HBO's Green Lantern Series Confirms An Unofficial Truth About James Gunn's DCU

The upcoming Green Lantern show on HBO Max has confirmed something about James Gunn’s DCU that the franchise has only previously hinted at. The DCU is, for all intents and purposes, just getting started. There have been a handful of DCU shows like Peacemaker and Creature Commandos, as well as Superman 2025, but the franchise is only just starting to take shape. The upcoming Supergirl movie will almost surely give viewers more context into the world these heroes inhabit, but there are still plenty of lingering questions waiting to be answered.

Superman was the official start of the DCU thanks to the fuzzy connections Peacemaker had to Zack Snyder’s DCEU, but it wasn’t an origin story. The film even starts with text saying that Superman has already been active for three years, and that the first metahumans appeared on Earth three centuries prior. Superman‘s opening text and lack of an origin story made it clear that James Gunn’s DCU was dropping into the middle of an ongoing continuity rather than starting a new one.

The world of the DCU has a history that predates Superman, but it still wasn’t clear exactly how long it predated the film or which familiar characters had already been around. Heroes like Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, and Mister Terrific had clearly already experienced their respective origin stories, but there was no indication of how long they had been acting as heroes. Now, HBO Max’s upcoming show Lanterns is ready to answer that question even before its August 16 release date.

Lanterns Confirms James Gunn’s DCU Was Around Long Before Superman 2025

Simply by virtue of one of its protagonists, Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), the upcoming series Lanterns has confirmed that James Gunn’s DCU is much older than many people had anticipated. Lanterns is reportedly set to chronicle how John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) succeeds Hal as a new Green Lantern for some currently unexplained reason. Hal is the older, wiser, and more grizzled veteran, while John is the equally capable but still untested young blood.

That very synopsis, coupled with Hal’s greying hair and a few shots from the trailer for Lanterns, have confirmed that Hal has been around for a long time preceding the show. One shot, for example, showed a CRT television set playing an interview Hal gave from presumably years prior when he first became a Green Lantern. Another showed Hal using his ring to counterfeit money. Hal’s not just already active in the DCU like Superman was, he’s been around for years, long enough to become seasoned and jaded.

James Gunn seems to be taking very unique approach to a shared superhero universe. Other superhero franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Boys, or Invincible have stories that begin before their main characters are introduced, but they still center around those characters. Tony Stark becomes Iron Man, Hughie joins the Boys, and Mark becomes Invincible, then their stories really start and new things get added on later. Anything that happened before is supplemental and revolves around other characters, like Captain Marvel, Soldier Boy, or Omni-Man.

James Gunn’s DCU, however, is positioning its main characters as being in the middle of an ongoing story. While John Stewart is at the start of his journey to become a Green Lantern, Hal’s at the end of his. He’s had years of fighting intergalactic threats and protecting Earth. Unlike the MCU, which started with Iron Man for all intents and purposes, the DCU began long before its first movie. The DCU may be new in the real world, but it’s quite old and well-established in-universe.

The Age Of The DCU Could Impact Some Heroes & The Justice League

Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler in exclusive Lanterns image

Gunn’s decision to drop viewers into the middle of an ongoing world of superheroes with the DCU could also have some major implications for Lanterns and the franchise at large. Hal Jordan, for example, has likely already had his confrontation with Sinestro, who is confirmed to appear in Lanterns, as well as so many other defining moments in his story. Viewers won’t get to see important moments like that, but it could be an even bigger problem if they do.

If, for example, Lanterns pits Hal Jordan against Parallax for the first time, a storyline the show may have already teased, it would be a bit odd. Hal is supposedly advancing in age and nearing the end of his career, but he hasn’t encountered his greatest foe yet. Parallax and the Yellow Lanterns are so foundational to the story of Hal and the Green Lanterns that it wouldn’t make much sense for them to appear so late in his story.

James Gunn’s Justice League Already Has 2 Confirmed Members

James Gunn is laying a solid foundation for DC’s greatest superhero team of all time, with two characters confirmed and more on the way.

The age of the DCU also has some implications for the Justice League. If heroes like Hal Jordan have been around for years or decades at this point, the franchise will have to find some reason to justify bringing them all together all of a sudden. Superman and Green Lantern and others have already dealt with major villains and threats to destroy the world, so the DCU is going to have to come up with something truly groundbreaking to unite them together.

Dropping in on already established heroes allows the DCU to tell a new story without getting bogged down by nearly ubiquitous origin stories, but it complicates how those new stories are told. Skipping over origin stories puts the various characters of the DCU at wildly different points in their lives and makes it harder to connect them all together. Luckily, the DCU is in good hands with James Gunn and other creatives. Lanterns should be an opportunity to prove that they can handle the franchise they’ve set up.