The ambitious HBO series “Lanterns,” based on DC Comics’ “Green Lantern” franchise, stars Aaron Pierre as John Stewart, a rookie space cop training under aging intergalactic peacekeeper Hal Jordan, played by Kyle Chandler.
Stewart learns some of the dos and don’ts of being a member of the Green Lantern Corps cosmic peace force in the rural America of “Lanterns.” The pair of superheroes stumble onto a conspiracy threatening to disrupt more than just Stewart’s apprenticeship. The show has been compared to “True Detective,” which happens to be one of the best HBO original series ever made, so the bar is already sky high.
For anyone not familiar with the literally out-of-this-world “Green Lantern” characters from DC Comics lore and its many associated adaptations — animated series, video games, films, etc. — these are a few primary facts that’ll help make HBO’s “Lanterns” easier to comprehend.
Green Lantern rings let the wearer create constructs of pure willpower
Hal Jordan and John Stewart are not merely lovers of ornate green jewelry. The Green Lantern rings — which need to be periodically recharged with a cosmic battery that conveniently resembles a lantern — give their wearers the power to create energy constructs of literally anything they can think of via sheer force of willpower. The rings aren’t easy to master and require training, which is partly why Stewart tolerates Jordan in the HBO show.
For one example of what a Green Lantern ring is capable of, Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) in 2025’s “Superman” uses his ring to create giant hands to swat away enemy soldiers and give them the finger. Jordan and Stewart aren’t as obnoxious as Gardner, so don’t expect the same level of zany comedy in their HBO series.
The Green Lantern Corps was created by the Guardians of the Universe
Essentially, the Green Lantern Corps was created by a group of beings called the Guardians of the Universe who wanted to keep the cosmos safe from large-scale threats. After a false start involving deadly robots called Manhunters, the Guardians made the rings to give to worthy individuals throughout the galaxy.
The Guardians themselves have existed since nearly the start of all things, and the ones who are still around are effectively immortal. They’re blue and typically depicted as being small in stature with white hair. As they’ve been around for several millennia, they’ve acquired a vast amount of knowledge about the way the universe works, which is useful for their intergalactic peacekeeping endeavors.
Despite their cold and calculating demeanor they usually have good intentions. At San Diego Comic Con, “Lanterns” showrunner Chris Mundy revealed that Laura Linney is playing one of the Guardians.
Green Lanterns are vulnerable to yellow and fear
This is perhaps one of the most bonkers facts about the Green Lanterns: They can be vulnerable to the color yellow, as it represents fear, the natural opposite of willpower and courage.
The extent to which yellow can literally disable a Green Lantern depends on the era. In comics from the late 1950s or 1960s, Hal Jordan might be helpless against a yellow fire hydrant or a yellow crayon, but newer incarnations tend to reinterpret or recontextualize this bit of Silver Age lore. For instance, comics published in the mid-’00s explain that the Green Lantern rings’ problem with yellow stems from Parallax, a creature made up of pure fear who spends a ton of time trapped in the Central Power Battery — the big Green Lantern battery that energizes all the other, smaller batteries across the universe – on the Guardians’ home planet of Oa. Parallax also appears in the universally criticized 2011 “Green Lantern” movie starring Ryan Reynolds, and looks like a brown-and-yellow cloud of energy with an ugly dumb face in the film.
Whether yellow has any effect on the versions of Hal Jordan and John Stewart from “Lanterns” remains to be seen.
Hal Jordan was trained by Sinestro
The core dynamic of “Lanterns” is about Hal Jordan training John Stewart. But there’s a strained relationship between teacher and student, as Jordan doesn’t exactly take his responsibility as a mentor seriously. It’s a parallel to the relationship Jordan has with the man who trained him — a former Green Lantern called Thaal Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen). In case it wasn’t clear from the pink skin, Sinestro is an alien, and he comes from the planet Korugar.
In the comics, the general gist of Sinestro is that when Jordan joins the Corps, Sinestro is a respected member of the Green Lanterns. However, he eventually decides that there’s a more effective tool than willpower to keep the universe in check: fear. Sinestro’s disillusionment from and opposition to the Corps leads to the creation of the Yellow Lanterns (also known as the Sinestro Corps). While the Green Lanterns channel willpower to create their constructs, Yellow Lanterns use fear instead.
When “Lanterns” kicks off, Sinestro has already broken away from the Green Lanterns, but is still heavily invested in Jordan’s life.
Earth has an unusually high number of Green Lanterns
In theory, each individual wielding a Green Lantern power ring is charged with overseeing a single sector of space across the universe. In practice, there are at least two Green Lanterns patrolling Earth in the DCU — Hal Jordan and Guy Garner — with John Stewart in training to replace Jordan.
Stewart was actually Jordan’s second potential replacement in the comics, as Gardner was originally introduced way back in “Green Lantern” #59 in 1968. Later, the Guardians picked Stewart as the new backup in issue #87 from 1972.
In the source material, Earth has multiple Green Lanterns due to its status as a “Crux World,” the Guardians’ term for a planet of special cosmic significance. Let’s hope “Lanterns” is as good as the other DC TV shows on HBO Max – then we might see a few more ring-slingers in the future.