Lanterns ★★★

Lanterns★★★

Superheroes and mortals alike return to the same question in HBO Max’s gritty, psychological take on DC’s Green Lantern franchise: “Are you afraid?”

The three words become a mantra for John Stewart (Aaron Pierre, Rebel Ridge; The Morning Show), a Lantern-in-training assigned to follow around Earth’s long-standing Lantern, Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler, Friday Night Lights). Together, they investigate a strange shooting in Nevada with suspected intergalactic links.

Without mental resolve, these intergalactic law officers can’t use their weapons – a magical emerald green ring that lets them fly and create objects, force fields and more out of sheer mind power. But fear itself is the powering force of Lanterns, a show that examines how it is used to justify acts of love, war and hatred across interpersonal relationships and intergalactic colonialism alike.

Created by Chris Mundy (Ozark) and produced by Damon Lindelof (Watchmen; The Leftovers) and DC writer Tom King, Lanterns is a detective drama first and a superhero show second, though there’s a solid amount of cheesy jokes and quips. Don’t worry: that dark, moody edge isn’t an excuse for terrible lighting or filters. Lanterns offers crisp visuals.

At first, John and Hal couldn’t seem more opposite. While Hal’s decades of power and fame has left him arrogant and smarmy, John is comparatively robotic, a stoic ex-military man emotionally cauterised by a traumatic childhood. In Lantern’s opening scene, he barely reacts when his father draws a close-range rifle in their backyard for a William Tell trick, shooting an apple atop his head.

Both men are fearless, but through flashbacks across the seven of eight episodes offered for review, it’s revealed that their mental fortitude is not equal. As in the comics, John is a black man, one told as a boy that Hal and other white men are “privileged enough to not know fear”.

That tension – of resentment at Hal’s ability to be a fool in public, such as getting arrested on purpose for the purposes of their investigation – is one of Lantern’s most intriguing, understated qualities.

With a weekly release schedule, it’s easy to imagine casual audiences might drop off, as early episodes find John cold and Hal a touch too irritating. At least the other characters – including Kelly Macdonald as a local sheriff, and Nathan Fillion reprising his role from Superman as an abrasive Lantern – agree on that last point, too.

As someone not particularly drawn to a trauma-led take on a lesser-known superhero, I found Lanterns gripping enough. It’s a balanced blend of cheesy one-liners, engaging action and emotional depth, with lots to love for fans of DC or superhero stories more broadly.

Lanterns streams on HBO Max from August 17.

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