Summary
- Green Lantern: The Animated Series showcases the potential of a TV series for exploring the vast Green Lantern lore.
- The show’s character development and unique storytelling make it an underrated gem among DC animated series.
- Lanterns, the upcoming HBO series, can learn from Green Lantern: The Animated Series to successfully adapt the characters and mythology.
Now that Lanterns is officially confirmed for HBO, an underrated Green Lantern series has already proved that a show works much better than a movie about the DC heroes, making the move a smart choice for the upcoming DC Universe release. While fans wait eagerly for Lanterns, a show from 11 years ago has already truly showed the potential a television series can have when covering the vast lore of Hal Jordan, John Stewart, and the rest of the Green Lanterns.
Green Lantern: The Animated Series premiered on March 26, 2012, and ran for only one season before being canceled. Despite its brief run, it covered a lot of what makes the character of Green Lantern so compelling and why it makes sense for the character’s mythology to be explored as a series. Green Lantern: The Animated Series is an underrated DC series that deserves its recognition among other top-tier DC animated shows like Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited.
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Green Lantern: The Animated Series Proves Lanterns Is Better Off As A Show
Because of it being a show,
Green Lantern: The Animated Series
was able to adapt key elements of the important characters and universe while also forging its own path, making it some of the best Green Lantern content around.
The Green Lantern mythology is vast, making it hard for a movie to cover all the essential aspects of it. It’s just not feasible for a single movie (or even a trilogy) to properly explore all the Earth-based Lanterns as well as the other Lantern Corps. Because it followed a show format, Green Lantern: The Animated Series was able to adapt key elements of the important characters and universe while also forging its own path, making it some of the best Green Lantern content around.
Despite lasting only one season, Green Lantern: The Animated Series was able to include key characters from its vast mythology, such as Larfleeze, Sinestro, and Atrocitus, while still crafting a satisfying story. It’s a shame that the series isn’t discussed more in terms of the best DC animated shows around, but it deserves its place among them. Unfortunately, it was completely overshadowed by a specific Ryan Reynolds-led movie that came about a little under a year before it.
Green Lantern: The Animated Series was reportedly canceled due to poor toy sales and the movie bombing, and not because of anything to do with the quality of the show.
DC Already Tried A Green Lantern Movie & It Bombed Massively
In 2011, DC was all in on the character and pinning their hopes of a brand new cinematic universe on the potential success of Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds as the titular hero. The movie proved to be a massive failure both critically and financially, earning a 25% on Rotten Tomatoes and bombing spectacularly at the box office. Because of this, a Green Lantern sequel never happened, and the attempt at a cinematic universe was scrapped immediately.
There are a number of factors that led to how badly Green Lantern did in 2011. The fully CGI suit became a meme that was later used as a punchline in Deadpool, the other superhero property that Reynolds would star in. There were also odd story choices and character designs that did the movie no favors. Maybe the biggest reason the film failed, though, was that there isn’t enough time for a movie to do justice to flesh out the vast Green Lantern mythology in a satisfying way.
What Lanterns Can Learn From Green Lantern: The Animated Series
Lanterns will skip Hal Jordan’s origin story and focus on a seasoned Hal working alongside rookie Green Lantern John Stewart, allowing the show to begin exploring Green Lantern history in the DCU in a much broader sense. In wanting to explore the Green Lantern mythology, Lanterns should learn from Green Lantern: The Animated Series on how to successfully adapt the characters. Of course, the tone of a prestige HBO show will be different from a Cartoon Network animated series, but Green Lantern: The Animated Series is a fantastic reference point when creating a series focus on the hero group.
What Green Lantern: The Animated Series succeeded at, and what Lanterns should focus on, was fantastic character work that allowed audiences to get invested in the story. Hal Jordan was at his best in the series, and the sprawling Green Lantern universe was explored to an impressive degree during the show’s run. If Lanterns is able to place a similar emphasis on strong character development for Hal Jordan and John Stewart, as well as begin to open up the massive world of the Green Lantern Corps as effectively, it could be a strong project for the DCU.
It’s reasonable to assume the Green Lantern franchise hasn’t fully recovered in the eyes of general audiences following the failure of Green Lantern, making Lanterns’ job of redeeming the property extremely important. Making it into a prestige HBO show is already a solid step in the right direction, especially since episodic formats have already proved effective for the kind of story about to be told. If Lanterns can match up to Green Lantern: The Animated Series, it could be one of the most important pieces of the DCU, and open up the possibility of other characters getting shows as well.
Green Lantern: The Animated Series
Adapted from the DC Comics, Green Lantern: The Animated Series recounts the adventures of Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern of Sector 2814, and his partner Kilowog. Traveling to “Frontier Space” the Green Lanterns face off against the deadly Red Lanterns and their leader Atrocitus, who seeks revenge for the destruction of his world.
- Cast
- Josh Keaton , Kevin Michael Richardson , jason spisak , grey delisle
- Release Date
- November 11, 2011
- Seasons
- 1