James Gunn responds to Lanterns detractors

“If you’re hoping that the DCU will follow the exact trajectory of your favorite comic book continuity, chances are you’ll be disappointed: it won’t happen.”

The radical choices of Damon Lindelof with Lanterns did not please everyone.

While the HBO series is already hailed as one of the best live-action adaptations of DC, some fans have not digested the fate reserved for Hal Jordan, played by Kyle Chandler. So it’s the boss, James Gunn, who takes care of answering them.

Spoiler alert!

At the end of the first episode, we discovered the death of Hal Jordan! A choice that made DC and Green Lantern enthusiasts jump, for whom eliminating the historic hero of the comics so quickly, at the very moment when the new DC universe is being established, is a serious strategic error.

Always responsive on the networks and on Threads, James Gunn wanted to calm things down and explain:

“Hal is the star of the series and is present in every episode. Hal gets more screen time in our series than all the time he’s had on screen in live-action in its entire history! The fact that we know the time of his death, if that is what it is, is absolutely not the same thing as killing him immediately…“

Gunn also acknowledges that Kyle Chandler’s portrayal is “one of the big reasons why the series is so popular with fans and non-fans alike.”

And if some spectators don’t want to wait for the sequel to find out what really happened to Hal, the boss of DC Studios has a simple message for them: “Sorry if you don’t like it.”

For Gunn, there is nothing abnormal about a comic book adaptation taking liberties with the original material. And he tries to convince disappointed Green Lantern readers:

“I would say that avid comic book readers are well aware of the differences between the different universes. Whether it is the DCU, Earth-0 or the Absolute Universe, they all pay homage to these iconic characters by revisiting their stories from various angles. After all, even the MCU has mixed elements of the Ultimate universe, Earth-616 and new ideas. This is how things work. But if you’re hoping that the DCU will follow exactly the trajectory of your favorite comic book continuity, chances are you’ll be disappointed: it won’t happen…“

The message is therefore clear: Lanterns does not and has never intended to follow line for line the trajectory of one or the other of the DC comics continuities.

It remains to be seen whether Hal Jordan is really dead… or if the series is playing with the nerves of the spectators.

Lanterns continues every Monday on HBO Max in France.