Fans of the “Green Lantern” comic book run that began in the 1960s have approached HBO’s TV adaptation, “Lanterns,” with understandable wariness.
Trailers make it look like a buddy cop procedural a la “True Detective.” The few glimpses of the intergalactic peace officers’ costumes look grimy (like everything else in the series), not the clean sci-fi images that made GL the coolest superhero franchise DC had against surging Marvel in the Silver Age of Comics.
“Not enough green!” complainers shout. And certainly not enough fantastic emerald constructs shot out of the Power Ring, the Lanterns’ source of infinite creativity that needs regular recharging from the cosmic gizmo that lends the space-spanning Green Lantern Corps its name.
Plus, Hal Jordan swears too much.
Worrywarts’ fears will all be confirmed by the first of Season 1’s eight episodes. O.G. Jordan (if you don’t count the guy from the 1940s), played by a disheveled Kyle Chandler, is a cranky, perpetually hungover screw-up who resents having to train his backup GL, an incredibly capable, serious-minded ex-Marine named John Stewart (“Rebel Ridge” star Aaron Pierre).
Jordan needles and cusses through the long, flat drive to Rushville, Nebraska, where some extraterrestrials have been killed. Hal and John’s investigation uncovers acres of smalltown corruption and requires Chandler to spend quite a lot of time on a high school football field.
But soon — well, more like eventually — we get a good deal more than “Friday Night Lights in Fargo.” With flashbacks and flash-forwards, surprisingly complex characters, gnarly relationships, astute racial politics and, yes, a load of references to the comics and cartoon series, “Lanterns” weaves an ever-richer tapestry of intriguing elements.
There’s even an uptick in glowing green stuff, and near the end (critics were shown all but the season’s final episode) we go through pocket dimensions to other worlds. There’s still too much talking, scene repetition and narrative padding. But when action hits, it’s gratifyingly staged and brutal.
In Chandler’s hands Hal, who was a bland heroic test pilot in early comics appearances, is very much the disillusioned burnout of later stories. The actor can overdo the heedless smartass bit, but he knows how to access Hal’s terror of obsolescence too. While never really likable, the character becomes poignant and pathetic, which is a harsh but probably honest approach to someone who was granted unimaginable power because they fit the requirement of “having no fear.”
John’s backstory is a particularly rich one. He was raised in a military household by a disappointed dad and a more militant mom (both Jasmine Cephas Jones and Nicole Ari Parker play Bernadette Stewart at different ages and precisely right pitches) to be both courageous and a model of Black Excellence. John grows into a near-flawless poster boy for the virtues of tough love. His resentful brothers, who call him “The Chosen One” into adulthood, embody the fallout of parental preference.
As solid a screen presence as anyone today, Pierre radiates reliability even as John flirts with betrayal or copes with failure. He also manages to mesh multiple iterations that inform his character persuasively — an astronomical acting accomplishment.
This show’s John Stewart exhibits all the qualities introduced by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams in the last, 1971 issue of their groundbreaking “Green Lantern/Green Arrow” “relevant” run, spliced with Bruce Timm’s warrior retcon for the early aughts “Justice League” animated series. He’s a soldier’s soldier, but also a gifted artist and panic room architect (one of “Lantern’s” coolest geekster eggs involves Stewart and his partner/brother trying to sell the leaders of Coast City — Hal’s hometown which was infamously destroyed in the comics — on a massive, population-saving municipal bunker).
Thoughtful yet ruthlessly effective, John has at least some ethical standards he won’t betray, is a little too easily seduced by both ambition and women, and almost jauntily cognizant of racial injustice. He’s a Vegan, too, until he’s not.
It’s inevitably made clear to both of them that John isn’t really Hal’s mentee, but his competition. This leads to the prickliest of interactions, as the two men grow to hate each other yet can’t deny some mutual admiration. And when the whip — or in this case, the space lasers — comes down, they’re inclined to save one another’s asses more often than not.
Stoking John’s costumed careerism is a Guardian, one of the intergalactic oligarchs who oversee the universe-policing Lantern Corps. Laura Linney plays it in human form, and she’s a droll scream. Guardians ain’t dumb, of course, but they’re snooty and don’t get human nature. Linney adds this silly spice just right to her imperious, results-oriented taskmistress.
The series’ third lead is Kelly Macdonald, who ably walks a fine line as Rushville’s Sheriff Kerry. She’s married to the son of the town’s bigshot rancher William Macon (Garret Dillahunt), who has his own militia, opinions about “illegal aliens” that could have been examined more and secrets connected to whatever otherworldly is going on around there. Kerry is obviously compromised — more, we come to learn, than to the great degree we initially see — but she’s also a fundamentally good person who wants to do the right thing when feasible. These two Lantern guys drive her nuts with their poking around, but no matter what pains they are she likes them. Especially Hal.
Showrunner Chris Mundy comes from producing stints on “Ozark” and, well, “True Detective,” so he’s probably the one to praise or blame for “Lanterns’” procedural aspects. Fellow credited creators Damon Lindelof (whose last foray into superhero television was the incomparable “Watchmen”) and comic book writer Tom King are likely responsible for the show’s underemphasized yet rather comprehensive fan service elements.
Green Lantern’s rogues gallery is well-represented by Sinestro, Hector Hammond, Manhunters and Carol Ferris, Hal’s girlfriend who turned into the infamous Star Sapphire. Abin Sur is repeatedly mentioned and Guy Gardner, Hal’s first replacement in the comics, makes brief, enjoyably doofussy appearances played by Nathan Fillion with a worse haircut than Chandler’s — some feat, that.
Devotees may enjoy pinpointing which print decade Hal or John’s behavior comes from in any given scene. Ditto events such as the Coast City doomsday foreshadowing, and foreboding planets that our heroes finally get around to visiting.
Is it enough to forgive sending Hal and John on a mission made more for Woody Harrelson and Mahershala Ali? It was for me, but it may not keep every viewer’s power ring charged.
“Lanterns” premieres Sunday on HBO and HBO Max.