Lanterns Trailer Finally Goes Full Superhero

HBO has heard the fans — and this new Lanterns trailer is the answer. After a first teaser that leaned so hard into gritty crime drama that some viewers forgot they were watching a superhero show, the second official trailer for the upcoming DC Studios series finally goes green. Fully, unmistakably, gloriously green.

The trailer puts Kyle Chandler’s Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre’s John Stewart front and center in their now-familiar push-pull dynamic — the grizzled Lantern veteran who didn’t exactly volunteer to babysit a recruit, and the fiercely ambitious newcomer who’s pretty sure he can do this whole thing better anyway. But where the first look kept the ring mostly holstered, this one lets it rip. We see Jordan conjure a massive green energy shield to block what appears to be a laser beam fired down from space. We see him manufacture a glowing green dollar bill to feed a jukebox — a move Stewart immediately calls him out for. The ring is real, the powers are real, and yes, this is absolutely a superhero show.

The trailer also takes us briefly off-planet, with a shot of what is decidedly not Earth and a glimpse of Jordan in the classic Green Lantern uniform — Corps logo visible on the chest, even if the full costume reveal is still being held back. It’s a deliberate step toward answering the loudest criticism of early marketing: that Lanterns looked more like a Midwest crime procedural than anything from the pages of DC Comics.

Fear Is the Theme — and That Points Somewhere Very Specific

Running through the entire trailer is a single repeated question: “Are you afraid?” It echoes from scene to scene, asked with varying degrees of menace and weight, and it’s not subtle. An in-universe TV clip shows Jordan being asked how he was chosen to be a Green Lantern. His answer: “It’s only one question: Are you afraid?”

For anyone familiar with Green Lantern mythology, that’s a neon sign pointing straight at one character — Sinestro, the Master of Fear, a onetime Green Lantern who went on to form the Sinestro Corps, an interstellar army that weaponizes fear rather than willpower. We already know Ulrich Thomsen (Banshee) is playing the villain. The trailer also teases a flash of red energy beams — which could hint at the Red Lantern Corps, a rival faction powered by rage — though that’s still an open question heading into August.

The origins of both heroes also get some texture here. Jordan, as comics fans know, was essentially chosen by accident — stumbling upon the dying alien Green Lantern Abin Sur, who passed the ring to the nearest worthy human. Stewart, by contrast, intends to earn it. “I was raised fearless, and I’ll do this better than he has ever done it before,” Pierre’s Stewart tells Laura Linney’s still-unnamed character late in the trailer. Her reply — calm, assured, carrying the weight of someone who knows exactly what she’s doing — is simply: “Then go and get it, John Stewart.”

Linney’s role is one of the trailer’s genuine mysteries. She’s clearly someone with authority and significance in Stewart’s life, but the show is keeping the specifics locked down tight.

Nathan Fillion Is Back, and the Cast Is Stacked

One confirmed presence: Nathan Fillion gets a quick but memorable moment as Guy Gardner, the arrogant, irritable third Green Lantern who made his DCU debut in last year’s Superman. He also popped up in Peacemaker Season 2, and his appearance here — glimpsed outside what looks like a prison cell — suggests Gardner’s role in Lanterns will be about as welcome to Jordan and Stewart as a parking ticket.

The ensemble around Chandler and Pierre is genuinely impressive. Kelly Macdonald plays the town sheriff. Garret Dillahunt is a reactionary local named William Macon. Poorna Jagannathan plays a character described as manipulative. Nicole Ari Parker and Sherman Augustus appear as John’s parents. Jason Ritter plays the sheriff’s husband. Paul Ben-Victor plays Antaan, a fugitive alien. And Jasmine Cephas Jones and J. Alphonse Nicholson round out the cast.

The show was co-created by Chris Mundy (Ozark, True Detective), Damon Lindelof (Lost, The Leftovers, Watchmen), and Eisner Award-winning comics writer Tom King, whose Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is also the basis for this summer’s Supergirl film. Mundy serves as showrunner and co-wrote the pilot with Lindelof and King. The first two episodes were directed by James Hawes, with Stephen Williams, Geeta Vasant Patel, and Alik Sakharov directing additional episodes.

What the Show Is Actually About

The official logline puts it cleanly: “The series 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.” Think True Detective with power rings — a buddy-cop murder mystery that happens to have intergalactic stakes underneath it.

What the trailers have been less forthcoming about is the full shape of the story. According to showrunner Chris Mundy, the show actually unfolds across two different time periods — one set in 2016, when Hal and John investigate an alien-related shooting in the small town of Rushville, and another set in 2026, after the events of Superman. What the 2026 storyline involves remains a closely guarded secret.

Mundy has also spoken about the deliberate creative choice to write Hal Jordan at an age that’s unusual for superhero stories. “We wrote Hal at an age that isn’t typical for superhero stories,” he said. “And doing that felt like a way to get at a fear of replacement that doesn’t normally come in these types of shows.” That tension — the legend who isn’t ready to step aside, the successor who’s already certain he’s better — is clearly the emotional engine of the whole series.

This is the first live-action Green Lantern project since the 2011 Ryan Reynolds film, which was a notable enough misfire that it kept the character out of the DC Films universe entirely for over a decade. James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU is giving the Corps another shot, and Lanterns is the foundation. Aaron Pierre is already confirmed to reprise the role of John Stewart in next summer’s Man of Tomorrow, which teams Superman and Lex Luthor against the alien threat of Brainiac — so whatever happens in Rushville this August, John Stewart’s story is just getting started.

Lanterns premieres August 16 on HBO Max.