Lanterns Episode 6: Hal Jordan's Funeral, a Suspicious Guardian Move, and the Hunt for His Killer

Lanterns Episode 6 turns its full attention to Hal Jordan after spending earlier episodes on John Stewart, and the shift is a big one. The writers themselves have pointed out that John Stewart wasn't particularly well defined so far, but Hal Jordan is getting a very different kind of treatment this time, and it is all very Tom King coded.

Hal Jordan's Dark Turn Feels Like a Tom King Comic

If you read a lot of Tom King comics, none of this darkness is surprising. "I love Tom King's work. Even when it annoys me, I still recognize how good it is," and this episode, along with episode 7 and presumably episode 8, is written so thoroughly in his style that it is incredible to witness. I don't think I've seen the style of a creator so perfectly recaptured in a different medium before, since that usually doesn't translate to this degree.

Credit goes to DC for including King in the creative process so this could happen, and credit goes to King himself for being able to make that leap, since a lot of talented creative people have trouble jumping mediums. If you don't read much Tom King, this episode is going to feel pretty bleak, and the line between anger and fear gets blurry for these characters. In fact, some characters in this story think they're angry when they might actually be more afraid, or maybe it's a mix of both, but fear is very much present throughout.

Hal Jordan's Fear, His Collapse, and the Buttercup Voicemail

Hal appears to be hurtling toward a confrontation with the fear based parasite Parallax, the power source for the Sinestro Corps, and someone has been broken out of prison at the same time Hal himself was locked up. In his final days, Hal is shown terrified, sitting with a shotgun pointed at his front door in a scene that plays like Home Alone's Kevin McAllister, and when he begs John not to tell anyone where he is, that landed emotionally. Seeing that he couldn't even take a punch anymore made him feel like a defeated man, or maybe a terrified one. It's sad, but beautifully done, which is often how good comic book writers make their mark.

Hal also has something he never had before, which is something to lose, through his relationship with Sheriff Kane. The voicemail he left her, settling on the nickname Buttercup, explains exactly why she saved it, and that message feels destined to be clipped and shared across social media with all the heart and tear emojis. As Hal comes into focus, we start to understand him better, and it's fitting that this happens through John's eyes, because as people get older they start to understand the people ahead of them in life, since they start becoming them in many ways.

The Guardians Look Suspicious Over Guy Gardner's New Ring

That idea carries directly into John Stewart and Guy Gardner, whose dynamic clearly echoes the Hal and John relationship, except now John is the Hal figure. We now know what happened to Hal's original ring: John gave it up, and the Guardians, perhaps fearful of what was inside it or wanting to erase all traces of Hal and Sinestro, commissioned a brand new ring for Guy Gardner. "These Guardians are sus."

The Guardians have never had any real interest in Earth, as the show has made clear, so creating another human Green Lantern rather than simply leaving raises real questions. Is Guy another contingency plan in case something happens involving Hal or Sinestro again, or in case something happens with John? Or are the Guardians aware of the theory that Noah is a baby Manhunter, now more of a teen Manhunter? I want to be clear this is only a theory I'm working through as it comes to me, and I haven't seen episode 8, so I'm not certain where any of it goes.

Is Noah a Teen Manhunter With Presidential Ambitions?

Noah wants to ultimately become president, a powerful and influential position, and he seems remarkably sure of his own destiny. That certainty reminds me a lot of John's own childhood, which may be why John is drawn to him, the same way John was once drawn to Zoe, another machine with a heart. Sheriff Kane certainly isn't encouraging Noah's ambitions, his deadbeat father isn't either, and his grandparents are both dead.

It's worth asking whether that ambition is just Noah's Manhunter programming taking over, since Zoe had said Manhunters tended to stay more behind the scenes, whereas president, like star quarterback, is a very high profile job. Is that a mix of Manhunter tech and human DNA showing through, maybe even commentary on human greed and ambition? Or is someone else advising him, perhaps even Sinestro? I'd love to hear other theories on Noah and whether there are more Manhunters out there, since I originally assumed he was simply a new Manhunter Zoe had made, though now I wonder if he could be some kind of mix, the same way John might be a mix after being repaired.

Hal, John, and Guy Feel Comic Accurate Together

Having all these Lanterns interacting in the same episode feels true to the comics, where there are supposed to be one Green Lantern per sector but in practice a whole roster of human Lanterns whose tenures overlap constantly. This episode does a fantastic job capturing that comic book dynamic between Hal, John, and Guy, and it's genuinely funny that John now acts toward Guy an awful lot like Hal used to. Guy also manages to stay the same character seen in James Gunn's film while still fitting the tone of this show, which deserves credit.

Having only one ring available at a time seems to be causing an unusual amount of competition, resentment, jealousy, regret, and fear among characters who otherwise seem pretty decent underneath it all, and I wonder if that's intentional. There's even a nod to another famous Warner Brothers object that could join this support group, though the show instead leans fully into Harry Potter references with the Azkaban joke, which works well.

Guy Gardner's Fear of Bad Optics and the Deal Over Hal's Burial Suit

Guy isn't willing to help John solve Hal's murder and won't even attend the funeral because he's worried about bad optics, which is itself a form of fear. Guy also clearly fears not being respected, played as a joke through his insistence that he's not a gym teacher but an athletic director, and if the show intends that as rooted in fear, that's a clever touch.

John leverages the ring against Guy exactly the way Hal used to, telling him he wouldn't have gotten that ring if John hadn't given his up, and John cashes in that debt by asking to bury Hal in his original suit and ring, which the Guardians apparently never destroyed. That's surprising, since you'd expect them to destroy it the way Peacemaker's show does with similar objects, which only adds to how suspicious the Guardians look. It's possible the original ring wouldn't have gone to Guy anyway because Hal wasn't dead, or because he hadn't voluntarily given it up, though we never see whether John reciting the oath would have worked. Despite whatever resentment built up between Hal and John, there's clearly love and respect buried underneath, since Hal leaves John a clue in the form of a bird keychain, and John gets visibly emotional at the funeral.

The Fortress of Solitude and the Hal Hologram's Devastating Reveal

That keychain leads to a storage facility at the Fortress of Solitude, a funny riff on the Fortress of Solitude, containing a larger version of the interdimensional vault seen before, one of several callbacks this episode. Opening it requires Hal's live voice print rather than a recording, which is why John suggests getting the Hal hologram activated, a brilliant way to help solve the murder while also bringing Hal back onto the show even though he's technically dead.

The episode ends on the hologram looking down and seeing that the current version of Hal is dead, followed by a needle drop, and this show really knows how to end an episode.

Who Killed Hal Jordan? The Suspects So Far

There are a number of suspects worth considering. Sheriff Kane volunteering the line "how do you know it's not me" could be a genuine misdirect, especially since she might be protecting her son, who may be a baby Manhunter, or Hal may have figured that out himself, which would be sad but very much in line with the Tom King tone.

John himself could be a suspect on paper, though the show establishes he was driving back from Rushville and is otherwise innocent. Still, nobody else knows he confronted Hal and broke his nose in a punch that may have left blood and skin behind, and the test on that evidence is going to take four months to come back, with the coroner in no rush since everyone in town hates Hal. A waitress at the cafe also recognizes John from 2016, when he handed her a watch over her father's dead body, and she won't tell on him unless he pays her, which is a thread worth watching.

What Happened to Hal After Rushville

The Hal hologram has a lot of catching up to do, since it's rarely activated and hasn't been used in another decade, ever since Rushville and Hal losing his ring and going to prison. Personally, I like the idea of real consequences for irresponsible superheroes, since Hal's carelessness led to civilian casualties, though those civilians had made a deal with a Manhunter, which complicates how innocent they actually were. As Guy points out, Hal was sent to a cushy federal prison with pickleball, the kind associated with Martha Stewart and Elizabeth Holmes, even though manslaughter as a violent crime usually doesn't lead to that kind of white collar facility, perhaps because Hal didn't personally kill anyone and it was accidental.

It's odd that Hal wasn't sent to Azkaban with Sinestro, and it's worth asking why the Guardians didn't take responsibility for their own Lantern or have Guy arrest Hal to restore Earth's faith in their ability to police themselves. There are broader timeline questions too, since Hal was apparently on Earth well before Superman yet that's never mentioned, and it's unclear when the Justice Gang came onto the scene relative to Rushville, or whether Max Lord created the Justice Gang or the government created Argus in response to it. Guy also seems worried about being sent to the Phantom Zone rather than Azkaban, which is an interesting detail about how he sees Superman's authority.

After prison, Hal came back to Rushville to be with Sheriff Kane and to try to make amends with the town, but people didn't want to talk to him, including the coroner during the post examination scene, which must have been tough for Hal Jordan fans to watch. Meanwhile John's mother Bernadette would talk to Hal even though John himself wasn't speaking to her, calling her by her first name instead of mom. John wanted to make sure nothing like Rushville ever happened again, so instead of a green energy bubble he built literal bubbles of reinforced concrete and steel, though he's clearly still in great physical shape, taking on five men by himself even without a ring, which is how he ended up briefly jailed, with Sheriff Kane saying she locked him up for his own protection.

John Stewart's New Life: Safe Rooms, a Military Contract, and Family Wounds

In 2026, John Stewart has become an architect building safe rooms for the ultra wealthy, and it would have been nice to get even a peek at who's on that client list. Rather than helping superheroes build their headquarters, John seems more interested in protecting innocent people from superheroes, referencing what happened to Metropolis in James Gunn's film. He's now pursuing a military contract to build these safe rooms on a large scale as bunkers for civilians in urban areas where superhero situations get out of control most often, each one holding twenty thousand people underground with a public park on top for the community, which is a strong pitch that also echoes real Cold War era bomb shelters that still have signage visible today.

John has reconnected somewhat with his brothers, though there's still a wall up, particularly with his older brother, who calls him "chosen," referencing how their parents saw him, even though John ended up not choosing himself in a way that gives the nickname real weight. John has effectively become the head of the family, supporting his brothers emotionally and financially, and all three brothers seem to have turned on their parents. Their father, in a senior home, sneaks in a gun and shoots out a window to get John's attention, but John sends one of his brothers instead because he's too focused on Hal, which speaks to how much Hal has been part of John's life and family from the beginning.

Callbacks and Easter Eggs: Earl the Plant, Batman, and Carol Ferris

It's a great callback to see John once again enter Hal's empty, temporary rented home, with the visible difference between the two visits metaphorically reflecting Hal's emotional state each time. Earl the plant remains a constant, and it's moving that Earl is shown to be sad to hear Hal died and to understand human language.

There are also small Easter eggs, including Guy's version of the bat signal and Hal referencing Batman, confirming there is a Batman somewhere in this shared universe even though James Gunn hasn't cast the role yet. Carol Ferris also appears, age appropriate for Hal this time, though the fact that she isn't played by a well known actress raises concern about whether she'll return. In the comics, Carol is the daughter of the owner of Ferris Aircraft, was involved with test pilot Hal Jordan, eventually took over the company, and became a Star Sapphire, one of the pink Lanterns powered by love, historically mostly female though male members have been added more recently. Carol makes no reference to any of that in this conversation, suggesting the comics timeline here is out of order, since the show appears to move from green Lanterns to yellow next, meaning Star Sapphires wouldn't exist yet at this point.

Hal Jordan's Funeral: "I Hope I Mattered"

The funeral scene is dripping with comic book style in both writing and visuals, almost like reading actual panels. Hal's funeral is incredibly moving, especially with John reading a eulogy Hal had written for himself, and it's a great example of the show introducing something as a joke that becomes genuinely poignant. Hal had imagined a big hero's state funeral, but instead it takes place in Rushville with only Carol and Sheriff Kane attending alongside John, the two loves of his life, which is really all he needed since those are the people who actually knew him.

Hal's comments about potential female presidents and Lanterns land as funny because they're honest, showing an old school guy trying hard to change even though that change is difficult. Two lines in the eulogy stand out in particular: Hal saying he's sorry if he hurt anyone and wants people to know he didn't mean it, which echoes Carol's comment that Hal probably really liked John and just never said it, and Hal's line that maybe it was easier for him to fly than to stay on the ground. The eulogy ends with, "I hope I mattered." "This line has made me cry every single time I've gone over it," including while writing notes and again while reviewing them.

Given the small turnout, it might look like the answer was no, but John's willingness to go to such lengths to avenge Hal, even after their last moment together was a punch to the face, shows that Hal mattered to at least one person, and that's enough.

What did you make of Hal Jordan ten years later, and do you think Lanterns can stick the landing with only two episodes left?