Green Lantern comics and a complex, captivating, non-linear, multi-timeline, True Detective-style whodunit.

When the show was first announced, I didn’t think it could be done, but these guys have successfully transferred heightened DC Comics characters into a grounded HBO series. And what’s even more impressive is that it’s not the first time Lindelof has done it.

Damon Lindelof Carries The Spirit Of Watchmen Into Lanterns

Lanterns feels like a spiritual successor to the last comic book adaptation Lindelof wrote for HBO: his 2019 Watchmen series. If you thought sending the Green Lanterns to investigate a mass shooting in Nebraska was a bold move, it was nothing compared to the assignment that Lindelof took on with Watchmen.

Alan Moore’s Watchmen is one of the most seminal comic books ever published. It deconstructed the superhero genre by imagining what our real world would look like if superhumans actually existed. That premise has been done to death in recent years, but every subversive satire about sociopathic superheroes abusing their power is standing on the shoulders of Watchmen. So, anyone adapting Watchmen for the screen is asking for trouble. But at least Zack Snyder was leaning on Moore’s source material; Lindelof went a step further and wrote his own sequel to the original graphic novel as a limited series.

Against all odds, it worked out. HBO’s Watchmen was a satisfying continuation of Moore’s comic that recaptured his mix of superhero spectacle and social commentary without just rehashing his messaging. Where Moore’s comic imagines how the Vietnam War would’ve turned out with superheroes fighting for the United States, Lindelof’s series reimagines the 1921 Tulsa race massacre in a comic book setting.

Lanterns has a lot in common with Watchmen. They’re both superhero shows with a grounded tone and, more specifically, they both explore themes of race and prejudice. Lanterns is exploring the idea that Hal Jordan’s white privilege might have made him less susceptible to fear than John Stewart, Sr.

I Really Hope HBO's Watchmen Is Part Of The DCU Multiverse

Now that Lanterns is a certifiable success, I hope Lindelof’s Watchmen series can become a part of the DCU canon. So far, James Gunn’s DCU has retrofitted Peacemaker, canonized Blue Beetle, and it’s establishing an “Elseworlds” label for stories set outside the DCU’s sacred timeline, like everything related to Matt Reeves’ The Batman universe.

So, it’s not too much of a stretch to fit Watchmen in there. There’s an opportunity to continue Watchmen with another sequel story, or maybe even a TV adaptation of Before Watchmen.