Warner Bros.Even though the 2011 film starring Ryan Reynolds is still remembered as one of the worst superhero films in the entire genre, the character of Green Lantern has still managed to become fairly recognizable due to appearances in lots of adaptational material over the years. While no Earth-based Lantern has made it back to the big screen yet (although that’s set to change with Aaron Pierre’s John Stewart showing up in Man of Tomorrow next year), Hal Jordan was the star of his own short-lived TV show Green Lantern: The Animated Series, and the John Stewart version of the character practically raised a generation of kids on Justice League and Justice League: Unlimited. Although definitely not as recognizable and beloved as a Spider-Man or a Superman, Green Lantern is debatably a better-known character than most of The Avengers were prior to the dawn of the MCU in 2008.Unfortunately, though, his position as a B-list superhero in the eyes of the general public means that there’s so much about the character’s lore that people don’t know. Most people have no idea that the original Green Lantern, Alan Scott, was a magic-based hero with a weakness to wood who predates the sci-fi elements introduced to the mythos with Hal Jordan in 1959; most people have no idea that there are seven human members of the Green Lantern Corps; and most people have no idea that the Green Lanterns are just one part of an entire emotional light spectrum, with their own respective Lantern Corps. But the new HBO Max/DCU show Lanterns will undoubtedly expand the general audience’s awareness of the Green Lantern mythos…and it might even be building to the discovery of that last tidbit of information.Lanterns doesn’t just have the difficult task of introducing the Green Lanterns to James Gunn’s DCU, but of redeeming the Green Lanterns in live-action period. | HBO MaxThe Manhunters mystery in LanternsIn the premiere episode of Lanterns, a 10-year-old pre-recorded message from Hal Jordan’s power ring prompts Jordan and John Stewart to take a trip to Rushville, Nebraska, in order to investigate what may or may not be extraterrestrial activity in the town (spoiler alert: it certainly is). After a shooting leaves several human-impersonating aliens dead, the sole survivor is thrown in jail and eventually interrogated by Hal. After hiding his identity for as long as possible, the suspect reveals his true nature, but in the process also hints that he and others like him are on Earth in service of an as-yet-unexplained undertaking.With just one episode released as of this writing, the full scope of Lanterns’ mystery is still unknown, but it’s been heavily speculated that the shape-shifting “aliens” in the story are actually the Manhunters, a race of ruthless androids created by the Guardians of the Universe as precursors to the Green Lanterns, who crucially have the ability to impersonate human beings with robot decoys. The fact that Hal’s suspect detonates like a bomb is proof of the theory, but if it turns out to be true, then it raises an entirely new question: why are the Manhunters there in the first place?The Manhunters are one of the most frequent foes of the Green Lantern Corps in the comics, and they play a crucial role in the birth of another GLC villain. | DC ComicsThe Manhunters have complex, but relevant, comics loreFirst introduced in 1975, and with an expanded backstory revealed in 1977, Manhunters were initially programmed to uphold justice throughout the universe, but eventually became fixated on the concept of punishing evil and went haywire;s so aggressively, in fact, that the cause for their exile was the total annihilation of Space Sector 666, a massacre that led to the birth of the Green Lantern villain Atrocitus, as told in a 2008 arc called “Secret Origin.” Atrocitus’ family and entire homeworld were wiped out during the Manhunters’ rampage, and in response he harnessed his bitterness and anger into the creation of the first Red Lantern power battery and ring, giving rise to the Red Lanterns – an alternative Corps powered by rage and their hatred of the Guardians. However, the same run on Green Lantern that introduced the Red Lanterns — Green Lantern Volume 4, debuting in 2007 and written by Geoff Johns — culminated in two universe-shattering events: the War of Light and the Blackest Night.Sinestro’s creation of the Yellow Lantern Corps and Atrocitus’ creation of the Red Lanterns opened the floodgates for numerous forces to weaponize the emotional light spectrum, leading to the emergence of the Star Sapphires (based on love), the Indigo Tribe (based on compassion), the Blue Lanterns (based on hope), and Agent Orange (a lone alien controlling the power of greed), and these forces all clashed in a protracted conflict known as the War of Light. But in truth, the war was merely a backdrop for an even bigger catastrophe: the 2009-2010 multi-title event across DC Comics, Blackest Night, a prophesied crisis which saw hundreds of dead DC Comics characters resurrected as zombies and forced to join the Black Lantern Corps, under the control of Nekron, DC’s personification of Death. Nekron sought the destruction of the Life Entity, a being responsible for existence throughout the galaxy – one specifically buried deep within the Earth.The War of Light era was fairly recent, but it expanded the Green Lantern mythos in an unexpected and significant way. | DC ComicsWhile it’s way too early to say exactly what the Manhunters might be looking for in Lanterns, knowing their loose connection to the War of Light and the Blackest Night prophecy, it might be possible that they’re searching for the Life Entity themselves. While they’ve come to blows with the GLC plenty of times, the Manhunters aren’t really outright evil as much as they’re moral absolutists – they could be determined to prevent the Blackest Night prophecy in their own stubborn way, which could create conflict between them and John and Hal considering the two of them have no idea what kinds of secrets the Guardians of the Universe have been keeping from them. The show has made it no secret that it’s a mystery of cosmic proportions, so using the Manhunters as the catalyst for our two heroes to discover that their bosses are keeping galaxy-shattering secrets from them isn’t just the ideal structure for a noir mystery, but it would also be a brilliant love-letter to the Green Lantern mythos created by Geoff Johns.New episodes of Lanterns premiere every Sunday at 9.