The Lanterns finale arrived on HBO last night, and it's split opinions. Some fans loved DC Studios' very different take on the Green Lantern Corps, while others felt the DCU has done Hal Jordan and John Stewart a disservice.
There have also been a lot of grumblings about the lack of action in the finale—there isn't a single construct in the episode—and the fact that, after eight episodes, John never suits up.
CBR recently caught up with Lanterns showrunner Chris Mundy to discuss "Dirt and Stars," and he confirmed that discussions about giving John his Green Lantern costume were dropped relatively early on.
"In the early days, we did designs on Aaron's suit at the same time that we did designs on Hal's, on Kyle's," he confirmed. "In the end, it was really a story point. If the season would have continued on another day, you probably would have seen it. But emotionally in that moment, once Hal and John have their goodbye scene – the Halogram and John – the season had ended, emotionally."
"I know there's the montage, and I know he flies," Mundy acknowledged. "But to get to a place where he then had the suit would have taken us out of the moment between those guys. Once we knew that was the ending point, then we were like, 'The suit's not going to be in this season.'"
Now, it's down to Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow to make up for that. Intentional or not, Lanterns has given John the "Surf Dracula" treatment, but forgot to let him surf in those closing moments (on the plus side, as Mundy points out, he did take flight).
The expectation had been that Lanterns might deliver an action-packed finale, pitting John and the Halogram against Sinestro and/or the second Manhunter. According to Mundy, there was never any discussion about "a version of the finale that was more action-oriented."
He continued, "This story was about these two guys. We knew that if we landed it emotionally with them, we would have done our job. And obviously, over the course of the season, we knew there were going to be action (moments). But we barely even talked about it because we all just knew this is what we were going for, that that would have been distracting. That would have been 'incident' instead of 'emotion.'"
Lanterns has not been officially renewed for Season 2, and the only DCU TV series currently in active production is The People vs. Gorilla Grodd.
Lanterns is now streaming in its entirety on HBO Max.