Lanterns Episode 1 Breakdown: Comic Callbacks and a Theory About John Stewart's Father

Lanterns episode 1 opens in 1996, with a young John Stewart and his two brothers in front of a TV news segment where Hal Jordan reveals his identity as Green Lantern. While John is glued to the screen, his brothers start panicking that their dad is coming home, and that one moment sets up a theory I have about John's father that I'll get to below.

The 1996 opening gives Hal Jordan a grounded, public origin

In this opening we get a rundown of Hal's backstory and some insight into John's as well. Hal explains how he first revealed himself 10 years earlier when he stopped a meteor from destroying a town. The first thing I want to point out is that Hal's costume here seems to be inspired by the suit he wore in the alternate universe Earth One storyline. There he's an astronaut in the near future and bases it off his space suit, which I like for the show, because a human being a Green Lantern is sort of an extreme version of an astronaut.

The story about stopping a meteor also seems to be a reference to Hal's first appearance in Showcase issue 22, where he reveals himself to the public by stopping a missile from hitting his home in Coast City while citizens on the ground look on in awe. Hal also tells the world he's an Air Force veteran and former test pilot, basically following in the footsteps of his father, who died during a test flight when Hal was young. Death kind of follows Hal throughout the episode, and him talking about it here somewhat foreshadows the reveal at the end.

Hal then looks directly at the camera, and with John still glued to the screen, it seems like Hal is talking to him directly. He says he wants people to know he's just a regular person. I love how this sets up the dynamic between John and Hal early on, because it shows that at one point John idolized him. Hal explains that Green Lanterns are basically beat cops with their own chunk of the galaxy, that he's the first Green Lantern from Earth, and that the only question he was asked for the job was whether he was afraid. After losing a parent so young, he says, there isn't really anything left to be afraid of.

John Stewart's father is a big change from the comics

Right after this idea of fear and losing a parent, we see the fear the Stewart kids feel around their father, who is very much alive. Notice how John doesn't shut off the TV until the very last possible second. This shows John is already fearless at a young age and foreshadows his future as one of the most powerful Green Lanterns. His dad immediately knows he had been tuned in to the segment on Hal and asks him a question about Hal's real name. John says Hal or something, which we know is a lie, because there's no way he forgot it. For some reason he doesn't want to tell his dad.

We also see John's dad is in the Marines. That's a pretty big change from the comics, where a lot of the time his dad isn't mentioned much and he's raised by his mother, Shirley Stewart, who along with his sister died when they were young. John's dad does feature in a few issues, and it seems he wasn't a great guy, such as in Green Lantern Corps issue 15, where John is possessed by Parallax and sees himself as a kid about to take a beating from his dad. In one rebooted version of John's origin his father is in his life as a civil rights activist who's really harsh on him. In the comics his dad is named Henry, but the cast list here calls him John Stewart Senior.

There's no sign of John's mom, but his dad wears a wedding ring, and I'm pretty sure there's a picture of her on top of the TV. That makes me think they're pulling from an older origin where his dad mainly raises him while his mom is dying of cancer, and I feel it was potentially foreshadowed by Hal's line about losing a parent. Then John's dad orders him outside, sets an apple on his head and pulls out his gun. There's a vertical line of bullet holes in the wall behind him, and the last one stops right at John's height. It reminds me of parents marking your height on a door frame, and it shows his dad has probably been doing this for a couple of years. It's clearly playing off the story of William Tell. His dad asks if he's afraid, John says no, the apple is shot off, and his dad says, "Let's get a burger."

My theory: John Stewart Senior was meant to be a Green Lantern

I feel this switch is meant to add another layer to Hal and John's relationship. Hal is playing a different type of father figure than the brutal one John had growing up, but both are pretty bad. Also, is it just me, or does John Senior seem to know a little too much about the Green Lanterns? The Stewart house has clearly discussed Hal before, and the kids seem terrified of being caught even looking at him on TV. The biggest thing is that John's father asks if he's afraid before shooting the apple, which is the only requirement to be a Lantern. John Senior didn't catch that program, so how would he know, and why would he be training John from an early age not to show fear?

Changing his name to John Senior instead of Henry feels like a very deliberate choice. Perhaps he was once a potential recruit for the Lanterns, but something prevented him from getting his ring, which I'd guess might be the loss of his wife. That could have created a fear of losing the rest of his children. So now he's training John never to feel fear so that one day he may be able to take the place in the Corps that should have been his. I know that sounds out there, but it would explain his inside knowledge and his seeming beef with Hal.

As weird as it sounds, I think John Senior could be playing a version of John Stewart from his early appearance, when John was chosen by the Guardians as a replacement for Guy Gardner in Green Lantern issue 87. In that issue, Hal takes John on a training mission, John uses the ring to embarrass a senator who preaches white supremacy, then uncovers the senator's plan to fake an assassination attempt and blame it on the Black community, and Hal admits he was wrong about him. It wasn't until Green Lantern issue 182 in 1984 that John returned as an official member of the Corps. So John Senior may be that original recruit who trained with Hal, while the John we follow is the one who officially gets the job. If that is the case, it would add a lot of depth to his rocky relationship with Hal.

In 2016, Hal's training methods put John in life or death situations

We then jump to a fully grown John in 2016, which, if you're keeping up with the DCU timeline, is 9 years before we met Guy Gardner in Superman. Hal picks him up late and hung over, blasting Boogie Shoes by KC and the Sunshine Band, and John is completely nonchalant. A detail I love is that John doesn't even put on his seat belt, again playing with the idea that he has no fear. Hal keeps trying to provoke him, and you can see he's subtly testing John constantly. I also love the Lethal Weapon role reversal, where the older cop is the impulsive renegade and the younger cop is more of an adult.

Hal says he disappeared because he was celebrating after stopping a civil war on a distant planet, a reference to Green Lantern issue 156, where Hal brings peace between two warring alien races by having delegates from each side fight in single combat, and they discover they don't even remember why they're fighting. It's a super niche reference, as it's the only issue featuring that planet, and I appreciate they touched on it. Instead of impressing John, it annoys him, because after two months of training he still hasn't worn the ring. Hal calls him nothing but a substitute teacher, then tosses him the ring, says to meet at a taco stand up the road and jumps out as the car goes off a cliff. Looking at the parallels with his father, John is always being trained in literal life and death situations.

Walking down the desert road, John calls his dad and vents that Hal tried to kill him. John Senior assures him Hal is just trying to provoke him and that he needs to breathe in, button down and be cool. So not only is John Senior still around, he's actively involved in John's training. He also says Hal and the other Lanterns are allowed to have tantrums, but they aren't. This could potentially hint that he knows this from experience, and it also hints at the racial inequality I think the show will likely play on. There are clear metaphors for immigration later, and Damon Lindelof was behind Watchmen, which tackled a lot of ideas around race.

Hal's backup consciousness points to something that happened 10 years ago

The ring then materializes a younger looking Hal, without the gray streaks, who panics and asks John if he's dead. This also foreshadows the ending, and I think John will likely get in touch with this consciousness down the line. This version seems like a nice Hal, and apologizes if he's done something to annoy him. We learn it's a backup of Hal's consciousness combined with the ring's sentience, that Lanterns are supposed to back themselves up weekly, and that Hal hasn't done it in 10 years. The backup is surprised John hasn't been taught how to fly. So Hal wasn't always like this, but something over the last 10 years turned him away from his responsibilities, and I do think we're going to go back to 2006.

In the comics, this kind of projection is called an energy twin, but it works differently. There, a Lantern's energy twin can travel much faster than the wearer's body, but the wearer stays motionless while it's active. That definitely isn't the case here, as Hal is up the road eating tacos. Before disappearing, the backup gives John a cryptic message: there's hail in Rushville, Nebraska, which the real Hal will understand. When John relays it at the taco stand, where Hal is signing autographs, Hal's attitude quickly changes and he tells John to pay the bill before flying off.

A funny moment comes when John says he conjured bubble wrap to survive. I feel this plays into how John's constructs are typically more practical than other Lanterns', and it most likely comes from his inexperience. I couldn't find an example of a Lantern creating bubble wrap in the comics, but I did find a Reddit comment where someone asked what people would construct and one person said bubble wrap, and I jokingly suspect it's Damon Lindelof's burner account.

The Rushville crime scene and a sheriff who may have met Hal before

John makes the long trip to Rushville, going through security, and finds Hal at a crime scene on a high school football field, claiming he was testing whether John could get there on his own. The sheriff, played by Kelly Macdonald from No Country for Old Men, tells Hal that Lanterns can only deal with extraterrestrial crimes and this is a regular shooting. Hal is convinced the victims are alien, since nobody seems to know who they are and no one has claimed the bodies. On the surface, this seems like their first meeting, but she says she can't do this again, which could hint this isn't her first time dealing with Hal.

I couldn't find a good comic counterpart for her, but I'm thinking she may be based on a small town woman from Hope Springs, West Virginia, who had a brief relationship with Hal when he tried to return to a normal life, introduced in the 1990 Green Lantern run. That run seems like a big inspiration for the show, following an older Hal 15 years after he got his ring, on a road trip across America. I don't know if they'll adapt it fully, because of the author. The two characters look very alike, which would be great casting if that's the case.

Hal has John break down the scene. Spotting the kicking block and broken fence, John works out that the home team scored a game winning field goal, fans stormed the field, and four members of the visiting side were shot in the commotion. Here Hal shows why he's Earth's only Green Lantern. John spots a sweater and realizes one of the aliens is still there, but Hal and the sheriff already knew and had been keeping an eye on him. John coming onto the field makes the suspect bolt, and John then outsmarts him in a chase where his military training comes into play. I think Aaron Pierre belongs on the list of all time great onscreen sprinters.

The jukebox, Abin Sur and the woman at the bar

At a bar, Hal uses his ring to create a 20 dollar bill for the jukebox, a brilliant use of the ring I never considered. I did find an old comic where a low level criminal who briefly had Hal's ring used it to make fake money, and after getting out of prison in Green Lantern issue 67 in 1969 he lived a life of wealth. Hal plays Brand New Key by Melanie, from her 1971 album Gather Me, and I love the old song aesthetic around Hal. He tells John he was woken by a green bubble that asked if he was afraid, then taken to a badly wounded Abin Sur in Nebraska, about 20 miles from Rushville, who told him he was now responsible for sector 2814.

I feel Hal isn't being entirely truthful, though this is pretty much how he got his ring in Showcase issue 22, where Abin Sur crash lands in California and Hal is taken from Ferris. Hal says Earth was never in the Guardians' jurisdiction and him being chosen was apparently a fluke, which gave him the feeling Abin Sur's crash was no accident, so he's been monitoring Rushville ever since. John then realizes Hal keeps replaying the song on purpose to start a fight, get arrested and be locked up with the suspect.

Meanwhile, a woman at the bar asks John whether he'll say yes to Hal, how he's being tested and why Hal picked him. It's like an interrogation, and I was super suspicious of her. John tells her Earth can only have one Green Lantern and he's training in case something happens to Hal, which I think might have been a mistake. If she's up to something, knowing Earth's replacement is still in training would be great to hear if you're trying to take over the planet.

William's compound and the Black Hand rumors

The next day, the sheriff's office is the Sheridan County Sheriff's Office, possibly a nod to Tim Sheridan, who wrote 2024's Alan Scott: The Green Lantern, and the judge's name, Janet Sloan, could be a nod to the original Mr. Terrific, Terry Sloan. Jason Ritter's lawyer Billy, the sheriff's husband, gets Hal out on bail and invites him to his father William's ranch, which turns out to be a compound with militia training grounds. William, a former Marine sniper, calls the ring a weapon of mass destruction and says he works for a mysterious employer he can't identify. This guy is definitely a bad guy.

William believes aliens are coming to colonize Earth, comparing it to how the land they're on once belonged to natives unaware ships were coming. When Hal says the galaxy is relatively peaceful, William replies, "If that's the case, why do they need space cops?" I did think the subtext was a bit heavy handed. I also wonder if this will play off Superman, where we learned the House of El had plans for Clark. Meanwhile, John teaches the sheriff's son Noah to throw a football by imagining it going through rather than aiming, which parallels how Lanterns create constructs. Then Noah's grandmother arrives, and she's the woman from the bar, Zoe, William's wife. William later makes it obvious he knows, saying, "Nothing better than eating off another man's grill."

There have been rumors that William could be William Hand, the Black Hand, a classic villain obsessed with the ring's power who was experimented on by aliens. In his original origin, he grew up wealthy, came to hate his family and turned to crime, which I feel fits the little we know. His calling the ring a weapon of mass destruction hinted to me that he's afraid of it. If he is Black Hand, I think he's going to be after the rings, and he may have been the one who took Hal's at the end. If Zoe told him what John said, he knows taking out Hal would leave Earth with an untrained backup.

The interrogation, and why the sheriff might be an alien

The sheriff says the suspect is a truck driver whose X rays show human organs, but Hal and John say 14 species have the technology to pass as human. John's reflection on the two way mirror makes it look like he's sitting across from the suspect, symbolizing how he'll one day take Hal's place. John also sketches the suspect, which feels more like it could be a nod to Kyle Rayner, a freelance artist in the comics, since John is an architect there. Hal quizzes him on Nebraska football, which he aces, but he's stumped by the name of Harry Potter's school. Aliens study for specific roles but neglect common things humans know.

The sheriff tells John Hal isn't fearless but lonely. I might be reaching, but her reflection hovers right over the suspect, which could possibly hint she's an undercover alien herself, explaining why she's tried so hard to get rid of Hal. If so, I don't think she's involved with William's plans. The suspect then hypothetically reveals a device woven into his skeleton he can trigger with a thought, and points out Hal has been in town 48 hours. In the comics, rings need recharging every 24 hours, so his people have probably tangled with the Lanterns before. He says he's here for vengeance, and Hal throws him across the room and contains him in a bubble.

In 2026, Hal is dead and his ring is gone

We jump to 2026, where an older John, with a goatee that references his look in the animated Justice League, drives into Rushville past what I think is the destroyed ranch, though I could be wrong. The sheriff says Noah is now quarterback, and interestingly there's no mention of Billy or William. Then we see Hal in the stands, frozen solid and dead, with his ring gone. They also hide whether John has a ring by covering his right hand, and this would be a year after Superman, where Guy Gardner is Earth's Green Lantern. So we get a double mystery of who killed Hal and John's status in the Corps. Hal died more dramatically in the comics, sacrificing himself to reignite the sun, so this seems like a new storyline.

My verdict: a well acted premiere that felt a bit drab

I was a little on the fence going in, and did struggle with the pacing at points. I wasn't initially hooked by the main mystery, and it was only the final scene that intrigued me. However, Aaron Pierre is fantastic as John Stewart, and I love his dynamic with Kyle Chandler's Hal, that contempt mixed with respect. I also really love the True Detective vibes, which lean into the cop side of the Lanterns.

Still, something feels a bit drab for a premiere, and the only green I saw was the basket at the taco place. I found elements kind of boring, but it's early days, it's well acted, and I like Lindelof. I'm excited to see what they do with the source material, though I'm still a bit funny on the DCU.

Who do you think killed Hal Jordan?