DCU's Lanterns is just days away - Here's everything you need to remember

HBO's Lanterns is just a week and half away from its premiere on the prestige TV network. It will be taking over the time slot of House of the Dragon Season 3 on Sundays. The second live-action adaptation of the Green Lantern characters looks like a True Detective pastiche rather than a superhero adventure. The two trailers have alluded to the superhero show being a murder mystery.

The series promises to be a relatively grounded adventure for the intergalactic space cops. The HBO show will be headlined by two human Green Lanterns, Hal Jordan and John Stewart, who are solving mysterious deaths in the Nebraskan town of Rushville.

Here's what you need to know about Lanterns, as the series is just a week and half away:

Here are a few things about the DCU HBO superhero murder mystery series you must remember:

John Stewart might replace Hal Jordan:

The latest trailer, which was released at San Diego Comic-Con, features a scene in which Hal Jordan visits his former mentor Sinestro in his prison cell. In that scene, Sinestro asks his former prodigy Hal to say what the latter's new pupil is. Hal Jordan responds saying that he is aware that John Stewart is his replacement.

We also see snippets of an African American boy (probably a young John Stewart) watching a younger Hal on TV. This suggests that the Guardians of Oa always saw Stewart as a worthy recruit, but the ring ended up choosing Hal after Abin Sur's death.

A rumored leak from last month suggested that the Lanterns premiere ends with the shocking death of Hal Jordan. If Hal Jordan dies in the premiere episode, it would mean only one thing: Guy Gardner and Hal Jordan are the only two human Green Lanterns in the DCU.

The series is split into two timelines:

Showrunner Chris Mundy was interviewed by Entertainment Weekly this May, in which he revealed something important about the series. The timeline of Lanterns will be split into two: 2016 and 2026. The two trailers feature scenes from 2016, as we see Hal training John. Very few scenes of the present can be seen in the trailers.

The scenes from the present are identifiable by the presence of Guy Gardner, and John Stewart's beard. Except for these small glimpses, the two trailers heavily featured scenes from 2016, the time at which Hal would have been training John. Hal's declaration of being the only human Green Lantern in the first teaser would also make sense if Guy Gardner was inducted into the Green Lantern Corps recently in the DCU continuity.

Some characters might be using pseudonyms:

Apart from mostly featuring scenes from the flashback portion, the trailers have also featured scenes of Paul Ben-Victor's extraterrestrial character, Antaan. His official character description even describes Antaan as someone who is determined to expose the truth of the Green Lantern Corps and the Guardians of Oa.

However, many fans believe that "Antaan" might be a pseudonym for the Red Lantern Corps founder and leader, Atrocitus. In the comics, Atrocitus's people were wiped out by the Manhunters, the same android beings mentioned in the latest trailer. Moreover, Antaan's character description also mentions him being a victim of genocide, making people theorize that he is Atrocitus.

Apart from Antaan, there is also Garret Dillahunt's William Macon, who many fans believe is playing the supervillain, William Hand/Black Hand. Originally introduced in 1964, Hand became prominent in the 2000s as the founder of the Black Lantern Corps, the Lantern Corps that raised dead characters in their zombified forms.

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Lanterns airs on HBO from August 16 to October 04, 2026. Are you hyped for the show?

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