With DC Studios bringing Hal Jordan and John Stewart to the Gunn-Verse in HBO’s Lanterns series, the spotlight returns to Sector 2814’s greatest defenders. While both heroes wear the same ring and answer to the Guardians of Oa, their origins, philosophies, and outlook represent two vastly different eras of comic book storytelling. I’ll be looking at their history within the comic books, TV shows and movies that shaped them in the public eye and why their dynamic remains one of the most compelling partnerships in superhero history.
Before we dive into their history, let’s watch the trailer for Lanterns season one again:
Hal Jordan — The Fearless Pilot
Comic Origins
Hal Jordan made his debut in Showcase #22 in October 1959, created by writer John Broome and artist Gil Kane. His arrival signalled the dawn of DC Comics’ Silver Age reinvention, steering the superhero genre away from Golden Age magic and more towards science fiction. Hal was a daring, hot-shot Ferris Aircraft test pilot but when a dying alien named Abin Sur crash-landed on Earth, his power ring sought out an individual capable of overcoming great fear, officially selecting Jordan as Earth’s first recruit into the intergalactic police force known as the Green Lantern Corps.
Hal’s approach to the power ring has always complemented his cockpit mentality—fast, intuitive, and driven by pure, unbreakable willpower. His constructs are rarely over-engineered; instead, he manifests speed-of-thought solutions like jet engines, boxing gloves, missiles, and searchlights. As a core founding member of the Justice League of America, Hal quickly grew into DC’s premier cosmic hero. However, his journey was far from simple. In the 1970s Hard-Traveling Heroes era alongside Green Arrow, Hal was forced to confront grounded societal issues that couldn’t be solved with a power ring. Decades later, his grief over the destruction of his hometown, Coast City, drove him to turn against the Corps, changing into the evil entity Parallax in 1994’s controversial Emerald Twilight storyline. It took nearly 10 years and the talented writing of Geoff Johns’ 2004 miniseries Green Lantern: Rebirth to redeem Hal, revealing Parallax as an ancient entity of fear and re-establishing Jordan as the leader of the Corps through future iconic Lantern story sagas like The Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night.
The 2011 Live-Action Movie
In 2011, Warner Bros. brought Hal Jordan to the big screen for the first time in the live-action feature film Green Lantern, directed by Martin Campbell and starring Ryan Reynolds as the titular hero. The movie adapted Hal’s Silver Age origin, detailing his flight training, his inheritance of Abin Sur’s ring, his journey to Oa, and his eventual battle against the fear-entity Parallax alongside iconic Green Lantern comic book characters like Sinestro (Mark Strong) and Carol Ferris (Blake Lively).
Intended to serve as the launchpad for a shared DC cinematic universe, the film faced a devastating reception from critics and audiences over its heavy reliance on CGI and uneven pacing. Despite its mixed box office and critical outcome, Reynolds’ charismatic performance and the movie’s ambition kept Hal Jordan at the mind of audiences although to many millennials, there was only one real Green Lantern they thought of but more on him in a moment.
Green Lantern: The Animated Series
Following the live-action movie, Hal Jordan finally received his own flagship television show with Green Lantern: The Animated Series. Looks wise, the character models featured Bruce Timm’s signature sharp, athletic proportions—reminiscent of shows like Justice League and Batman The Animated Series but rendered in stylized 3D CGI animation, marking a first for Warner Bros. Animation.
Despite sharing Bruce Timm’s distinct visual DNA, the show operated in its own standalone continuity rather than the original 1990s/2000s DCAU (Timmverse). The story focused on Hal Jordan (voiced by Josh Keaton) leading a rogue mission alongside Kilowog, the reformed Red Lantern Razer, and the ship’s sentient AI, Aya. The series won critical acclaim for its deep exploration of the Emotional Spectrum, mature storytelling, and compelling original characters. Though tragically cancelled after just one 26-episode season due to poor toy sales linked to the live-action movie’s commercial slump.
John Stewart — The Ex-Marine Turned Lantern
Comic Origins
Created by writer Dennis O’Neil and artist Neal Adams, John Stewart made his ground-breaking debut in Green Lantern #87 in late 1971. Arriving during DC’s Bronze Age, John was introduced as a replacement Green Lantern selected by the Guardians after Guy Gardner was injured. He immediately broke barriers as one of the first major Black superheroes in mainstream American comics. An architect from Detroit with a strong sense of social justice, John famously refused to wear the traditional domino mask, proudly declaring that he had nothing to hide from the world he swore to protect.
What separates John Stewart from every other ring-bearer is his mind. While Hal Jordan creates hollow constructs driven by momentum, John’s background as an architect—and later retconned as a U.S. Marine sniper—means he builds every creation from the inside out. When John manifests a construct, he visualizes every nut, bolt, structural beam, and internal mechanism down to the subatomic level, making his energy creations structurally denser and more durable than almost any other Lantern’s. His comic arc has been defined by discipline and profound personal responsibility, particularly after the tragic 1988 storyline Cosmic Odyssey, where a moment of hubris led to the destruction of the planet Xanshi. That tragedy forged John into a solemn, hyper-focused strategist who would go on to lead the Green Lantern Corps and serve as chairman of the Justice League.
The Animated Legacy
While Hal Jordan dominated comic pages for decades, John Stewart became the definitive Green Lantern for an entire generation through the world of television. When Bruce Timm and his creative team launched the incredibly successful DCAU animated series Justice League (2001) and Justice League Unlimited (2004), they chose John Stewart as the team’s primary ring-bearer.
Voiced with quiet authority and gravitas by the legendary Phil LaMarr, this version of John Stewart was framed as a battle-tested Marine whose rigid military discipline masked a deep compassion for his teammates. His growing romance with Hawkgirl (Shayera Hol) and his no-nonsense dynamic with Flash and Batman made him an emotional anchor of the DCAU. For millions of kids and teenagers tuning in every Saturday morning, John Stewart wasn’t just a backup Lantern—he was the Green Lantern. To the millennial generation, John was the frontline hero who defended Earth alongside Superman and Wonder Woman, permanently cementing his legendary status in mainstream pop culture.
His presence carried over into other DCEU shows such as Static Shock as a hero that young black children like Virgil Hawkins could look up to, and to this day the character has been a major staple to said community.
Other Media Appearances
DC Animated Movie Universe
When DC launched the shared DC Animated Movie Universe (DCAMU) with Justice League: War in 2014, Hal Jordan was selected as the universe’s flagship Green Lantern. Adapting Geoff Johns and Jim Lee’s 2011 New 52 comic origin Justice League: Origin, the film brought a cocky, swaggering, and overly confident Hal Jordan (now voiced by Justin Kirk) to the forefront of Earth’s defence during Darkseid’s invasion.
Justice League: War leans heavily into Hal’s headstrong test-pilot personality. His hilarious initial dynamic with Batman (voiced her by Jason O’Mara)—where Hal’s reckless “ring-first, think-later” attitude collides directly with Batman’s stoic tactical genius—serves as the main comedy engine of the film. Hal’s overall arc forces him to learn humility when his solo rush against Darkseid leaves him comically beaten up by Parademons, ultimately realizing the value of teamwork as he unites alongside Batman, Superman, and Flash to form the Justice League and ultimate send the villain packing. This movie re-established Hal Jordan as the main Green Lantern in these animated feature films.
As the franchise progressed into supernatural and street-level stories in Justice League vs. Teen Titans and Justice League Dark, Hal was subsequently called away to Oa allowing John Stewart (voiced by Roger Cross) to step up as Earth’s resident active Green Lantern and primary Justice League member.
Sadly this universe came to an end during Justice League Dark: Apokolips War when Superman organizes a pre-emptive strike against Darkseid on Apokolips, Hal Jordan is part of the assault squad. The attack is an utter disaster as Darkseid lays a trap using upgraded Paradooms (hybrid Parademon-Doomsday clones), wiping out most of the League.
Hal travels to Oa alongside the rest of the Green Lantern Corps to make a desperate final stand as Darkseid’s forces invade the Guardians’ homeworld but he along with the entire Green Lantern Corps are overwhelmed and killed by Darkseid’s forces. Though Hal dies off-screen defending the Central Power Battery, his death is explicitly confirmed as Darkseid drains the battery and decimates the Corps.
Barry runs into the Speed Force, rewriting the entire continuity. This reboot erased the DCAMU entirely and gave way to DC’s next animated era, The Tomorrowverse which kicked off with Superman: Man of Tomorrow and featured John Stewart as the lead in Green Lantern: Beware My Power.
DC Super Hero Girls
Going in blind with this area as this is not a show I have watched but have seen come up in comic book adaptation topics. Voiced once again by Josh Keaton, this high-school version of Hal plays up his classic pilot swagger into a comedic archetype: a charming, slightly self-obsessed, highly competitive high school jock who leads “The Invinci-Bros”. This incarnation served as a hilarious foil to pacifist Green Lantern Jessica Cruz, demonstrating Hal’s ability to pivot from epic cosmic saviour to light-hearted comedy hero without losing his core identity from the comics.
Young Justice
When Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti created Young Justice in 2010, they approached the Green Lantern mythos through a uniquely grounded, world-building lens. Rather than centering the story on a single Lantern, Young Justice depicted Sector 2814 as a heavily monitored precinct requiring a rotating rotation of Earth’s Green Lanterns.
In this continuity, Hal Jordan (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) and John Stewart (voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson) serve simultaneously as senior members of the Justice League, while Guy Gardner eventually joins as Earth’s third active Green Lantern. The show emphasized the weight of being a Lantern. When the Justice League their day in the alien galactic court on Rimbor, or navigated treaties with the Reach and the Light, John and Hal served as the crucial liaison between Earth’s defenders and the Guardians of the Universe. While they never took centre stage during both runs of the Young Justice cartoon, they were always present when required.
HBO’s Lanterns
The upcoming HBO series Lanterns brings these two rich characters together in a grounded, True Detective-style investigative thriller set on Earth. By pairing the reckless, seasoned instinct of Hal Jordan with the structured, tactical brilliance of John Stewart, the series looks to honour more than six decades of publishing history and animated excellence—ensuring both classic comic readers and animated series fans get the definitive Green Lantern team-up.
Lanterns stars Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, Laura Linney, Jason Ritter, Ulrich Thomsen, Nathan Fillion, J. Alphonse Nicholson and Jasmine Cephas Jones.
BO in association with Warner Bros. Television and DC Studios. The LANTERNS pilot is co-written by Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King, who are co-creators for the series. Mundy serves as showrunner. The first two episodes are directed by James Hawes, with Stephen Williams, Geeta Vasant Patel, and Alik Sakharov also tapped to direct. The series is executive produced by Mundy, Lindelof, James Gunn, Peter Safran, King, Ron Schmidt, and Hawes. Based on the DC comic characters from “Green Lantern.”
Lanterns premieres on HBO Max in the US on August 16, 2026 with episodes airing the following day in the UK.
