New ‘Lanterns’ Poster from James Gunn Teases Potential Season One Storyline

DC is slowly ramping itself up over the next few months with the theatrical follow up to 2025’s Superman, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, and the HBO Max series Lanterns. Both entries into James Gunn’s narrative prove to expand the established universe in both worldly and other-worldly directions, using ideas and characters introduced in Superman to further help set the foundation of the new DCU for years to come.

With Supergirl coming out later this month we have a pretty good idea of what to expect from the film regarding the plot and characters, but Lanterns is a bit of a different story. Although we have already had a couple trailers for the first season of the show, giving us a vague idea of what to expect from the series, a lot of the plot and specifics of what exactly we’re in for plot-wise are still completely under wraps. Television shows have many months to slowly roll out a story whereas a film has a 2-3 hour slot typically, so TV shows have more time to milk the slow burn and Lanterns seems to be doing just that.

A new poster for the show shared yesterday by James Gunn may have given us a little more insight into what to expect specifically for season one in terms of plot. You can see the poster down below:

DC fans might recognize the tagline in the poster, “In brightest day, in blackest night” from the Green Lantern’s infamous oath. The entire oath, which originated in the comics, goes like this: “In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight, let those who worship evil’s might, beware my power, Green Lantern’s light”. The oath itself does not give much insight into what to expect from the show because it’s been used by most of the Green Lantern aliases at one point or another, but the line chosen for this poster might be telling a much more specific story.

One of the most well known modern day Green Lantern story-arcs is actually called Blackest Night, and was distributed by DC comics in 2009-2010, and might be what this poster is hinting at for what we can expect to see in season one. As of right now this is strictly speculation, but James Gunn typically chooses his social media content with purpose, so could this be the story-arc that season one will be based on? The story-arc was first brought into existence after the end of the Sinestro Corps War storyline (which we will mention again in just a few minutes), and was hinted at at the end of the Sinestro Corps arc with some of the Guardians (Ganthet and Sayd, to be specific) telling the four main Green Lanterns in that story – Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Kyle Raynor – about a coming war of light. The arc involved the villain Nekron, an avatar for death, who reanimates to bring dead heroes back from the grave and negate positive emotion in the universe. There was speculation about this story line months ago as well as some of the earliest footage of the show teased the heroes at a cemetery, which almost points directly to the ideas brought forward in Blackest Night‘s narrative.

The closer we get to August 16th, the more we are slowly finding out about what to expect with Lantens, and even just a week or so ago Gunn teased another major potential plot with a spotlight on Sinestro, and information about that tease can be found here. Basically, Gunn went out of his way to showcase a Green Lantern villain that hasn’t been in the spotlight since 2011’s Green Lantern starring Ryan Reynolds, giving fans hope that we may see Hal Jordan’s own Joker/Lex Luthor/Reverse Flash-esque villain in the upcoming series as well. After all, Batman isn’t the same hero without the Joker, just as the Green Lantern’s corps could never be defined accurately without including Sinestro. Considering Blackest Night is a direct follow up to the Sinestro Corps War, could the first season being based on Blackest Night set up a potential return of Sinestro in season 2 after the initial Corps War has concluded? All indications point to this version of Hal Jordan being an experienced hero who has already seen his fair share of war, so is this possibly the war he’s already seen? A Blackest Night inspired season one going directly into a season two with Sinestro coming back after a major war would be a fantastic way to incorporate some of the most infamous Green Lantern storylines in a one-two punch with the show’s first two seasons.

For now, take all of this as speculation until the show actually airs, as I’m sure a lot of this plot, if it is the route they are choosing to go, will come as a slow-burn surprise as the show progresses. Also, most fans have noticed the lack of color and emotion from the trailers for the show so far in a universe that was initially set up to be vibrant and colorful in Superman – could that be because of Nekron? We know the shows take place directly in the same universe thanks to Guy Gardner’s appearance in the latest Laterns trailer, but everything else seemed oddly neutral for a series that should be just as vibrant – if not more-so than Superman. Between the latest teases of Blackest Night and Sinestro it seems like Lanterns is going to be going pretty heavy into Green Lantern lore, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we got seasons inspired by these arcs. Maybe not shot for shot remakes, but at least taking some sort of loose inspiration from the ideas behind the narratives.