DC Studios' Lanterns changed a key backstory detail about Abin Sur, reshaping Hal Jordan's origin story in the DCU. The latest DC series on HBO introduced Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre's John Stewart in James Gunn's DC reboot, adding the pair to its growing roster of Green Lantern heroes that already includes Nathan Fillion's Guy Gardner. Lanterns made it clear that Hal Jordan is Earth's first Green Lantern and that John Stewart is in training, but marketing didn't clarify how Jordan was chosen to become the ring-wielding hero in the first place.
In classic DC Comics lore, Hal Jordan's origin story is usually tied to the tragic arrival of Abin Sur on Earth, and Lanterns Episode 1, which premiered on HBO on August 16, finally explained how the complex DCU hero was chosen by the Green Lantern ring. While other stories, like the Ryan Reynolds-led Green Lantern movie, didn't really touch on why Abin Sur crash-landed on Earth, Lanterns completely changed that by diving deep into the mystery of the "how" and "why" it happened.
Lanterns Episode 1 Changed Abin Sur's Backstory For the Better
Lanterns Episode 1 pulled back the curtain on Hal Jordan's Green Lantern origin story, confirming Abin Sur's involvement but introducing a major change that reframes everything. In DC Comics, Abin Sur's fatal crash happened in a remote desert near Coast City.
However, Lanterns changed it by revealing that it happened near Rushville, Nebraska (the DCU's next major setting after Metropolis and Krypton). This single geographic shift not only reshaped Hal Jordan's origins, but it also laid the groundwork for an even larger mystery that could change the DCU forever.
At one point in Lanterns' debut episode, Hal explained to John Stewart how he received the ring. As a young test pilot, Hal was yanked away by a big green bubble, asked if he was afraid, and transported next to a crashed alien ship "more than 20 miles" outside of Rushville, Nebraska. There, Hal met a dying Abin Sur, the Green Lantern assigned to Sector 2814, who handed over the ring because it had chosen Hal. After their initial encounter, Abin Sur promptly died, leaving Hal to figure everything out on his own.
As it turned out, Hal pointed out that Earth was way off grid and out of the Green Lantern's jurisdiction, and the Guardians of the Universe "never wanted any Lantern coming near our planet." This revelation led Hal to believe the crash was no accident, suggesting that whatever Abin Sur was doing near Earth was tied to the conspiracy they are dealing with now in the 2016 events of Lanterns.
While Lanterns never depicted the crash itself in the pilot, there is a chance that part, or even the whole, of the sequence could be shown on-screen to better understand how the events unfolded between Abin Sur and Hal Jordan. It was also quite interesting that the same town of Rushville, Nebraska, served as the location of a 2016 alien-related shooting in a football field that killed four innocent civilians and the 2026 discovery of Hal's own dead body on the same venue.
There was more to Hal's gut feeling, setting the stage for deeper revelations about Abin Sur, the Green Lantern's own complicated history, and the secrets of Rushville, Nebraska. While the show withheld the deeper reasons why Abin Sur was near Earth and crashed-landed on the planet in the first place, Abin's backstory from DC Comics could provide a clue to how he fits into the complex plot of Lanterns.
Abin Sur Is More Important Than Fans Realize Based on DC Comics Lore
Lanterns established that Abin Sur is perhaps the most important Green Lantern outside the core trio of Hal Jordan, John Stewart, and Guy Gardner, a fact deeply rooted in his origins and death in the comics.
In DC Comics, Abin Sur was a somewhat inconsequential figure in the early Green Lantern mythology, but Geoff Johns' retelling of Hal Jordan's origin story in Green Lantern: Secret Origin (2008) and Alan Moore's Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual # 2 (1986) provided context for what he was doing near Earth.
Green Lantern lore indicated that Green Lanterns can travel to space via their rings without the use of a ship. However, the fact that Abin Sur was piloting a ship before his death already raised some questions surrounding his fate in the first place.
In Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual # 2, Abin Sur was on the prison planet Ysmault, where he encountered the demon Qull of the Five Inversions. Qull prophesied that Abin Sur's Green Lantern ring would fail him at the critical moment, leaving the door open for the Green Lantern Corps' downfall. Abin Sur was deeply affected and haunted by this prophecy, which led him to rely on a starship as a safeguard for long voyages.
Abin Sur's reliance on the ship, combined with a deeply rooted fear, proved his downfall and eventual death, fulfilling the prophecy, but it also allowed Earth to have its own Green Lantern: Hal Jordan.
Geoff Johns' Green Lantern: Secret Origin further elaborated as to why Abin Sur was on Ysmault in the first place, because he was investigating the Blackest Night prophecy.
Abin Sur's fascination with the Blackest Night prophecy led him to the planet Ysmault to interrogate the Five Inversions about what's at stake. Abin Sur learned that Earth was the birthplace of "The Black," an ancient force meant to extinguish all light and life. This discovery drives him to take Atrocitus as a prisoner and head toward Earth to learn more and prevent the prophecy.
The prophecy was already recorded in the Book of OA, but the Guardians largely dismissed it as a lie from their enemies and later suppressed the relevant information. They strongly discouraged Abin Sur from pursuing the matter further, but clearly, he did not oblige.
Consumed by fear and doubt over the prophecy (mostly due to his ring failing him), Abin Sur's willpower weakened, allowing Atrocitus to break free and cause the fatal ship crash on Earth that led him to choose Hal Jordan as his successor. The sad thing here is that Abin Sur was not able to warn Hal about "The Black," validating Hal's doubts in the DCU about why something is off about the crash and Rushville, Nebraska. In short, Hal's gut feeling that a "sh*tstorm" is brewing mirrors Abin Sur's prophetic unease.
What Abin Sur's Death Really Means in the DCU's Future
Abin Sur's death in the broader DCU mythology is more than a simple origin-story catalyst for Hal Jordan, and Lanterns is making sure the character's demise ties into larger storylines in Chapter One: Gods and Monsters. The relocation of the crash to Rushville, Nebraska, is not a coincidence. Instead, the whole town is a mystery. As Lanterns Episode 1 established, aliens are already hiding in plain sight, and things will certainly escalate, leading to the events of Hal Jordan's own death.
There is one missing gap in Hal Jordan's retelling of the origin story: Atrocitus. It's reasonable to assume that part of Abin Sur's death in the DCU is Atrocitus' involvement as a prisoner, and he must have escaped while the ring is choosing Abin's successor on Earth. In the comics, Atrocitus hunted down William Hand (aka the future Black Hand), but was intercepted and defeated by Sinestro and a rookie Green Lantern, Hal Jordan.
It's possible that Lanterns will touch on this storyline, especially after marketing established that Sinestro was Hal Jordan's mentor in the DCU. Interestingly, in Lanterns, Garrett Dillahunt's character is named William Macon, and some have already speculated that he is the DCU's version of William Hand. If this is the case, then the strangeness surrounding Rushville, Nebraska, has just got a whole lot more interesting and darker.
The town may have been the intended destination of the Black all along, and Abin Sur's death may have coincidentally served as the first link in a chain that leads directly to the Black Hand and the Blackest Night storyline in the DCU.
Who Black Hand Is Might Be the Key to Lanterns' Mystery & Hal Jordan's Death
In DC Comics, William Hand serves as the human vessel of "The Black," the antithesis of the emotional spectrum and the eventual herald of the Blackest Night. William's deeply rooted obsession with death is exactly the reason why Atrocitus targeted him in the first place, mainly because the prisoner foresaw that his death-centric persona would spark the universe's ultimate end.
Hand is not an ordinary Green Lantern villain. He became dangerous because he managed to modify a device capable of draining Green Lantern ring energy that came from Atrocitus. Following Atrocitus' defeat at the hands of Sinestro and Hal Jordan, Hand managed to escape with the technology and begin his lifelong career as Black Hand. In later DC Comics stories, Hand becomes the first Black Lantern and the living connection that allows Nekron to invade the world of the living.
Lanterns appears to be planting the same seeds for Garrett Dillahunt's William Macon, and he may not be the goody two-shoes kind of character introduced in Episode 1. If Macon is the DCU's version of Black Hand, then almost every major thread in the DC series makes sense.
Abin Sur's crash near Rushville would be the moment "The Black" first reached Earth, mainly because it is the same event that brought Atrocitus hunting for William Hand (Macon). Hal Jordan's decades-long gut feeling that something is not right with the town serves as an early warning and foreshadowing of the same threat tied to the prophecy that Abin Sur was so scared of.
Hal's apparent death in the 2026 timeline would take on a far more sinister meaning, considering that Black Hand's classic power is the ability to absorb and nullify Green Lantern energy. A missing ring on a dead Hal Jordan would mean that the ring was transported elsewhere, or worse, maybe in Black Hand's possession.
All in all, Lanterns appears to be gearing towards a dark live-action adaptation of the Blackest Night storyline with Hal Jordan at the center and Rushville, Nebraska as the starting point.
