The New Show 'Lanterns' Is Woke 1.0.

I started watching Lanterns last month. It's a new DC superhero show on HBO Max. I grew up reading a lot of comics, including Green Lantern, so I was familiar with the character.

Unfortunately, so far Lanterns has included a lot of heavy-handed lectures about race which may be the whole reason the creators decided to make this particular show. Lanterns is definitely woke 1.0.

The basic setup here is that Hal Jordan is Earth's Green Lantern, basically a space cop who is responsible for a region of space that includes earth. He's given a ring which can essentially create anything out of thought which makes him extremely powerful. But in this show Hal is given a backup/trainee named John Stewart who is younger and black. In the comics, Stewart came on the scene in the early 70s and became the primary Green Lantern in the comics during the 1980s.

But the conflict in the show is largely built around the idea that Hal Jordan (who is white) is a bit of jerk and maybe somewhat racist too. By contrast, John Stewart is shown to be his superior in every way. And the writers make a big point of explaining that Stewart essentially had to be twice as good as Jordan in order to wind up in the same place because of white privilege.

Let’s check notes on Lanterns:
Hal Got his ring not because his chosen but because of white privileged (by aliens)

John was brought up by his Psycho parents to replace Hal because him mom thought aliens about racism 😳

DC is saved 🙌🏾 pic.twitter.com/KScMY6P0r3

— Fletcher Williams “I Suck At Games” Channel (@Fletche64618733) August 31, 2026

There have only been three episodes of the show released so far but this isn't the only time white privilege has come up.

I'm enjoying the show, but there is a moment in episode 2 that pulled me out of it completely. It's when John Stewart is in a diner talking with the grandma he had sex with. It's the dialogue where she specifically mentions "white men" and repeats it a few more times after that.… pic.twitter.com/Fz98jANW2U

— Edwin (@Edwin_isme) August 24, 2026

What does any of this have to do with Green Lantern? Well, not a lot really except maybe that the writers have chosen to make this transition into a racial lesson, in part by making Hal Jordan into more of a rude jerk than a hero. And it's not just right-leaning viewers who've noticed. An official DC podcast host has added fuel to the fire:

It started when DC Studios Showcase: The Official Podcast host Frankey Smith took to Threads to write, "Hate to break it to ya but Hal is indeed a bit of a racist." When a fan took issue with that, Smith suggested he watch Paw Patrol instead of Lanterns and doubled down on Hal "canonically" being a racist..

She later doubled down on that:

“I’ve been getting heat because I made this thread saying that Hal was a bit racist, and you know what? I stand by it.”

Smith continued: “Hal Jordan has a long history of being conservative and, in some cases, being a flat-out villain.”

Is there any truth to this? Well, sort of but part of this rests on a handful of comic panels from the early 70s where Hal Jordan isn't immediately convinced John Stewart is the right guy for the job.

Smith also cited John Stewart’s introduction arc in Green Lantern #87, highlighting a Guardian rebuking Hal for his “petty bigotries.”

That panel is real. The context matters.

The Guardians select John as Hal’s new backup after Guy Gardner is injured. Hal sees John confronting police officers and worries that the prospective Lantern is belligerent, hostile to authority, and carrying an enormous chip on his shoulder.

A Guardian responds: “We are not interested in your petty bigotries!”

Hal immediately rejects that accusation. His concern, he explains, is not that John is Black. It's that John’s anger and hostility could make him unstable in a position carrying enormous power and responsibility...

Even DC’s own retrospective on Green Lantern history describes the early John Stewart as possessing “a real chip on his shoulder.” Smith’s interpretation therefore excludes not merely Hal’s defense, but an observation DC itself has made about John’s original characterization.

The point is, in the comic, John Stewart had a chip on his shoulder and Hal Jordan noticed. In the show, John Stewart's view has been legitimized by making Hal a borderline racist jerk. In other words, it's no surprise he dislikes authority when the authority in question is such an unlikely person.

There's another layer to this which probably only matters to the real comic nerds out there. Originally, the qualification for being a Green Lantern wasn't about fear, it was about willpower. Over time, that changed and the focus became on finding a candidate without fear, rather than one with focus and will. Both themes are still present but fear is a much bigger part of the mythos now than it was early on. I'm not sure that was an improvement.

Finally, if you're wondering where this is all coming from, there's a good answer. One of the writers for the show is Vanessa Baden. 

Baden-Kelly began her working life as a child actress for Nick Jr. television, where she appeared in Gullah Gullah Island, before spending several seasons as “Kyra Rockmore” on the popular Keenan & Kel show. But after the year 2000, she took about a ten-year break from the entertainment industry and became a left-wing community activist. By 2011, she went back to seeking work as an actress and also as a writer...

“I was working for Karen Bass while still trying to audition, but nothing was really moving because we had slipped backwards in the diversity revolution. And so I started to write,” she said.

So this is the story they've chosen to tell and they hired a very woke 1 writer to make it work. That doesn't mean the show is necessarily going to be bad but so far what I've seen is a real trashing of the white Green Lantern in service of making a political point. If you were expecting a show about superheroes, you may be disappointed. 

Editor’s Note: Hollywood, academia, and liberal elites are out of touch with the average American.

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