There’s been a lot of talk, here in what still somehow technically count as the early days of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s efforts to reboot the DC Comics Universe, about tone. Gunn’s own projects have carved a fairly wide one, with the vulgar sincerity of his Peacemakeracting at obvious and deliberate odds with his far more hopeful Superman. But despite their stances on their respective heroes doing coke and holding orgies, both those projects were still operating in a fairly clear superhero mold. Whereas the new trailer for the franchise’s upcoming HBO Max series, Lanterns, has pretty clearly taken the “space cops” part of the Green Lantern Corps’ ethos, stripped out the space part, and created an almost perversely-Earthbound version of an HBO prestige-y cop show (where Kyle Chandler just happens to occasionally fly through the air).
Chandler, in “wry, slightly scary veteran cop” mode, stars in the series opposite Aaron Pierre, who’s playing the young upstart eager to replace him on the force. (The fact that these guys are comics staples Hal Jordan and John Stewart, and that the jurisdiction they’re arguing over involves magical space rings, is only barely apparent from the trailer.) Rather than a far-flung space adventure, the trailer finds the pair pounding the pavement in Nebraska, where a local murder is apparently of sufficient cosmic significance as to require their presence. Kelly Macdonald also stars as the small-town sheriff who bristles at these slick outsiders’ presence—with, again, the added wrinkle that the invaders in question weren’t sent by the FBI, but by little blue men from space.
The novelty of Lanterns—call it the True Space Detective (or possibly Mare Of Spacetown?) of it all—feels like the sort of thing likely to have a fairly short shelf life. Less so: The interplay between Pierre and Chandler, who have obvious chemistry as they bump heads, with Chandler especially tapping into a harder edge of his genial good ol’ boy persona to play a character who feels like a pissed-off aging cop first, and a superhero a distant second, at best. (Yellow Lantern-stone? Is that anything?)
Keep scrolling for more great stories.