Lanterns brings Cosmic Police work to HBO (trailer).
There are many jobs in the universe. Starship captain. Galactic emperor. Rogue smuggler with a fondness for waistcoats and improbable laser fights. But perhaps the most under-appreciated profession in science fiction is the intergalactic police officer. Not glamorous, rarely thanked, and forever being called out at three in the morning because someone on Alpha Centauri has parked a moon in the wrong orbit.
Which brings us neatly to Lanterns, the upcoming HBO series based on DC’s Green Lantern mythology, and judging by its newly released teaser, it intends to treat cosmic law enforcement with the seriousness usually reserved for detectives in gloomy raincoats staring moodily across Midwestern cornfields.
The show pairs veteran Lantern Hal Jordan, played by Kyle Chandler, with new recruit John Stewart, played by Aaron Pierre. Their job description is fairly simple: protect the universe with the aid of a power ring that can create anything their imagination can muster. The catch is that this particular story begins not among glittering alien civilisations, but with a murder investigation in the American heartland. Apparently the Green Lantern Corps has discovered the most terrifying thing in the cosmos: a crime scene with paperwork.
For those unfamiliar with the Lantern concept, the Green Lanterns are essentially space cops armed with glowing rings powered by willpower. If your will is strong enough you can conjure energy constructs ranging from boxing gloves to battleships. Somewhere in the DC archives there is almost certainly a Lantern who solved a robbery using a giant luminous teapot. That’s the beauty of the idea. With enough determination you can weaponise imagination itself.
Hal Jordan has long been one of DC’s classic Lanterns, a cocky test pilot turned cosmic patrol officer. John Stewart, meanwhile, became one of the franchise’s most respected characters thanks to decades of comics and his hugely popular role in the Justice League animated series. Pairing the two together suggests HBO is aiming for a sort of cosmic buddy-cop dynamic. Think True Detective if the detectives occasionally fly into orbit and arrest people from three different galaxies.
The creative team also hints at something a little more ambitious than the average superhero punch-up. The series comes from showrunner Chris Mundy alongside Damon Lindelof and comic writer Tom King, a trio who collectively know a thing or two about brooding mysteries, philosophical headaches and characters staring at strange things while wondering what it all means. If the teaser is anything to go by, Lanterns may lean into the investigative side of the mythos rather than simply flinging green lasers at the nearest supervillain.
Which is probably wise. The Green Lantern concept has always been a strange hybrid of cosmic opera and police procedural. On one hand you have interstellar councils, ancient entities, emotional spectrum metaphysics and alien empires. On the other you have officers assigned sectors like cosmic neighbourhood watch volunteers. Somewhere out there is a Lantern filling in forms about asteroid disturbances while a sentient nebula complains about noise pollution.
Kelly Macdonald also joins the cast, which is usually a reliable sign that whatever is happening will involve sharp dialogue and a slightly unsettling atmosphere. Add a directorial line-up that includes James Hawes and Geeta Vasant Patel and the early signs suggest HBO is aiming for something a little more textured than your typical cape-and-cowl affair.
That may be exactly what the Green Lantern brand needs. The last time Hollywood attempted to bring the Corps to the screen it resulted in a film remembered mainly for a glowing suit, a confused tone and Ryan Reynolds looking like he’d wandered into the wrong universe entirely. Since then, DC has been quietly recalibrating its approach to the characters.
Enter Lanterns, arriving this August, and potentially serving as a more grounded gateway into one of DC’s strangest cosmic ideas. Because beneath all the glowing emerald spectacle lies a surprisingly simple concept: two officers trying to solve a case that may be bigger than either of them expected.
In other words, it’s a police drama where the detectives just happen to carry rings that can build starships out of pure willpower.
Which, frankly, should make the paperwork far more interesting.
