Lanterns is stellar!

For anyone who enjoys aliens, detective stories, and has a soft spot for comic book characters: I'm absolutely loving "Lanterns" on HBO.

I've loved comic characters since I was young. It's maybe because I'm just a little boy on the inside, but I hope that doesn't disenchant a wider audience from enjoying this intelligent and mature take on the Green Lantern mythos that clearly spared very little expense.

Not unlike the reboot of 'Watchmen' from 2019, race is an integral layer of this gritty, alien detective story. It features John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), a Black marine sniper raised to know no fear, chosen to back up and eventually replace the cowboy-coded, and somewhat messy Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) as a 'Green Lantern' - a superpowered protecter of the galaxy.

Hal Jordan is the Green Lantern that most are familiar with, most recently portrayed in live action by Ryan Reynolds in 2011. In 'Lanterns', Jordan and Stewart are the first humans ever chosen to weild the iconic Green Lantern ring that grants the power to manifest practically anything that they can imagine. While the two men navigate their complicated, human relationship that traces back through John Stewart's childhood, a dangerous alien threat looms.

Much of the story plays out in small town Rushville, Nebraska, and one of the coolest aspects of the show is watching everyday Americans, represented powerfully by Kerry, the sheriff of Rushville, as they wrestle with the reality of the extraterrestrial. This phenomenon of humans realizing that aliens are real and responding in human ways is even more interesting because of the parallels between aliens and oppressed peoples that the audience gets to experience through the lens of a race-conscious Black character.

The tricky thing when it comes to comic book characters is keeping the stories fresh and interesting, as many adults have engaged with more male superheroes than they can count since the boom in the early 2000s. Lanterns acknowledges this phenomenon and navigates themes that are interesting to adults without stripping away the joy and imagination that make these characters exciting in the first place.

Episode 4 drops on Sunday night!