LANTERNS Showrunner Says a Green Lantern Suit Was Deigned for John Stewart and Explains Why Didn’t We See It
Aaron Pierre’s John Stewart finally became the Green Lantern he was meant to be in the first season of Lanterns, but one important piece was missing as John never got to suit up.
It turns out the creative team actually did design a Green Lantern suit for Pierre’s character, but co-showrunner Chris Mundy says putting John in it during the finale would have hurt the emotional ending they had built around him and Hal Jordan.
By the end of Lanterns, John had the ring, his complicated relationship with Hal had reached its conclusion, and his place alongside Guy Gardner in the larger DC Universe was much clearer.
What viewers didn’t get was the payoff to John’s longtime fascination with the Green Lantern uniform, something the series had been teasing through moments going all the way back to his childhood.
According to Mundy, we came incredibly close to seeing it. “If the season would have continued on another day, you probably would have seen it,” Mundy told CBR.
“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.
“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.’”
That’s understandable. John suddenly materializing his full Green Lantern costume would have been a cool moment, but it also would have shifted the finale into superhero reveal territory when the story was still focused on John and Hal.
The design work had already been done alongside the other Lantern costumes, and when talking about that Mundy said: “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.”
So somewhere in the Lanterns production archives is a fully designed John Stewart Green Lantern suit that audiences haven’t seen yet. That probably won’t remain the case for very long.
There’s been a report that John will wear his Green Lantern suit for the first time in Man of Tomorrow, and that seems like the fairly obvious place to make it happen.
Pierre is already confirmed to reprise his role as John Stewart in James Gunn’s upcoming DC movie, so sending him into a major theatrical adventure with a power ring but without the iconic costume would be a strange choice.
It could also give John’s first full Green Lantern appearance a much bigger stage. Lanterns handled the character’s transformation as a personal journey, ending with John finally possessing the ring. Man of Tomorrow can take the next logical step and show us what he looks like when he fully embraces the job.
Of course, there’s still the possibility of Lanterns Season 2 eventually picking up that thread as well. Mundy’s comments make it clear that John getting the suit was essentially right around the corner in the story. Had the first season continued for another day, we apparently would have seen it.
For now, the wait shouldn’t be too painful. Pierre will be back as John Stewart, and Man of Tomorrow feels like the perfect place to finally let him rock the suit.
All eight episodes of Lanterns are now streaming on HBO Max. Man of Tomorrow hits theaters July 9, 2027.