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To be a member of the intergalactic police force known as the Green Lantern Corps, you must be without fear. Green Lantern fans, however, have been quite a bit more fearful, especially with most of the marketing of the HBO series Lanterns. Many of the promos and interviews leading into the show have been strangely reluctant to embrace the franchise’s sci-fi roots, describing the show as a grounded mystery in the vein of True Detective and even stripping the color green from the series’ title and marketing.
The latest trailer for Lanterns tries to correct course, giving us glimpses of Aaron Pierre carrying a power battery as John Stewart, brief glimpses of Nathan Fillion reprising his role as Guy Gardner from Superman, Ulrich Thomsen as Sinestro in an Oan Sciencell, and, finally, lots of green.
But the best part of the trailer is something that has never been in doubt, something that has been clear since our first looks at the series: Kyle Chandler is killing it as Hal Jordan. In the latest trailer, Hal uses his ring to make a dollar bill, which he promptly sticks into a jukebox. This after giving John a speech about the great responsibility of knowing when and how to use the ring. When John challenges his hypocrisy, Hal blows it all off, cool as can be.
If you don’t read DC Comics, you may not respect the feat that Chandler’s accomplishing here. Hal Jordan debuted in Showcase Comics #22 (1959), which reimagined Green Lantern not as the Golden Age hero Alan Scott, an engineer with a magic wishing ring and a purple cape, but as a test pilot who joins the Corps after an alien crash lands on his planet. In addition to giving him the single greatest costume in superhero history (you know it’s true), artist Gil Kane gave Hal dashing good looks modeled on Paul Newman and drew him gliding through the air with ease.
In short, Hal Jordan was a young, cocky hot-shot, a great place for a superhero to start, but very difficult to maintain, especially if the character makes mistakes. And, oh boy, does Hal Jordan make mistakes. Even before his most infamous moments, Hal would regularly give up his ring to go find himself, wandering around the country as a trucker or a salesman peddling toys and insurance. When paired with liberal loudmouth Green Arrow in the legendary series by Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams, Hal was the wet-blanket conservative, a cop constantly berated for his authoritarianism.
In the ’80s, Hal started dating a 13-year-old. In the ’90s, he went nuts and killed all the other members of the Corps, spending a few years as the villain Parallax. Then, in the 2000s, retcons explained all that away and Hal was back, trying to be as cool as ever. Not every fan has been ready to accept him.
The latest Lanterns trailer gives us glimpses of Hal in his prime, with a smirking (and mask-less?) Hal Jordan appearing on a CRT TV. But Chandler mostly plays an older, more grizzled Hal, a guy who has already done it all and isn’t so thrilled to be training new guy John Stewart. That could be a disaster, positioning Hal as the old dog who still thinks he’s hot stuff, setting up a story where we want to see the cocky old fart get taken down a notch.
But just look at the twinkle in Chandler’s eye when he makes that dollar bill. Look at the confidence he possesses when effortlessly creating a construct to deflect bullets or standing up to the local heavies. Chandler even manages to stay charming when Hal condescends to John, making us believe, if only for a moment, that maybe he should be Green Lantern forever.
We’re still a few months from the Lanterns premiere, so we still don’t know how the series will hand all the weird parts of the Green Lantern mythos. But at least we can look forward to Chandler’s take on Hal Jordan without the slightest hint of fear.
Lanterns debuts on HBO on August 16, 2026.
The post Lanterns Trailer Cements Kyle Chandler As the Perfect Green Lantern appeared first on Den of Geek.
