DC Studios just unveiled the first-ever poster spotlighting John Stewart’s Green Lantern, and it gives the DCU’s newest hero a striking introduction. Aaron Pierre plays John Stewart in Lanterns, the HBO drama that pairs his rookie recruit with Kyle Chandler’s weary veteran Hal Jordan. The series is the DCU’s first show made for HBO itself rather than HBO Max, and until this week, no piece of key art put either lead’s face front and center.
A fresh batch of official Lanterns promotional art was shared on X by @TaurooAldebaran on Tuesday, and it includes the first poster to feature Pierre’s John Stewart on his own. The artwork bathes the future Green Lantern in green from head to toe and sets the classic oath beneath him, reading, "In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight." The reveal comes just under six weeks before Lanterns premieres on HBO on August 16.
Another piece of art places the character's portrait inside giant letters spelling "John," with "Stewart" printed underneath and the Green Lantern Corps emblem tucked at the bottom.
Chandler’s Hal Jordan receives matching designs, his weathered face peering out of oversized lettering of his name in one image.
In another poster, he poses against a wall of Lanterns logos, wearing a thick jacket with a black T-shirt underneath.
A separate piece unites the pair in the same plain clothes, standing in front of towering "Green Lantern" lettering as the line, "No evil shall escape their sight," cuts across the image.
The remaining artwork reworks the official series logo, including one version bookended by the oath’s opening and closing lines.
Neither actor wears a Green Lantern uniform in any of the posters, which fits the show's campaign so far. The series has been heavily marketed as a grounded take on the intergalactic space cops, and trailers offer only brief glimpses of Hal in costume.
The eight-episode series drops a rookie John Stewart and a burned-out Hal Jordan into the American heartland, where a small-town murder spirals into something far bigger.
The story unfolds with a shooting in the tiny Nebraska town of Rushville in 2016, then jumps ahead a decade, with two connected mysteries unfolding across both timelines.
Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, and Ulrich Thomsen, who plays the rogue Lantern Sinestro, co-star, while Nathan Fillion reprises his Superman role as Guy Gardner.
The DCU Is Betting Big on John Stewart
DC Studios has treated John Stewart as the future of this franchise from the start. The tagline on the show’s first official poster back in April, "Only one can wear the ring," all but announced a succession story, and the trailers present Hal as a haunted veteran nearing the end of his run. Mundy has even described the season as a study of what mentors pass down, with Sinestro having trained Hal and Hal now training John. If events unfold the way the marketing implies, John will hold the ring by the finale, and the DCU will have its Green Lantern for the long haul.
A clearer confirmation arrived in March, when Pierre officially joined Man of Tomorrow. He will reprise John Stewart in the July 9, 2027 film, which forces David Corenswet’s Superman and Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor into an uneasy alliance against the alien intelligence Brainiac. Jumping from a television series into the DCU’s biggest movie before that series even airs is a rare vote of confidence. It also backs up the promise James Gunn and Peter Safran made when they first announced Lanterns, describing the show as "a foundational part of the unified DCU."
It’s befitting that Stewart is finally getting a proper spotlight in live-action. The character has been killing it on the page since Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams introduced him in 1971’s Green Lantern #87. He was one of DC’s early Black superheroes, and the Justice League animated series later turned him into the definitive Green Lantern for an entire generation of viewers. Despite that legacy, Warner Bros. never gave him a leading live-action role until now. Lanterns corrects a 55-year oversight, and these beautiful new posters serve as the perfect welcome for Stewart.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
