Superhero television has a reputation problem: too much spectacle, not enough substance. Lanterns was supposed to be DC Studios’ answer to that and after a marketing rollout that had fans nervously wondering if a show about glowing power rings had somehow forgotten to be colorful, it turned out to be something far better than anyone expected.
What Lanterns Is About
Set roughly a year after the events of Superman and Peacemaker Season 2, Lanterns follows two of DC’s most iconic Green Lanterns veteran Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and new recruit John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) as they’re pulled into investigating a murder in the small town of Rushville, Nebraska, one that turns out to carry far bigger, cosmic implications than either of them expects.
Rather than leaning into space opera spectacle, the show plays out as a grounded, atmospheric mystery, with critics repeatedly drawing comparisons to True Detective. Its most distinctive structural choice is a dual-timeline format: a 2016 thread showing Hal training a younger John, running parallel to the present-day 2026 investigation – a clever way of letting the show reveal DCU history through character rather than clunky exposition.
HBO MAX’s Lanterns Cast
Beyond Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre the latter effectively fan-cast into the role after his breakout turn in Netflix’s Rebel Ridge, landing the part roughly a month after that film’s release, the ensemble runs deep.
Kelly Macdonald plays local sheriff Kerry, while Garret Dillahunt and Jason Ritter play father and son William and Billy Macon. Poorna Jagannathan and Laura Linney round out key supporting roles, and Ulrich Thomsen brings a menacing edge as the classic Green Lantern villain Sinestro.
John Stewart’s family history gets real weight too, with Nicole Ari Parker and Jasmine Cephas Jones playing his mother, Bernadette, across two timelines, and Sherman Augustus/J. Alphonse Nicholson doing the same for his father.
And Nathan Fillion reprises Guy Gardner from Superman, bringing a third Lantern into the mix.
Background and Development of Superhero TV Series ‘Lanterns’
Lanterns almost looked completely different. Back in 2019, HBO Max had a separate Green Lantern series in development from Greg Berlanti, envisioned to span decades and dig into the origin stories of Earth’s two major Lanterns. That version was scrapped in January 2023 once James Gunn and Peter Safran took over as DC Studios’ co-chairs and pivoted to their own take, eventually landing on Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King as co-creators.
Production began in February 2025, but the road to release wasn’t smooth – an “early 2026” window kept sliding, with reports at one point suggesting it might get pushed behind Supergirl’s June release entirely, before HBO ultimately locked in an August 16, 2026 premiere. That timing turned out to matter: Lanterns arrived just weeks after Supergirl underperformed at the box office, putting real pressure on the show to prove the DCU could still deliver pressure made even sharper by the ongoing uncertainty around Paramount Skydance’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. looming over the franchise’s future.
Critic and Audience Reception of Lanterns
Whatever nerves surrounded the show evaporated fast. Lanterns has consistently scored in the low-to-mid 90s among critics on Rotten Tomatoes figures have ranged from 90% to 95% depending on when they were pulled – putting it near the top of the entire 2026 DCU slate, just behind The Penguin’s 95% and nearly double Supergirl’s dismal 52%.
Reviewers have been especially complimentary of its restraint: RogerEbert.com called it “incredibly watchable even through its flaws, and nearly heroic in its hits,” while Slashfilm argued that by “embracing character and story above all else, Lanterns may win over even the most stubborn of skeptics.” Not every critic was fully won over – The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Fienberg noted the text and subtext aren’t woven together as tightly as in Lindelof’s Watchmen, and that viewers hoping for a straightforward comic-book blockbuster might come away a little underwhelmed.
Audiences responded almost as strongly, opening to a 92% audience score with a wave of five-star ratings, before settling into the high 80s after a genuinely divisive twist: Hal Jordan appears to die at the end of the premiere, a choice some fans felt “disrespected” the character. Even accounting for that dip, the show’s numbers remain well ahead of Supergirl’s and comfortably in line with the DCU’s best-received entries so far, like Creature Commandos and Peacemaker.
Must Read – Buddy: They Turned Barney Into an R-Rated Killer
Where Lanterns Fits in the DC Universe
As DC Studios’ first live-action television series proper following the animated Creature Commandos and Peacemaker Season 2 – Lanterns carries more weight than its grounded, small-town setting might suggest. It’s less interested in cosmic spectacle than in proving the DCU can sustain genuinely prestige-caliber television, and by most accounts, it’s succeeding. With Clayface already set to follow it onto HBO Max once the season wraps in October, Lanterns has effectively become the test case for whether James Gunn’s DCU can thrive on the small screen the way it’s aiming to on the big one.
For a show that spent months being second-guessed over its grey, dusty-jacket aesthetic, Lanterns has quietly become one of the best-reviewed things DC has put out in years – proof that sometimes the best way to make a story about cosmic superheroes land is to keep both feet planted firmly on the ground.
