When DC comics first introduced the character of John Stewart, back in the early 1970s, he was one of the first African-American superheroes to enter a pantheon dominated by white men. The character was a landmark: a Black Power advocate, a college graduate, and one of the few superheroes who didn’t wear a mask. Now, for the first time, a live-action version of the character is being brought to the screen in Sky’s gritty new science-fiction mystery, Lanterns.
Here, Earth is protected from extraterrestrial intrusion by the Green Lantern, a role performed, at present, by Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), a hard-drinking, wise-cracking former fighter pilot. But times are changing and Jordan is getting old, so the Guardians of the Universe, a committee of supernatural beings that appoints the lanterns, solicits John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) to become his successor. An ex-Marine who has spent his whole life training for the role, John feels ready to slide on the Green Lantern’s superpower-imbued ring. He soon realises, however, that Jordan isn’t going to give it up easily. “I don’t want a sidekick, and I don’t need a backup,” the incumbent Mr Lantern informs him. With that friction a live concern, the two embark on an investigation into a mass shooting in the small town of Rushville, Nebraska, which might just be the centre of an alien invasion.
Smartly, this mystery takes the form of a whodunnit. Which of the town’s seemingly human residents is actually a murderous alien in disguise? It serves to ground a story that might otherwise have soared off into the heavens. When the Green Lantern was brought to screen previously, in the 2011 film starring Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, the film prioritised visual splendour (this was a couple of years after Avatar came out, and studios were obsessed with producing the biggest, shiniest pictures possible). It was widely panned. In Lanterns, Jordan retains the dry wit that brought Reynolds to the role (though Chandler is much better at giving the washed-up hero some emotional depth) but the terrestrial dynamics are more influenced by shows like Mindhunter and Fargo. Provincial America becomes a crucible for violence. “I’m trying to hold this town together,” Kelly Macdonald’s sheriff tells the duo. “This place is losing its mind.”
Having watched comic book heroes dominate multiplexes and salt the earth for interesting, grown-up filmmaking, I am ideologically against the same trend being repeated on the small screen. But while the approach from Disney-owned Marvel has been scattershot (their most recent show, Wonder Man, broke the mould, got excellent reviews and was summarily cancelled after a single season), their competitors over at DC have been more judicious. In partnership with HBO, they made the Batman offshoot The Penguin, a critical hit which self-plagiarised The Sopranos, and now Lanterns, a superhero knock-off of True Detective. But learning from the expertise of prestige TV broadcasters is no bad thing, and Lanterns is filled with the sort of sophisticated detail that has long been HBO’s trademark.
I will try to shelve my instinctive, cynical response: “Why not just make more shows like True Detective, rather than trying to Trojan-horse comic book fans into watching proper telly?” While the writing cannot avoid the occasional descent into impenetrable sci-fi bunkum, Lanterns’ creators demonstrate unusual restraint in keeping things largely earthbound. Chandler and Pierre make for a watchable pairing, London-born Pierre brooding and controlled (“I don’t do panic”) where Chandler is a smirking scoundrel. The supporting cast, including Macdonald and a menacingly weird Garett Dillahunt as local bigwig Macon, give it their all. Green Lantern is one of DC’s sillier properties (most of their recent success has been in noirish Batman vehicles, which contrast with the technicolour spectacle of Marvel’s Avengers) yet serious actors are clearly no longer just phoning these roles in, looking for an easy (and presumably massive) paycheck. DC are priming Pierre for tentpole movies – he will join Superman for next year’s Man of Tomorrow – and, on the evidence of Lanterns, he’s ready.
But Lanterns is not merely a testing ground for the big screen. Few comic book adaptations have grappled with racism so overtly. “Do you understand how unfair it is to ask a Black man in America if he’s afraid?” John’s mother (Nicole Ari Parker) rails at the intergalactic recruiters. In a world where the perceived politicisation of the entertainment industry is such an incendiary subject, it feels brave to have a Black superhero who doesn’t ignore his Blackness. It is a sign, too, that Lanterns want to be better – to do better – than most of the mass-produced, focus-grouped superhero guff we’ve been exposed to.
‘Lanterns’ begins on Sky Atlantic, NOW and HBO Max in the UK at 2am on Monday, 17 August