The DCU has gotten off to a great start under James Gunn, but 2026 will be a big year for the franchise with both the upcoming Supergirl movie and the highest-profile DC series so far, Lanterns, on HBO Max.
The series' first trailer has already been met with some backlash because we never saw the Green Lantern characters in costume. This decision may have directly led to some old comments from Lanterns writer and producer Damon Lindelof resurfacing, which has a former Green Lantern comic writer less than thrilled.
What Damon Lindelof Said About Lanterns
The resurfaced comments in question come from a September 2024 episode of the Lovett or Leave it podcast where Damon Lindelof was a guest. At that point little was being said publicly about the Lanterns series, but the name was known. When asked about the show the writer said…
It's called Lanterns, because we all agreed that the 'Green' was stupid.
While it should be pointed out that the show Damon Lindelof was on was comedy focused, and thus the Lost scribe may have been trying to be funny. But a lot of people didn’t take it that way, and the fact that the Lanterns trailer had a distinct lack of green is being read by many as evidence that Lindelof may not actually like the franchise he’s working with, and one comic writer is among that group.
How Comic Writer Grant Morrison Responded
In a recent post on his Substack, comic writer Grant Morrison took Damon Lindelof to task for his early comments. He wondered why somebody who appeared not to like the content he was working on would choose to do so, saying…
TV writer/producer Damon Lindelof’s comments notwithstanding, the ‘Green’ in ‘Green Lantern(s)’ green is not ‘stupid’. Why does a writer attach himself to this kind of narrative if he thinks it’s fundamentally ‘stupid’?
If Damon Lindelof truly doesn’t like Green Lantern, then it’s a fair question to ask. There have certainly been cases where we’ve seen adaptations of pop culture material go through significant changes. And frequently the reason for that seemed to be a feeling that the material had something wrong with it, even though the fact that the existing content was popular was exactly why it was being adapted.
One might understand a writer taking a job they didn’t love simply because it was the job that was available, but as Grant Morrison points out, Damon Lindelof likely wasn’t in that sort of a position, as he’s had plenty of success in the past, including on entirely original concepts. Morrison continued…
You don’t hand CSI scripts to patronising writers who condemn forensics experts and their haircuts as ‘stupid’, so why hire people who are ashamed and in denial about the comic book material they’ve been assigned to develop? Why don’t they turn down jobs they’re not suited for? It’s not like he needs the money, and Lindelof has proven that he can come up with his own ideas.
Damon Lindelof has worked on comic material before as the showrunner of the very popular Watchmen series. Of course, Alan Moore didn't like that either, so it seems this writer has a tendency to upset people who work in comics.
In the end, the lack of green in Lanterns likely had more to do with holding off on the reveal for marketing reasons than any actual problem with the green in Green Lantern. Still, time will tell.
