A popular DC actor from James Gunn’s Superman film isn’t too pleased with one controversial decision the creators of Lanterns made with Kyle Chandler’s character. The HBO/HBO Max series premiered on August 16 and delivered massive viewership for the streamer. It follows space cops Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) as they investigate a murder mystery in Rushville, Nebraska. The show flexed several exciting comic book elements and flamboyant Green Lantern constructs, pleasing fans who tuned in for the premiere. By the time the episode ended, however, one major decision dominated Lanterns' discourse on social media.
Neva Howell, who played Ma Kent in 2025's Superman, took to X to share her disapproval of Lanterns potentially killing off Hal. The premiere moves between two timelines, 2016 and 2026, with the final scene set in the latter. There, an older, bearded John Stewart reunites with Kelly Macdonald’s Sheriff Kerry, and they head to the bleachers of the town’s stadium; they find Hal frozen stiff in a seat with a bullet wound in his head. He appears to be deceased, and John even sheds a tear for his mentor.
Howell isn’t buying it. Under a DCU post discussing Hal’s apparent demise, she wrote, “If that’s all there is with him in it, I won’t just be sad. I’ll be furious.” That sentiment is shared by a sizable portion of the DC fanbase that waited 15 years to see Hal return in live action.
Her reaction also isn’t surprising, given how much she loves Chandler’s portrayal. In a separate post, the Superman actress wrote, "I just adore Kyle Chandler, and he is fantastic as Hal Jordan!" Chandler brought this old, weary version of Hal to life convincingly, and the character’s relationship with John, the rookie he is training, was one of the highlights of the first episode. Chandler described their dynamic as a "really wonderful friendship" to the Los Angeles Times:
“I think that one of the goals of the arc for these two guys is that they really don’t like each other at the beginning. At the end … you realize [it’s] a really wonderful friendship that occurred. … He’s a friend. I’m not gonna tell him that, but he’s a friend, and I’d do anything for him."
The mystery surrounding Hal’s fate will linger for weeks as the show slowly unravels its plot and reveals what’s going on. For now, fans are left with theories. Some are convinced he is truly dead, while others believe it is a fake-out.
Is Hal Jordan Dead in HBO’s Lanterns Series?
Lanterns has been marketed as a murder mystery, and the premiere makes clear that the mystery heavily involves Hal Jordan’s shooting. With Hal’s death at the center of the plot, a resolution is unlikely to come anytime soon, possibly not even this season, and maybe not until Season 2.
The decision seems strange at first, given how important Hal is. He is one of the greatest Green Lanterns, John Stewart’s mentor, and the audience’s entry point into the Green Lantern Corps, so killing him off in the first episode feels too cheap.
There is clearly more to his apparent demise than meets the eye. He may not be truly dead, or he could be resurrected, both of which have precedent in the comics.
The first episode also established that about 14 alien species can shapeshift and mimic human physiology so perfectly that regular blood tests and other medical checks cannot expose them. That raises a possibility worth considering. The body at the end of the episode may not be Hal at all. Co-creator Damon Lindelof also suggested the creative team expects to be vindicated for the choice by the finale, saying, "I guess our feeling is let’s see how you feel at the end of episode 8."
Lindelof’s confidence gives off the sense that the show has a loophole to keep Hal in play, and the premiere might have already planted it. Hal stored his consciousness in his power ring years before his apparent death, and a hologram of him appears before John after the rookie survives the car-crash test Hal set for him earlier in the episode.
In Green Lantern lore, a ring preserving an echo of its wearer is not a stretch, giving Lanterns a comic book-grounded path to bring Hal back without undoing the stakes of the mystery. For now, the body indicates Hal is dead, while the ring missing from his finger, the hologram, and the shapeshifter reveal suggest that the truth is more complicated than the audience thinks.
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.
