Green Lantern: The Animated Series brought Bruce Timm's style to a new dimension

This is aided in no small part by the series’ sleek futurist design, which fused Space-Age optimism with Edgar Rice Burroughs’s muscular and vivid John Carter stories. It was a snug environment for Hal Jordan, Green Lantern of Sector 2814 (Josh Keaton), presented here as a fast-thinking, smooth-talking hero from the pulp adventure vein, more akin to Han Solo than the high-handed conservative space cop from the Bronze Age or the emotionally compromised galaxy-threatening terror from the ’90s. For a space-faring scion of willpower—the emotion that lets Green Lanterns wield their awesome rings—Hal has refreshing, down-to-earth charm. 

The art direction for the series, overseen by Timm, also provided sleek refinement to Hal’s small supporting cast, trimmed to a workable four-person unit due to the series’ tight budget. The gnarly alien features of Kilowog (Kevin Michael Richardson) were toned down, and Razer (Jason Spisak), an original character created for the show, represented an elegant shift in the villainous Red Lantern’s power set from the comics’ gross, rage-froth design. Whatever doubts Timm initially had about bringing his distinctive style to the third dimension, the gorgeous results of Green Lantern must have surely trounced them. 

Premiering as a 44-minute pilot on November 11, 2011, Green Lantern initially received warm notices from critics who complimented its narrative restraint (like Batman, it skipped the origin story), its fluid computer-generated space action (animated by the studio CGCG, which Volpe had worked with on Star Wars: The Clone Wars), and Keaton’s sturdy, agreeable characterization. Its quality, both in terms of eye-popping visuals and solid storytelling, only grew from there. Volpe and his team set out on a mindful exploration of themes such as police ethics and the consequences of unchecked power, detailed as early as its third episode, “Razer’s Edge,” when Hal discovers a planet of prisoners outside of the GL Corps’ jurisdiction who have been subject to torture. (Like The Clone Wars, Green Lantern wasn’t shy about acknowledging death, a sign of kid entertainment’s growing maturity.)

We come to understand the motivations of the series’ main heavy, Atrocitus (Jonathan Adams), who assembled his Red Lantern Corps as a response to the unchecked authority his people suffered under the Guardians of the Universe (represented by Ian Abercrombie’s Ganthet, among others). As revealed in the episode “Reckoning,” the Guardians deployed peace-keeping Manhunter androids (whose first appearance seems to evoke James Cameron’s Terminator) only to have their emotionless programming eventually ravage the far reaches of space called the Forgotten Zone, where much of the first half of the season takes place. Hal and Razer reckon with the sins of their respective groups, and a shaky peace is eventually struck between the two. (Kilowog takes longer to come around.) It was a nuanced take on the nature of good versus evil. In Green Lantern, war isn’t binary but a gradience of hues.  

As the series went on, these fascinating character dynamics became its guiding light, especially in the case of Aya (Grey DeLisle), a Guardian AI who develops sentience, a robot body, and a relationship with Razer built on trust and a bizarre sense of knowing affection. (Aya constructed her form based on Razer’s fraught memories of his departed true love.) As the second half of the series amped up the stakes—bringing in the Anti-Monitor of Crisis On Infinite Earths infamy—Aya’s ultimate role in the story took on a fearful shape and culminated in a bittersweet finale, one that ended the series with an ellipsis instead of a period. As an opening salvo and a unique spin on a well-worn comic series, the first season of GLTAS outperformed. And it had so much left to show us.

Before the new Batman: Caped Crusader could lurk onto Prime Video, Green Lantern was notable for being the last time Timm oversaw a DC television series, a changing of the guard that, for a time, led to more vivid child-friendly shows like Justice League Action and Teen Titans Go! By that point, it was already clear that Green Lantern’s legacy was to be a last big swing from the producer; five years before Hal saw his first flight on Cartoon Network, Timm’s work on Justice League Unlimited was over, and as the equally unceremonious axing of Beware The Batman proved, 3D cartooning for Warner Bros’ DC superhero line had become old-hat. In the decade that followed, it sure seemed like Timm’s style was consigned to the direct-to-video wastelands. 

With the producer’s return to Gotham City this week, and given the second life afforded other cult DC animated series such as Young Justice, there’s hope among the GL faithful (and Volpe, who continues to champion the series) that it might yet return. That hope is reasonable; in this climate of multiverses, endless sequels, and resuscitated IP, there’s every reason to reignite Green Lantern. As it exists today, sitting on Max, waiting for new eyes to view its brilliance, it’s a well-made curiosity. If it’s awarded a future, it stands a chance to become something foundational and maybe—who knows?—one of the best things Bruce Timm worked on, period.