Aug 20, 2026 3:39pm IST
‘Lanterns’ Review: Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre Light Up DCU’s Promising New Superhero Series
At first glance, the “Lanterns” trailer is very much like an HBO show. Then its credits — Chris Mundy (“True Detective”), David Lindelof (“Watchmen”) and Tom King (writer of “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow”) — make it clear why. The surprise isn’t that the apocalypse-green-tinged “Lanterns,” starring Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre, looks nothing like James Gunn’s vivid, popping new DCU from “Superman.” It’s how much this “True Detective-fiction” of the superhero story actually works in its favor.
The cast list and the plural in “Lanterns” signify that we’re following the cosmic cop and intergalactic peacekeeper alter ego known as Green Lantern across various timelines and ringbearers. Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), the first-ever Green Lantern from Earth, is joined by John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), a recruit who has trained his entire life to become the Green Lantern. You can already sense the conflict underscoring their mentor-mentee relationship as the duo arrives in Rushville, Nebraska, to investigate a murder. While Hal jumps to conclusions, John’s middle name is patience; he observes, gathers intel and then makes calculated moves.
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They meet the sheriff, Kerry Kane (Kelly McDonald), her lawyer husband, Billy Macon (Jason Ritter), her stepmother-in-law, Zoe Macon (Poorna Jagannathan) and her modern cowboy father-in-law, William Macon (Garret Dillahunt), who owns an expansive property outfitted with henchmen. It catapults Macon to the top of Hal’s suspect list. With the murderer’s identity still in the dark, and the Guardians (founders of the Green Lantern Corps) watching their every move, Hal and John Stewart must navigate this mystery while fighting their inner demons and their complex emotions about each other.
The eight-episode season devotes its first half to solving one of two mysteries introduced in the premiere. The action is elite and does justice to the superhero show's demands; watching Hal take flight is one of the smoothest superhero “launches” in a while. The pacing is good until it slows down a little in the latter half and a bit of repetition in its flashback scenes sets in. In its last leg, the season pivots to answering the second major question raised by the first episode's cliffhanger. It continues to grip you tight with its writing and well-fleshed-out characters, like Sheriff Kerry Kane, whose last name and Gotham City origins open up exciting possibilities.
The barbed, banter-filled chemistry between Hal and John, played out incredibly well by an excellent Chandler and impactful Pierre, offers both depth and comic relief. The dynamic, particularly their scenes inside the car, and the use of a murder mystery narrative frame to dig deeper into their personalities, evokes Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey from “True Detective.” Not to forget, there’s a third Green Lantern, Guy Gardner, in the DCU, who wears the ring in the current timeline as seen in “Superman”. The show organically integrates Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern into the story (amongst a couple of other comic book characters), and his abrasiveness stands in stark contrast to both Hal and John.
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The writing in “Lanterns” remains its neatest trick, especially the way it prods and questions what it means to be chosen as a superhero, how fear is defined differently for people from different racial, socio-economic and cultural backgrounds and how steep the cost of being fearless can be. The flashbacks to both Hal and John’s childhoods lend excellent context to the kind of Green Lanterns they’d grow up to be. John’s backstory echoes the way “Watchmen” grounded a black superhero’s identity and fears with the burdens of systemic racism. Even the existence of aliens on Earth is addressed by a banger line in the first episode itself: “We’re all aliens, it just depends which planet you’re standing on.”
“Lanterns” feels more HBO than James Gunn’s new DCU or a comic book adaptation. For anyone complaining the show isn’t green enough, when Gardner’s Green Lantern, suit et al., steps into its world, the vivid green from “Superman” is muted and duller. It pops up at the right times. But this tone and storytelling format works.
In the first seven episodes, “Lanterns” shows great promise and potential to bring alive a nuanced take on, without being limited by, its superhero story constraints. And that’s a total green flag. “Lanterns” premiered its first episode on HBO Max on JioHotstar on August 16, 2026, with weekly episodes releasing until October 4, 2026.
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