LANTERNS Writers Double Down on Hal Jordan’s Racism and Reveal How Their Politics Shaped the DCU Series

The debate surrounding Lanterns and its treatment of Hal Jordan keeps getting more interesting. The HBO series has earned strong reviews, but the response from fans has been far more divided.

A major point of contention has been Kyle Chandler’s Hal Jordan and the idea that the veteran Green Lantern has been diminished to elevate Aaron Pierre’s John Stewart.

Race has also become a major part of that conversation, particularly after the show portrayed Hal as a man whose behavior toward John can carry racist undertones.

Now, two of the writers responsible for shaping that relationship are explaining exactly where those ideas came from.

During an appearance on The Ringer-Verse’s The Midnight Boys, Lanterns writers and executive producers Vanessa Baden Kelly and Justin Britt-Gibson discussed the fan reaction, their views on Hal, and how their own political and personal experiences influenced the DCU series.

Kelly said she was surprised by how strongly some viewers reacted to the racial component of Hal and John’s relationship: "The thing that has been very, very shocking to me was the inability to have some nuance [about Hal's portrayal].

"I'm from Florida, so I grew up around a lot of white people who would probably use the N-word amongst their peers and then also turn around and defend you in something."

That perspective became part of how Kelly approached Hal. She sees the character as someone capable of caring about people while also carrying racial prejudices and engaging in microaggressions.

"I can look at Hal's microaggressions and be like, yeah, he's got some racist tendencies because he's a man of a certain age that grew up in a certain time and place," Kelly continued. "I also feel like he probably f**ks aliens in other places and doesn't feel like he's non-discriminatory."

"And both things are true. And for the audiences to sometimes not be able to hold that both things are true was really difficult for me, because they're like, 'Why are you making him a racist?'"

"Like, no, I'm making him a 60-year-old dude. I think that he is in the way that 60-year-old white dudes from the South can be, but don't think they are because they golf with a Black dude."

That's a significant departure from the traditional Hal Jordan fans know from DC Comics. The Lanterns version has been framed as coming from the South, while the comic book Hal is famously associated with Coast City, California.

It also makes clear that the racial tension viewers picked up on wasn't simply fans reading something into the series. Kelly says she intentionally wrote Hal with what she considers racist tendencies based on her conception of an older white Southern man.

The writers also pulled directly from contemporary American politics when developing Hal and John.

Kelly explained that the Democratic National Convention helped inform their approach to the two Green Lanterns, with the writers looking at the dynamic between former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris as inspiration for the generational relationship between Hal and John.

As Kelly puts it, "we extrapolated characters that we knew in real life, you know, and dumped it into those guys."

Britt-Gibson similarly viewed Hal's attitude toward John through the lens of an older man watching a younger Black man arrive as his potential successor.

"You've been holding on to this sort of legacy, and then all of a sudden this young guy comes around, young and Black and handsome, and strong and confident. It's threatening."

Whether viewers think that makes for an interesting reinvention of Hal or pushes the character too far from his comic book roots is going to remain a major point of debate. What's clear from the writers' comments is that the political parallels and racial themes weren't incidental. They were part of the creative process.

Kelly and Britt-Gibson also revealed that Pierre's casting affected the way they approached John Stewart. According to Kelly, Pierre's lighter skin tone led to discussions about colorism and ultimately influenced how the Guardians of the Universe's decision to choose John was written.

"Justin and I sat together and we talked about it, and we brought it to Chris and Damon, and they were just immediately like, 'We trust that you guys know your folks. Get busy. Go do what you have to do.’

"We kind of baked in this idea that part of his being chosen is because they felt like his particular looks were more palatable to white people."

That's another substantial creative choice because it takes the Green Lantern selection process and filters it through a very human racial issue. Kelly and Britt-Gibson have made race, generational conflict, identity, and their own experiences central ingredients in this version of the Green Lantern mythology.

The pair worked on Lanterns alongside Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King, and Kelly described herself and Britt-Gibson in the interview as John Stewart's "caretakers," responsible for making sure he was written as a fully formed character.

For viewers who have argued that the series tears Hal down to build John up, these comments will probably add more fuel to that discussion. For those who appreciate the show's willingness to use Green Lantern mythology to tackle race and generational change, the interview offers a clearer picture of what the writers were trying to accomplish.

Writers bringing their politics, experiences, and worldview into comic book adaptations isn't anything new. The bigger question for fans is whether those ideas feel natural to the characters they're adapting or whether the characters have been reshaped to accommodate those ideas.

With Lanterns, Kelly and Britt-Gibson aren't leaving much ambiguity about where they stand. Hal's racial shortcomings were intentional.

Seven episodes of Lanterns are currently streaming on HBO Max, with the eight-episode season heading into its finale.