John Johnson/HBO Max
Contains spoilers for “Lanterns” Season 1, Episode 1
Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) are already shaping up to be one of DC’s most compelling — and most combative — on-screen partnerships in “Lanterns,” HBO’s new Green Lantern series set inside the DC Universe. Blending gritty detective drama with superhero mythology, the premiere sends the veteran Lantern and his reluctant trainee into a small-town investigation after a string of violent deaths points to something far stranger than ordinary crime.
Naturally, the case would likely hit a dead end fast without Hal’s power ring, the extraordinary weapon he carries as Earth’s first Green Lantern. The episode also begins expanding the show’s cosmic framework, dropping a major piece of DC lore by introducing the mysterious beings who oversee the Green Lantern Corps: the Guardians of the Universe.
That reveal raises an important question for viewers new to Green Lantern mythology. If a Lantern ring is already capable of nearly limitless feats, what kind of power must belong to the figures who command the Corps itself? To understand why the Guardians matter, it helps to look at their long and complicated history in DC Comics.
The Guardians of the Universe live up to their moniker
DC Comics
The Guardians of the Universe — memorably dismissed by Hal Jordan as the “big blue b******s” — are among the most influential cosmic forces in DC canon, and “Lanterns” appears poised to treat them with similar weight. Originating from the planet Maltus, these ancient immortals have existed since the earliest days of creation and have spent eons trying to impose stability on a universe constantly threatened by disorder.
The Green Lantern Corps may be their most famous project, but it is far from their first attempt at universal law enforcement. Across DC Comics history, the Guardians have patrolled galaxies, imprisoned terrifying cosmic entities, and taken part in conflicts of their own. They also created the Manhunters, a robotic police force that ultimately failed catastrophically, and later backed other enforcement groups, including the armed space officers known as the Halla’s. Even among themselves, the Guardians have rarely been unified for long, with ideological rifts giving rise to splinter factions pursuing separate agendas.
For all its flaws, the Green Lantern Corps has produced some of DC’s greatest heroes, with Earth’s Lanterns standing as proof of how powerful and noble the order can be at its best. The bigger question now is how deeply “Lanterns” will explore the Guardians’ shadowy legacy — and whether one of these elusive cosmic overseers will eventually make the trip to Earth as HBO’s Green Lantern story unfolds.
