Lanterns season 1 review: Not your usual superhero show

🟢 This review is part of the DCU Chapter 1: Gods and monsters guide – every project of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s rebooted DC Universe, reviewed and ranked.

I just finished Lanterns and my first reaction was simple: what a great show. It is a very good expansion of the DC Universe and an easy recommendation. It is not a typical superhero series, and that is exactly why it feels so fresh. I was hooked from the first episode to the last, and every week I wanted to know how it continued. Now that the whole season is out, you can binge it.

I am not a Green Lantern specialist. I know the basics, I do not own the comics, and I could not tell you the difference between half the colours of the spectrum without help. It worked for me anyway, which is the best sign I can give a show built on a comic book mythology.

What Lanterns actually is

The pitch is a veteran space cop and his rookie, sent to Earth. Kyle Chandler plays Hal Jordan, a Green Lantern near the end of his career, and Aaron Pierre plays John Stewart, the new recruit Hal is training. When a mass shooting hits a high school football game in a Nebraska town, Hal suspects the crime has an alien side, and the two are drawn into an investigation.

That is the choice that makes it different. Lanterns is built as a detective story rather than a string of set pieces, and the people who made it hint at why: Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof and Tom King, a crime-drama showrunner, a writer of mysteries and a comics author. The show has been described as modelled on slow-burn mysteries like True Detective and Slow Horses, which is a much better guide to what you are getting than anything with a cape in the title.

For me, that made it feel fresh. I am not a Lantern specialist, and I was gripped anyway.

The cast

Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre lead, with Kelly Macdonald as Sheriff Kerry Kane, Garret Dillahunt as Will Macon, Poorna Jagannathan as Zoe Macon and Ulrich Thomsen as Sinestro. Nathan Fillion is back as Guy Gardner, the Lantern we already met in Superman (2025), where he was part of the Justice Gang.

A little Lantern lore, so you are not lost

You do not need any of this to enjoy the show, but a few ideas make everything land harder.

• The Green Lantern Corps is a kind of interstellar police force. Each member carries a ring and is responsible for a section of space.
• The ring runs on willpower. The more focused and determined its wearer, the more it can do. That is why bravery is the central theme of the whole show.
• The Guardians are the ancient beings who run the Corps. They give the orders, and they are not always right.
• Yellow is the colour of fear. In Lantern lore, the opposite of willpower is fear, and the Lantern world treats the two as rival sources of power.
• Sinestro was once the most celebrated Lantern of all, and Hal’s mentor. He is also the Corps’ most famous fallen member, and one of DC’s best villains.
• The Manhunters began in the comics as the Guardians’ robotic police force, a failed attempt at a Corps that did not need willpower.
• John Stewart is one of the Earth-based Lanterns. His comic debut was in 1971, and for many fans he is the definitive Lantern.

That is enough. Everything else the show explains as it goes.

Why it works for a dad on a Tuesday night

This is a show for an adult evening: a mystery you want to follow, with a superhero world behind it rather than in front of it. It held me every week while it aired, and now that all eight episodes are out, nobody has to wait. It is a good fit for the end of a long day, when you want to be absorbed rather than overloaded.

Be honest with yourself about the age rating, though. It is TV-MA, Common Sense Media recommends 15 and up for language and bloody violence, and the story starts with a mass shooting at a high school football game. It is not a family show and should not be sold as one. Watch it after the kids are asleep.

Spoilers ahead: the ending explained

Everything above is spoiler-free. From here on, I explain the finale, so stop reading if you have not finished the season.

The big question the finale answers is what happens to the Lanterns. The short version:

• Guy Gardner stays Green Lantern. He is not removed and does not lose his ring. He remains the official Lantern of the Corps for the wider space that includes Earth.
• John Stewart takes Earth for himself. He becomes, in effect, an independent Green Lantern who no longer works strictly by the rules of the Corps. His attitude is that Guy can look after the rest, and John will look after Earth.
• Hal Jordan is dead. John takes Hal’s ring and with it Hal’s legacy.

So why two Green Lanterns? That is deliberate, and it matters for the DCU that follows. Guy is the Corps’ Lantern for the whole sector. John says, in effect, that he does not want to be part of that system any longer and wants to decide for himself what he does on Earth.

To do that, John takes Hal’s ring and also Sinestro’s unusual lantern. It carries willpower, but it also holds yellow energy, the energy tied to fear. By accepting that, John accepts the theme the whole season has been building: courage is not having no fear, it is doing the right thing in spite of it.

Along the way the finale also settles the murder. Sheriff Kerry shot Hal in a panic after he learned the truth about her son. Her son Noah turns out to be a Manhunter, like his grandmother Zoe, and he was the one who helped Sinestro escape. John, who understood Noah’s situation, decided not to hand Kerry over to the police, because he did not believe that was what Hal would have wanted.

That also explains how John can appear in Man of Tomorrow, the Superman sequel due on 9 July 2027, even though Guy remains a Green Lantern. The DCU now has two Lanterns with a connection to Earth, and Guy is far from irrelevant: he is still the official one. John has simply made a patch of the universe his own.

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Is Lanterns worth watching?

Yes. Lanterns season 1 earns 4.5 out of 5 from us. It is not a typical superhero series but a detective story that happens to feature Green Lanterns, and it works even without deep comic knowledge.

Do I need to know Green Lantern lore to watch Lanterns?

No. A little background helps, mainly that Lantern rings run on willpower and that Sinestro is the Corps’ most famous fallen member, but the show is built as a murder mystery first. Our review explains the basics.

Where can I watch Lanterns?

On HBO and HBO Max. Season 1 ran for eight weekly episodes from 16 August to 4 October 2026, so the whole season is now available to binge.

Do I need to watch Superman (2025) before Lanterns?

It helps but it is not required. Guy Gardner, played by Nathan Fillion, first appeared in Superman (2025) and returns in Lanterns, and the finale sets John Stewart up for Man of Tomorrow.

Is Lanterns suitable for kids?

No. It is rated TV-MA and Common Sense Media recommends 15 and up, because of strong language, bloody violence and a plot that starts with a mass shooting at a high school football game. It is a show for after the kids are asleep.

Who is the Green Lantern at the end of Lanterns?

Both Guy Gardner and John Stewart. Guy stays the official Green Lantern of the Corps. John takes Hal Jordan’s ring and claims Earth for himself as an independent Lantern, outside the Corps’ rules.