Who Killed Hal Jordan?

If you pay attention to online discourse then you might have heard that Lanterns is a divisive show. People have been complaining about it because it doesn’t focus enough on Hal Jordan (played by Kyle Chandler), or that it somehow is making political statements about racial equality (it is, but not in the way the discourse says that it is), or that it somehow doesn’t have enough superheroics for a superhero show. It’s a DC project, so more often than not the online discourse around it quickly gets toxic because there’s a whole cohort that seems to enjoy ripping on DC projects (largely because it also feeds the troll farms and gets more hits, but that’s a discussion for a different day).

Are the points raised by the complaints fair? Yes and no. The show was never pitched as a superhero show in the same vein as, say, anything Marvel has been making for the Marvel Cinematic UniverseWhen it first began in 2008 with a little film called Iron Man no one suspected the empire that would follow. Superhero movies in the past, especially those not featuring either Batman or Superman, were usually terrible. And yet, Iron Man would lead to a long series of successful films, launching the most successful cinema brand in history: the Marvel Cinematic Universe.. The comparison the showrunners made was that Lanterns was most like True Detective, a grounded, dark, and twisty tale that just so happened to feature a Green LanternMade up of aliens from sectors scross space, the Green Lantern Corp. defends the universe against threats with the power of the Green Light of Willpower. and his trainee as the main characters. It was never intended to be a big, bombastic, superhero story. Some fans might not have liked that, but the mission statement was clear from the very first episode of the series.

As for the other complaints, those are bad faith arguments. Hal is in every episode of the series (in some form), and Kyle Chandler steals the show every time he’s on screen. He has a very specific performance, with a bit of “aw shucks” charm, a midwestern twang, and a stare that can burrow into you. Everyone fell in love with Chandler’s performance, so it makes sense that they all want him as the hero of the series. But the story being told wasn’t just Hal’s, and what the series was trying to accomplish was more than any base superheroics.

If it’s not clear, I loved this season. I think what Lanterns did was impressive, and the storytelling on display is fantastic. What the series presents us is two broken people. Over the course of the eight episodes we are able to dive deep on their stories, their backgrounds, their lives, to find out who they are and what brought them to this story. It’s presented as a training mission with John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) learning the ropes about being a Green Lantern from Hal Jordan, and while it’s true the trainee does learn from the ring-wielder, it’s not in the way either character would have expected. And that’s good because it’s the narrative diversions, and the depth of their backgrounds, that really makes this series intriguing.

We’ve already recapped the basics of the story back in our previous review, so let’s skip ahead to the meat of what makes these two men tick. For John, it was his upbringing. When Abin Sur died, his ring went out to choose a worthy successor. John Stewart’s father nearly got the ring, but because he wasn’t “without fear”, the ring moved on. After, John’s mother, Bernadette (Jasmine Cephas Jones) was approached by one of the Guardians of the Universe, Lianna (Laura Linney), about what happened with the ring. And in that conversation, it was made clear that while John’s father wasn’t worthy, his genetics could make his baby, little John Stewart, worthy so long as he was raised without fear.

That leads to John having a very different kind of upbringing from his brothers, being forced to prove every day (in ways that would sometimes seem quite abusive) that he was without fear. It was all so he could grow up to be Hal Jordan’s successor so that when the time came (and as we learn, that wouldn’t be because of Hal’s death but because the Guardians want to forcefully retire Hal) John could step up and be the new Green Lantern of Sector 2814. But in the process he’s come to resent his upbringing, his family, and the whole idea of being a Green Lantern.

This informs not just his interactions with his family, but the choices he makes in the series across its many time periods (as the show bounces between 2016 and 2026 primarily, as well as bouncing back to other decades when the story requires). It also informs the decisions he makes near the end of the season (which I won’t spoil), and it all works because the show has put in the groundwork, the effort, to consistently and strongly tell John’s story and illustrate how the decisions he makes come from a grounded place in his character.

Grounded is also a way to describe the show’s action and heroics. It isn’t that the show has no superheroics, but it does keep the action very much focused on Earth, with the heroes’ feet planted (most of the time) on the ground. We see a few uses of the green ring, some bubbles and shields from Hal while John gets to make more elaborate constructs (as he also would in the comics). There’s a big action episode halfway into the run, but it is fair to say that the heroics aren’t the focus of the show. There are a lot more fistfights than ring battles in Lanterns, and while that was probably done, in part, to keep the budget on this live-action series reasonable, it also suits the tone and tenor of the series. This isn’t meant to be a high-flying adventure (if you want that you will be able to see John Stewart in the Superman sequel, Man of Tomorrow). This is a more personalized, character drive story and bombastic superhero action would get in the way of that.

With all that being said, I can understand why some people would complain because there is one detail that most Hal Jordan fans won’t like. I’m okay spoiling it here since it happens at the end of the first episode: Hal Jordan is shot and dies, and that event kicks off the plot of the back half of the season. Fans of the comics might wonder how he could die here when, over in the comics, he has to go evil and become Parallax, but it’s pretty clear this series is looking to do something different with his character. Honestly, Kyle Chandler’s performance is so good that you just can’t see him becoming Parallax. He doesn’t have that in him.

You could see him become the Spectre, though, so I don’t think the events of this series preclude that eventual twist for him. That would be one way to bring Chandler back and maybe, eventually, let him have a Rebirth storyline where he comes back from the dead. There are also rumors of Hal getting a prequel, animated series, which would be another way to let the character have his superhero-y adventures without countermanding the character and story work done in this first (maybe only) season of Lanterns. That’s something we’ll have to wait for.

But it is clear that Chandler’s Hal was the character everyone came to love this season, and it’s easy to see why. Pierre had the harder job, taking a character that is meant to steal Hal’s ring from him and somehow making him someone you want to watch. Pierre pulls it off and, without spoiling anything, you get a sense of the man he is meant to be by the time the season concludes. He starts off hard and rough but by the end maybe a little Hal’s “aw shucks” charm has rubbed off, softening him just enough that he becomes someone you can root for.

Because that’s what the series is really about. Yes, it bills itself as a mystery series and, yes, it has two major mysteries it has to answer across its eight episodes, but those are there to facilitate the real story: that of a ring-slinger training his apprentice. It just so happens that the real training happens between the men when they aren’t talking about the ring, and the real lessons are about how you live your life and be a Green Lantern responsibly and not what the ring can really do.

Lanterns is an incredible season of storytelling and even if it remains just one season I think it’s going to stand as a true feat of superhero television. I do hope we get more of this series, as well as more adventures with both Hal and John. But if this is our one foray into the Green Lantern portion of the DC UniverseThe successor to WB's failed cinematic universe, the DCEU. Headed by James Gunn and Peter Safran, this new DC Universe carries over some continuity from the former film and TV series while crafting a new, rebooted universe for the future., well then I think the series absolutely nailed it.