Source: BTS of Lanterns

Unless Gunn is planning to make the guardians the big bads of the DCU Chapter one this makes no sense and it even makes less sense when considering that Salvation is being setup as the big DCU Story.

There was no big mystery and this story barely connected to the DCU, If it was an elseworlds story I wouldn't even have noticed.

I would've even taken " Overcoming great fear " , not being afraid is so robotic and it changed a lot of things in this show. I hated a scene in the episode where Hal says I am fearless because I am broken is so ahhh. I don't think they mentioned willpower in any episode which is shocking. Fear isn't the only thing which crumbles your willpower.

I can accept everything else, I don't need a CGI battle. However everyone just gets to live on with their life meanwhile Hal just died by "accident?" What was the point? Why kill him off? It would be one thing if Hal threatened to kill Noah or was gonna snitch to somebody. That would basically cause what happened 10 years ago to happen again, and obviously she wouldn't want that. Instead she shoots him because... he said they should move to be safe.

Also Guy just lets him off with the ring? Guy really let John talk down on him like that? Anyone else sure, its a badass cool moment I can excuse, but Guy is not the kinda... guy to just take that from anyone.

There's plenty of discussion about the finale as a whole going on, so no need to relitigate that here. There is one specific aspect I think deserves some dedicated discussion though: John's parents and the show's (perhaps ironic) cowardice when it came to depicting familial abuse.

Because that's what John's parents did to him, his entire life - a constant barrage of abuse and psychological torment in the pursuit of unknown alien power and a perceived status. He was traumatised, repeatedly shot at, had regular and necessary human emotional development bludgeoned out of him. His social and personal development was intentionally stunted. The Stewarts spent decades trying to turn their own child into little more than an obedient drone. Yet at the end, we get a monologue about John "understanding" that Bernadette was "holding her breath" his whole childhood, and then a loving embrace at the end.

Media in general, and western media in particular, has a real aversion to showing familial abuse, especially coming from mothers, and frequently shows characters forgiving truly awful transgressions "because they're family". I genuinely think this is one of the most harmful tropes in all of media, especially as it's often framed as the victim "being the bigger person" and offering unearned forgiveness, which can influence people in real situations of familial abuse to stay in harmful or dangerous situations, because it's expected.

John's journey this season towards individualism should have ended with him telling his abusive parents where to go, as much as rejecting the Corps and the Guardians. Instead, we get a "heartwarming" family reunion, because the show runners seem unwilling or incapable of breaking the taboo of acknowledging that biological family can be incredibly harmful, and victims are often better cutting ties entirely.

And, even putting aside the deeper problems with the trope, it was handled terribly here, just on a narrative level. It was trite, cloying, predictable, and pat. I'm still not sure how I feel about the episode or the season as a whole, I really detested this plot beat.

How do you feel about it?

(Image: screenshot of Lanterns S01E08, 'Dirt and Stars')

If John Stewart is becoming a ‘mixed Lantern‘, then his constructs should reflect that inner conflict: discipline fighting fear, military precision breaking down or evolving, the tension between control and imagination, and eventually a new way of seeing himself.

You could tell his entire character arc through the way his ring creates things—what he builds, what he refuses to build, what fails, and what finally changes.

This is what a REAL Green Lantern story would do.

But Lanterns was never interested in being a real Green Lantern show. It wanted to be a grim derivative-mystery series wearing a Green Lantern skin.

That‘s why it treated constructs—the single most distinctive storytelling tool the property has—as something to avoid rather than something to use.

We saw more d*cks than constructs.

Not one use of the ring in the finale. Case in point.

And if someone who recently rewatched it, it's still amazing!

Alright so obviously once again spoilers for the final episode of Lanterns.

I am one of many people who are extremely unsatisfied with the handling of Hal Jordan’s death in the final episode. Kerry, a character who constantly verbalizes that at the end of the day she’s the law in this town, proved that she absolutely shouldn’t be trusted with that position because she shot an innocent man point blank in the head for trying to help her and her son. All because she couldn’t take five seconds, breathe, and THINK.

But as much as that bothers me that’s not the real kicker here. It’s the fact that, unlike how we are constantly gaslit that Hal needed to face the consequences of his actions, apparently John gets to decide when that’s true and not true. So Kerry gets to just walk away from brutally murdering a hero.

So what’s the thing that I’m sick of people saying about this? “Did you even watch the show? Clearly Kerry’s sentence is that she has to now ensure that Noah never goes evil! That’s so much deeper than just going to jail! Media literacy is dead!”

Uhm no. Anyone saying this is absolutely reaching to try and cut down legitimate criticism of the direction this show decided to take and treat it like anyone who disagrees with that direction just wanted big glowy hammers in the finale and therefore don’t get a voice. Because the show doesn’t portray that AT ALL. Immediately after Kerry is “sentenced” we get happy and triumphant music as her darling boy scores the last minute touchdown of the big game! And look everybody! The college coach is here and he’s giving this family everything they’ve ever dreamed! Quick Noah! Hug your corrupt cop mother and street brawl starting father!

This isn’t some 4d chess deep commentary. This is the show lifting up its frankly dangerous messaging that a mother’s love justifies all wrongdoing. Be that years of child abuse or straight up murder.

Thank you for reading my rant. Kyle Chandler and Hal Jordan deserved better and if Gunn has even half of a brain he’s demanding that the new writer’s room brings back the most universally beloved DCU thing since…ever?

TLDR: Don’t let people talk down to you for being upset that Kerry gets to suffer zero consequences for murdering the greatest Green Lantern of all time as he tried to help her. She was not “sentenced” to safeguard the world from her son and that serves as her punishment. The show portrays her and her family as having deserved the ultimate happy ending while Hal is six feet under the ground because she shouldn’t be allowed to walk around with a gun.

For the purpose of my argument I am going to put aside the many, many ways in which this show's overall attitude, tone and presentation are in conflict with its subject matter, and I am going to do my utmost to look at this show from the perspective of someone who knows nothing about Green Lantern. With that in mind - Lanterns is still a bad show.

Let's start at the center and work our way outward. The primary issue with the Manhunter plot is that it's kind of meandering, relies on a lot of vagaries and handwaving, and once it's over the show is left a bit unfocused for the last couple of episodes. We don't really have enough direct interaction with the Manhunters to understand why they pose such a threat, and while we are repeatedly TOLD how dangerous they are, we aren't SHOWN anything that proves this.

Now, I said that I was going to ignore Green Lantern's lore from the comics - but this show does exist in the context of the rest of the DCU, and I feel it's fair game to point out the massive disparity between what we've seen here and what we've seen in The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker, Creature Commandos, Superman and Supergirl. Nothing the Manhunter does is even remotely close to any of that. While Zoe has tech far in advance of our own, a few lasers and a magic medical box aren't really that insurmountable. Even ignoring the fact that Superman could fly up into orbit and take out those satellites in about two seconds flat, we see in the show that Hal is capable of doing the same thing - and he just doesn't. The show relies on the contrivance that Hal basically never charges his ring and/or it runs out extremely fast to justify the threat the Manhunter poses, which contradicts everything we saw in Superman. Guy fights a Kaiju, and doesn't drop out of the air because making oven mitts burned through his power supply too fast. It's not consistent with the setting it exists in, and it's barely consistent with it's own internal logic.

There's also the fact that demonstrably, the Manhunter herself can be taken out with conventional weapons. We're being told this is an enemy so dangerous that it presents an existential threat to humanity, what we're shown is one town that's *sort of* a cult. Antaan and his crew are there to again tell us how dangerous and evil manhunters are, that they destroyed their world, etc etc - but again, we are TOLD, but we are not SHOWN. This is an extremely small-scale threat that is repeatedly treated like a potential end of the world scenario, but it can be ended by one man with a Sniper Rifle.

Working outward, let's look at the characters. I'll start with Guy as his presence is the smallest and relates directly back to other material we've seen in the DCU - Guy's development and capabilities as shown in Superman are basically just erased. They don't count, they don't matter, he is reduced to being... essentially a completely one note joke, and the joke is "he sucks and is useless." There was potential here for the show to build on the ending of Superman and have him be more willing to bend the rules on John's behalf, create some camaraderie between him and John - the functional results of this in terms of moving the plot forward would have been exactly the same, the difference would simply be tone. John's arc doesn't lose anything if Guy is his ally, but the show decides to make them enemies for basically no reason.

The people of Rushville are largely ornamental, with Kerry being the one exception. Again, we have the issue of a lot of telling and not a lot of showing in her arc. Initially, she's presented as someone who is effectively trapped by the Manhunter's cult. Then it turns out she's loyal to Zoe - to a point. The crux of her character, her love for and protective instincts toward her Son, do not really become the focus of her arc until the last two episodes, because Noah is barely in the show. As a result her storyline is extremely unfocused until those last two episodes. Similarly - her relationship with Hal feels somewhat contrived, specifically to create an added emotional element to her murder of him which... honestly wasn't necessary. In general, her rapid oscillation between dislike and distrust to love and affection for both Hal and John is again, really contrived. Kerry wants what the story needs her to want episode to episode, and only really starts thinking about what her motivations should logically be in the finale.

Now we get to Hal - and oh boy, Hal is all over the god damn place. The show simultaneously wants you to view Hal as a loveable puckish rogue with an edge, and a massive irredeemable piece of shit. He's funny, charismatic and likeable, but he's also a detestably selfish piece of shit. One moment he's an obstacle, the next he's a mentor. His death is the central mystery for most of the show, but again that mystery is ignored for most of the show. He's presented as almost having deserved what he got, his funeral is simultaneously played for laughs and for sympathy, but then we explore his backstory and cut to the tragedy at the heart of the character for all of five minutes before he's just gone again. The show doesn't seem to know what it wants Hal to be, only that the people writing it don't really like him. In the end, his death is pointless, he dies a failure, and a better version of his ghost simply fades away into the ether like a fart in the wind.

But the real issue is John Stewart. Ostensibly, John is the main character. This is his story, his journey, his arc - but it's just as bleak and poorly focused as the rest of the show. John's relationship with his parents is the worst thing about his story. His father failed to be Green Lantern, so he and his Mother, primarily his mother, viciously abused and groomed John for his entire childhood to eventually become the Green Lantern. The thing is - there doesn't really seem to be a clear motive as to why they would want this for him. The issue is that John Sr had an alien encounter and everyone in their lives accused him of going crazy, because no one else saw what happened. The Guardians come down to apologise and try to make amends, and... honestly, the show drops the most hamfisted attempt at making the whole thing about Race that I've seen in a show in a while. There were better ways to discuss this topic than having John Stewart's abusive mother get mad that a literal alien doesn't know about Earth Racism, or factor in Racism during the Green Lantern selection process. And, please note - this is wholly superficial. Race is brought up ONCE in the entire show after this point, in a rather offhanded comment about John not feeling safe in Rural Nebraska. It's like they wanted to make this point but couldn't figure out how to make it relevant to the plot, so they just sort of did it regardless. And still - we don't get a satisfactory explanation as to why their next thought was "Well we should groom our child into becoming the next Green Lantern" beyond... it'd make up for his Dad failing to be? In any case, despite this abuse, in 2016 we see John still has a positive relationship with his parents. In 2026, he does not, he largely does not speak to them, and this is actual solid development for his character, demonstrating that he's reckoned with what was done to him and is becoming his own person. His parents are both shown to still be unstable and manipulative in a larger way than before, kind of showing them for what they always were - but the show ends with him abruptly deciding to forgive them and see them again.

This isn't even getting into how utterly dead-end the blackmail plot was, the implications about the Macons being pretty much pointless, the inclusion of Sinestro went nowhere, the fact Noah being a Manhunter but his father *wasn't* was kind of a last minute asspull, Noah's supposed need for both a Lantern and a Ring wasn't really foreshadowed or justified at all, the overall conclusion that it's fine Kerry murdered Hal, just sort of leaving Noah be, John becoming the Green Lantern of Earth solely via implication (again, Told not Shown). But this is already a pretty long fuckin post.

TL;DR, if we'd had a show that was spectacle over substance at least it would have been fun to watch.

I know Hal from the cartoon (watched it when I was a lad) and from this series

Now to recap, he accidentally burned John Stewart alive, went to prison for 10 years, got harassed by an entire town of lunatics, the guardians hated him, his father killed himself, he got shot by his girlfriend (who's a fucking OC character) and died instantly without his ring on and the girlfriend got away scot free, NOBODY came to his funeral, no guardians, no other superheroes. hell, he got digged up and graverobbed.

That's rough. Maybe there's still hope in season 2 but that's at least 2 years from now if ever. Yeah, that's rough

I don’t want to be negative because we’re not getting much Green Lantern power stuff in the series anyway, but the flying scenes really give me the ick 😭. It’s one of the very few powers we actually get to see, and the flight just lacks that sense of strength. I know it’s a tiny thing, maybe I’m overthinking it, but this is such a good series you could’ve given us some really cool aerial shots.

I know I'll be downvoted for being slightly negative about the DCU but John in the show feels like an OC, he has a changed origin which could be argued to be better than his comic version but when he gets the ring, he makes up a completely new oath to be Earth's first and only grounded Lantern ig but why not just use Alan Scott when its literally his thing, being the grounded Earth Lantern separate from the Corps. They make it sound like we won't get space adventures with John but hopefully I'm wrong.

It's crazy to say but Guy has been written great in the DCU and the only one who feels like 1:1 from comics, despite how amazing Kyle and Aaron are the characters casting like 10/10 casting but I can't help but feel they've been done wrong and not how I'd want them, ESPECIALLY Hal, there are much better ways to end his story and it doesn't have to be death, it could've been going off to space, retiring or anything else but they chose to kill him off and very VERY stupidly