Lanterns Breakdown: John Stewart's Entirely New Origin and a Yellow Lantern Theory About Sinestro

This episode of Lanterns answers Sinestro's cliffhanger demand to learn about John Stewart by giving John an entirely new origin story. I can't believe it, and I love it. Before I get to how the show rebuilt John, though, I want to go back to Sinestro, because the fan theories after last week got me thinking about fear. That led me to a new theory about the Yellow Lanterns that I feel pretty good about.

Hal Jordan's comics accurate Green Lantern suit shows up in grainy old scenes

First, let's take a moment to geek out over the comics accurate Green Lantern suit Hal is wearing in some very grainy old scenes. He's got the mask. I've always wondered about a domino mask. Does anyone really put that on and everyone goes, who is that? But it's a comic book staple, and he does look pretty good. He's got some insane shoulder pads, and I've seen some people online already editing those out.

Maybe if we get a season two, and it's looking pretty good, I have to say, he'll get to glow a little bit more, too. Hilariously, this is the one episode where Hal has a bad takeoff, and it's the one we were roasting him for in the ad campaign for the show. The other takeoffs so far have been a thing of beauty.

Why the Sinestro fan theories make me a little nervous

Last episode ended with Sinestro asking to hear about John Stewart. He might as well have been twirling his mustache. I was quite shocked afterwards at how totally off the rails everybody went with theories about what was going to happen on this show. "It was like WandaVision all over again," and also Multiverse of Madness. Remember, none of those fan theories for the most part came true.

I love the enthusiasm, but I worry that some of you are running away with this show. Scoopers aren't really fueling the fire this time, and it's nice that people are so excited. Some of you were saying maybe this is Atrocitus, the Red Lantern. I don't really know very much about the Lantern Corps because I don't read Green Lantern, but I looked into Atrocitus' backstory and I understand where this theory is coming from. I think the writer should have been a little more careful about that.

It made me think about the Yellow Lanterns. I have one theory already that I can't share with you yet, and I feel pretty good about that one. I also feel pretty good about a new one I've come up with thanks to all of your speculation. I haven't seen episode eight, so this is totally a theory, not a spoiler.

My theory: Sinestro is deliberately creating fear

Remember that the one question a potential Green Lantern is asked is, are you afraid? In the comics, the Green Lantern Corps' power is derived from will, aka willpower, and the Guardians define that as the absence of fear. That never really made sense to me. I wouldn't say courage means you're not afraid. Who's to say Hal wasn't afraid when the green bubble surrounded him? I guess it's the presence of mind to not admit it, to push past it.

In the comics, Sinestro eventually starts his own competing Lantern Corps, the Sinestro Corps, aka the Yellow Lanterns. They get their power from fear, which is why they're the natural enemy of the Green Lanterns, the polar opposites the way things are set up. That fear comes from the Parallax entity, a parasite that in the comics is originally imprisoned in the main Green Lantern battery, a giant lantern on the planet Oa. Sinestro on the show is currently imprisoned on Oa. "Maybe he's right where he wants to be, baby."

The way Sinestro started the Yellow Lantern Corps in the comics was by releasing the Parallax parasite from Oa and letting it infect Hal Jordan. So what is Sinestro doing here? If you think about it, he's creating fear. First in the Guardians: look how afraid Laura Linney's Guardian is, because he killed one of them. So they're changing protocol, hiring a replacement for Hal instead of letting the ring choose.

There's fear in Hal too, and not just from potentially being replaced. Sinestro tells Hal he's threatened: the Manhunters are one threat, but an even greater threat is John Stewart. Fear, fear, fear. I know a number of you are eager to see all the colors of the rainbow of lanterns, but after green, yellow comes next. In my theory, the Yellow Lantern Corps has to come first, and that can only happen with the fall of Hal Jordan and offering him up to the Parallax parasite.

Hal and John have to choose between fear and will

The theme of will versus fear keeps going, even in Hal and John's relationship. They're going to have to choose whether to continue to fear one another or have the willpower to push past that and forge a true bond. We are seeing a glimmer of it.

Why is Hal afraid of John? That one's easy: John is there to potentially replace him. I think John also represents the end of many things to Hal, including his own life. Hal keeps running around saying "You'll only take this ring when I'm dead," and the response is basically, stop tempting fate, Hal. That's called foreshadowing. What we learn in this episode, in John's new origin story, is a total game changer: John has good reason to fear Hal Jordan and hate him.

Tom King changed John Stewart fundamentally, and Hal is next

I'm totally shocked that DC allowed this show to change John Stewart so fundamentally. I guess it is HBO, and it is Tom King. Tom King has a rocky relationship with the fans, but within the DC editorial space they love the guy, and he's done a lot of good for them, to be fair.

I can tell you that Hal is not going to be untouched either. There are some pretty significant changes coming for Hal as well. We'll discuss them when they happen, but I will say they're extremely Tom King coded, and I'm not even sure how you're going to react. There have already been changes, but when I saw this one, my honest reaction was, Tom King. Speaking of being afraid, are you a little bit afraid now, Hal Jordan fans?

Hal wasn't the ring's first choice, and John Stewart's father said yes

I like these changes to John quite a bit, especially in the context of his very complicated relationship with Hal. I said that Hal's story at the bar about how he became Green Lantern was very important for multiple reasons, and one was finding out how it happened. This blew my mind when it was revealed. Hal wasn't the ring's first choice, not the second or even the third. There were multiple candidates, all scooped up in that green bubble and asked if they were afraid. They all said yes, including John Stewart's father, and in the room as just a baby was John Jr.

My heart broke for John's dad, and for us, because the budget didn't allow us to actually see anything. They're telling us to look at this baby, and you'd kind of like to look at it too. Even so, hearing it was pretty powerful: the voice asking "Are you afraid?" and the way John Sr. said yes. I felt so bad for him.

John's mother later says it's unfair to ask a black man in America if he's afraid. I'm curious how black audiences feel about that comment. I think it might factor into John Sr.'s response, but it doesn't honor another reason he probably said he was afraid: he had a lot to lose. He has a beautiful family, a great house, a good job, a better life than Hal had in that moment. Unfortunately, because the Guardians are a bunch of jerks, they set up a system that punishes you for fearing losing that. Only psychopaths need apply, or living machines like John Stewart.

John's mother makes a fairy tale deal with Laura Linney's Guardian

I don't think her comment was totally fair to her husband, but she was trying to make a deal, so you have to keep that framing in mind. And make a deal she did. John Sr. might be afraid, but John's mother is not, or at least she has the willpower to push past that fear. Like in a fairy tale, she promises the Guardian her baby.

Side note: this is not what the Guardians of Oa are supposed to look like at all, which is why so many of us, from a quick glimpse in the trailers, thought this was a white or green Martian. I don't know why all aliens are dressing in jumpers with x's on them. These aliens are supposed to be little people. It has long been established, and I don't believe there's ever been another variation on them. There are quite a number of little people working in Hollywood, or hoping to, who have lost out on a set yet again. One thing this show does get right is that the Guardians are a bunch of jerks and not to be trusted.

Why I think the Guardians really picked John Stewart

Sure, John's parents trained him since birth to be a Green Lantern with no fear. But I don't think that's the reason he got the job. The Guardians, or at least this one, are clearly cruel and manipulative. When they show up, they basically admit the process maybe wasn't great and hand over a giant diamond. It looked pretty sparkly, but how on earth was John's mother supposed to cash that?

The Guardian admits the whole reason they're interviewing for a Lantern instead of letting the ring choose is that they need someone to replace Hal, and do so forcefully, because of his closeness to Sinestro, who has killed a Guardian and now sits in space jail. Who knows if that can contain him? I also think they want John to spy on Hal. They love that he follows orders and respects the chain of command blindly. And who better than a man whose life Hal has ruined at every level? Hal ruined John's childhood, his relationship with his parents, his relationship with his brothers, and, we find out, his military career.

Do I think the Guardians were keeping an eye on John all these years? No. I suspect they totally forgot about him, because that's the jerks they are. When things went south with Sinestro, and maybe Hal as well, I think they remembered John and thought they could use him. His training has made him a machine. He's very Terminator coded to me: no fear, but also no life.

Here's what fascinates me. The very qualities that make John a good candidate to spy on Hal and turn on him also, I think, make him susceptible to liking Hal. Hal is the first person coming into John's life who doesn't know about this plan to make him the perfect Green Lantern. Hal is just going to treat John like a partner and a friend, even as an adversary. It's probably the first genuine human relationship John Stewart, or even Hal Jordan, has had in a very long time. Hal may show John how to be more human and maybe a little less trusting. But John isn't naive. He knows he's been lied to before, by his own mother.

How do you make a better Green Lantern?

Back in the first episode, with the apple shooting exercise, I said John's training at such a young age was an interesting parallel to a number of athletes from black families trained at very young ages to become prodigies and legends. Some of you added that Michael Jackson fits this description, perhaps even more so, because just like Michael Jackson's father, John's parents, even though well intentioned, are abusive. They're determined, especially John's mother, to move their family forward, and what's a bigger leap than a famed superhero?

When John's mother tells John Sr. the plan, he asks, "How do you make a Green Lantern?" She counters, "How do you make a better Green Lantern?" One that not only has no fear, but has every quality Hal Jordan lacks. That's quite a tainted destiny: being raised to take on the mantle knowing he'll have to literally take it from someone else, with it ingrained in him that this destiny was stolen from his family and he needs to correct it.

They try to hold back their love to make John fearless, which really means lonely, but I think deep down the Stewarts are still a loving family. Some of that love breaks through, which makes things even more complicated for John, his parents and his brothers. John says it's very human to love the people who raise us even if they're crazy. That made me wonder if the same applies to Sinestro and Hal. Hal lost his father young, and Sinestro became his father figure. Again, I haven't seen episode eight, so these are my theories, not spoilers, but maybe we'll find out Sinestro has been raising Hal the same way, to become the host for Parallax. Perhaps Hal and John are more alike than they realize.

I do believe a part of John hates his mother. It's complicated: he loves her and he hates her. He finds out she's been lying to him his whole life, that the Guardians aren't in contact with her, and that she has no way to know if they'll keep their promise that he'll be the next Green Lantern. What a moment when he says he wants to shoot the apple off her head. It was her idea to use the parents in the first place, and it was fine when it was her husband, so there's some justice to that. The way the young actor playing John delivered "No, you" suggests maybe not hate, but at least that he's pretty upset with his mom.

The recipe, and the scene that gave me pause

So what's the recipe John's parents came up with? They went for the obvious things: no fear. Putting the apple on the parents' heads was the mom's idea, but John came up with the whole apple shooting idea in the first place, which I thought was really interesting. They also deprived him of love as best they could, obviously with some getting through, because they thought love might create fear.

One thing they did to toughen him up was have him walk home through a so called bad neighborhood. This is hard for me to comment on, and I want to be fair: there are writers of color working on this show. But something about this scene, I don't know. I felt that on the whole walk home, somebody would have seen him and tried to help him. Somebody would have stepped up, even if it was a charming, lovable rogue.

Hal Jordan ended John's military career

John grows up and follows his father into the military. For some reason his parents felt aiming was a key part of being a Green Lantern, so he's practiced with a rifle his whole life and becomes an expert sniper, one of the military's greatest assets. He gets the cool Captain America shot, and it looks very good on him.

Then he goes on a top secret mission, hiding in the green and waiting months for his target, a low level DC Comics villain who went on to become part of Batman Inc. That seems overly complicated for a character we never see in a close up or even a medium shot. In the end, Hal Jordan just flies in, grabs the target and takes him out of there. The whole thing goes sideways, somebody has to take the fall, and of course John gets dishonorably discharged. The higher ups say they know what really happened, but his military career is still over.

Art school, and then the call

The Guardians still haven't called, so his mother basically tells him maybe he should go live his life, enrolls him in art school, and says to keep waiting. I think by then John didn't believe they'd call. He'd given up on the hero's journey and was very happy in art school. As a child, he wasn't drawing himself as Green Lantern or space aliens. He was drawing birds, and he's a very talented artist. Then he did get the call. I love that.

I think the call actually helps his relationship with his parents get back on track, because it pulls him back into what you could almost call the cult situation they created at home. The crazy impossible thing they said would come true, came true. It was really cool to see John manifest his father's watch, and a copy that actually works. This is where his skills as an artist, I think, really help him as a Green Lantern.

To be fair to Hal, he got all the details right too. But an artist who does life drawings and still lifes, very realistic artwork, has an edge. It's a good thing John wasn't an abstract artist, or he'd be the Picasso of Green Lanterns, and you'd be asking what he just manifested. A good realistic artist needs to know the inner workings of what they're drawing, and Da Vinci is a great example. You'll see that come into effect in the very next episode.

A portable black hole, an abandoned mall, and a weapon with no details

We also get a portable black hole, and what a great test for a potential Green Lantern: a leap of faith into the darkness. Into an abandoned mall. Oh, lack of budget, you come up at the worst times. I saw on social media that it may be a university in Europe somewhere, but why couldn't they just go to the space office?

Remember John's line to his military superior: he doesn't want details of the mission. It's not only being alone that helps him have no fear, but also not knowing details. He wants to be a weapon that others point, so he doesn't have to say he pointed himself, which keeps him from feeling guilt, and that's another thing that keeps fear away. Perhaps this mission with Hal won't allow him those luxuries. He's in too deep. He's feeling. I love it.

Hal and John's first meeting ends with a bird

At the very end, we see Hal and John's first meeting. Right out of the gate, Hal, true to form, throws a curveball by surprising John at his parents' house and breaking the news before John can, to keep him off balance. It's a bit sad, because despite everything that's happened, John is still excited to meet his childhood hero and work with him. Hal wipes that smile off his face real quick, though not totally.

In that tense moment, John turns to his safe space, a bird, which is why he subconsciously chose to manifest one. Birds make him feel safe even though his relationship with them was built on a lie. His relationship with Hal is built on a lie too, but that doesn't mean it can't still turn into a safe space. This show has a lot of great stuff in it, but by far the writing and the acting are the best things, and they are phenomenal.

What did you think of John Stewart's new origin story and how fear is seeping into this story?