'Garbage Universe That Disrespects the Characters of DC' — Lanterns' Episode 1 Ending Has Upset a Lot of Green Lantern Fans

This article contains spoilers for Lanterns Episode 1.

The ending to the first episode of Lanterns has upset a lot of fans, though the creators expected this response.

At the end of Lanterns episode one, the show flashes forward about a decade and shows Hal Jordan's corpse at the football field from earlier in the episode. He is, however, missing his ring, and John Stewart does not have it. Jordan will return, as it seems like the show will bounce back and forth between two timelines: 2016 and 2026. The creators maintain that in present day, Hal Jordan is truly dead, and as a result, some fans of the character are pretty upset.

"Officially done with Lanterns thanks to the ending, imagine starting the new DCU and you don't have Hal Jordan," said one outraged fan. "Pathetic on [James] Gunn's part. F**k off, DCU."

"Garbage universe that disrespects the characters of DC," said a fan with a Green Lantern-themed profile. "I knew this show would be garbage in 2024, which is why I boycotted Superman and everything DCU-related."

Some fans expressed frustration with how Hal is portrayed as a whole, as he's older, cynical, and an alcoholic in the series.

"It definitely isn’t honoring the comics," said another Green Lantern fan. "This portrayal of Hal is terrible. And killing Hal in the first episode is stupid, even if it isn’t really him. He needs to be the focus; otherwise, this is not going to succeed. A buddy space cop show needs both buddies to work."

"Why do they always have to turn our legacy heroes into depressed addicts that are shamefully, degenerate, sad, lonely, disgraces of themselves?" asked a frustrated viewer.

And finally, another DC fan looked at the ending as the reason why a bunch of big-name stars like Josh Brolin and Matthew McConaughey passed on the role of Green Lantern: "Now I see why no big star wanted to play Hal Jordan."

That's not to say all the reactions were bad; it's just that the ending was divisive. Some viewers (including myself) found it to be a compelling mystery by making the victim of this murder-mystery show someone we are actually invested in. Showrunner Chris Mundy explained to IGN in an interview that this was by design.

"We needed whatever that mystery was to be as meaningful as possible and as emotional as possible for John, for Hal in a way, but also for the audience. So it felt like [the right thing to do] in a show about someone trying to hold onto this thing, losing it, and then where does he end up and why? And can we do the math to get to that point? How do we use that? Because obviously you don't take something like that lightly. It's a huge thing. So is it being done to illuminate not just John, but also illuminate Hal in the best way possible? So the fact that they had confidence or, really, faith in us at least to do it and treat it with the level of care that we hopefully gave it, we felt really lucky. But yeah, it was kind of big and scary just because it's a choice."

There's even some speculation online that Hal isn't actually dead, contrary to the comments of the creators of the show. The first episode introduces shape shifting aliens and a hologram version of Hal. That's enough to make any mind speculate over whether or not what we're seeing is what it actually seems.

Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN's news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.