Yesterday, HBO and DC Studios released a midseason trailer for Lanterns teasing the final three episodes. All signs point to the series finally getting a little more cosmic before wrapping up, a move that's been welcomed by fans frustrated by Lanterns' Nebraska setting.
What of Hal Jordan? Opinions have been mixed when it comes to the show's handling of the hero, especially as the premiere wrapped up with John Stewart discovering his old mentor's dead body.
In the latest trailer for Lanterns, the 2026 Hal wakes up on the floor—in a setting that looks quite a bit like the slaughterhouse belonging to "Hector Hammond"—and asks, "What are you?" Interestingly, the person standing over him—based on their clothes, at least—looks like another Hal.
Throw in the fact that the Latam Spanish subtitles for Lanterns' fifth episode identified the Hal buried under the rubble in 2016 as "Clone Hal," and it feels like all may not be as it seems with the Green Lantern's apparent demise.
Also telling is the mysterious mark on Hal's arm; when the Manhunter Zoe healed John, she explained that he'd been left with the same mark because she needed a tissue sample to cure him of the severe burns covering his body.
So, Hal has been healed...or resurrected? We remain convinced that Zoe's grandson is at least part-Manhunter, as Kerry confirmed that she has her mother-in-law to thank for her son. If cloning is a possibility—in the boy's case, using genetic material from his mother, father, and grandmother—then there's a strong chance that Hal is resurrected or that his double "dies."
If so, DC Studios may be borrowing from the "Blackest Night" storyline, a famous Green Lantern tale by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis that saw Nekron reanimate dead superheroes. Swap him out for a Manhunter, and you can likely see how this all potentially links up.
There's another clue in the trailer when Sinestro says to John, "Hal didn't have to die in vain. I know a way..." A way to, what, bring him back? As John seemingly breaks the villain out of prison, it does rather feel like we're rocketing towards the formation of the fear-based Sinestro Corps and that the 2016 Hal was infected by fear.
Here's another fun theory for you: what if the consciousness of the 2006 Halogram is somehow merged with Hal's clone, giving us a Hal who was neither jaded nor fearful about losing his ring? John and Guy Gardner can be the DCU's two Green Lanterns in Sector 2814 for now, but the door would be left open to this Hal eventually becoming a Lantern again, hopefully in time for James Gunn's potential adaptation of The New Frontier.
Lanterns follows new recruit John Stewart and Lantern legend Hal Jordan, two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland.
Alongside Kyle Chander and Aaron Pierre, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, Nicole Ari Parker, Jason Ritter, J. Alphonse Nicholson, and Jasmine Cephas Jones round out the cast.
Four episodes of Lanterns are now streaming on HBO Max.