'Lanterns' Just Set Up 5 Unexpected Season 2 Mysteries

Image via HBO Published Oct 5, 2026, 5:36 PM EDT Michael John Petty is a Senior Author for Collider who spends his days writing, in fellowship with his local church, and enjoying each new day with his wonderful wife and precious daughters. At Collider, he writes features, reviews, recaps, interviews, and breaking news on select occasion. In addition to writing about stories, Michael has told a few of his own, from supernatural thrillers to historical fiction. His Western short story, The Devil's Left Hand, received the Spur Award for "Best Western Short Fiction" in 2025 from the Western Writers of America, of which he is a member. Michael currently resides in North Idaho with his growing family. Sign in to your Collider account Spoiler Alert: This list contains spoilers for Lanterns Season 1.However you've felt about HBO's Lanterns, the grounded superhero drama left some unanswered questions in its wake, setting up new potential mysteries for a second season. While it's not been confirmed if the series will be greenlit for further continuation, the show certainly sets up some ideas for how John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) and Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) may interact in a future that seems to be without Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan. As the DC Universe continues to blossom, the only way we can go is up. From questions regarding extraterrestrial armies to intimate character details, Lanterns still has some life left in it if HBO is willing to give the series another shot. Fans hoping for more Earth-based Green Lantern adventures may or may not get their wish, and those hoping to see the cosmic corners of the DCU could be in for a treat. It all just depends on how the saga continues now that Lanterns has run its course. Will there be more? Possibly, but the series certainly sets up a larger narrative. Will Sinestro Start His Own Corps? Image via HBO Although we don't spend a whole lot of time with Thaal Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen) on Lanterns, the final certainly sets up his return. Not only do John and the "Halogram" leave him on the Manhunter's graveyard of a world, but they do so only after he reveals that he has forged a new type of lantern. This lantern contains the green energy of willpower, but is also riddled with streaks of yellow fear energy. Comic book fans know that Sinestro eventually forges a yellow power ring — as seen at the end of the 2011 Green Lantern movie — and so this won't come as a surprise to folks wondering where his story will go next. In fact, it seems more than likely that Sinestro could even start his own force of fear-driven power ring-wielding warriors to rival the Guardians' efforts. In the world of DC Comics, that looks like the Sinestro Corps, a band of yellow-powered fiends who war against the Green Lantern Corps. One of the best DC Comics stories, The Sinestro Corps War, details Sinestro's assault on the Green Lanterns, and it appears that Lanterns is building towards that. Could that mean that John is a secret sleeper agent due to the presence of fear in his power battery? It's possible, but only time will tell how all that will play out. How Will the Guardians Respond to John's Ultimatum? Image via HBO At the end of Lanterns, John summons Guy to deliver a message to the Guardians: leave Earth alone. He tells Guy that he should worry about the rest of Sector 2814, and he will defend Earth as a "private contractor" Green Lantern. While Green Lantern comic books have long established that multiple Lanterns can be assigned to the same sector (typically two, but in the case of Earth, often more), Lanterns asserts that only one can exist at a time. While Guy tells John that the Guardians will send an army of Green Lanterns to come after him, John isn't so sure. In fact, he thinks the Guardians will just let him be. How will the Guardians — and Laura Linney's Lianna, in particular — respond to such an ultimatum? Well, considering they hated when Hal would go off on his own and do his own thing, we can't imagine they'll love that John (their former "by the book" soldier) is now an independent agent. Even if you consider John to be the best Green Lantern on Lanterns, the Guardians have famously preferred control to trust. Could we see the living planet Mogo or Ch'p the "squirrel" Lantern next season? Perhaps, especially if the Corps is sent after John to reclaim Hal's old ring. Will Noah Actually Be Able To Live a Normal Life? Image via HBO The revelation that Noah Macon (Shea Pritchard) is actually a Manhunter may not have been a surprising one, but it certainly comes with some serious implications. For one thing, the idea that Manhunters can seemingly reproduce and replicate means that what happened in Rushville may happen again somewhere else in the future. John allows the boy to live because he believes that he will be able to overcome his programming, but having seen what the Manhunters were able to do to an entire alien world, can we be sure? We can't know for certain now, but Lanterns could continue to ponder the answer. Of course, Noah is not his grandmother, and it's possible he will be able to fight nature with nurture. So far, that's exactly what he's been able to do. There may be plenty of other characters folks want to see in the DC Universe, but Noah is an interesting take on the Manhunter concept that completely re-imagines what these killer machines are supposed to be. By giving the Manhunter a conscience and a potential future, Lanterns re-writes DC lore that offers a more nuanced take on the struggle between good and evil. It's possible a future season wouldn't even revisit Rushville again, but if it did, Noah's story still has some road to travel. Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Superhero Team Should You Join? Avengers · X-Men · Teen Titans · The Boys Every team is a personality test with a uniform. One saves the world and argues about it the whole way home. One has been fighting for the right to exist since the day it formed. One is still working out who it is while the fighting happens. And one has no powers at all, plus no intention of playing fair. Eight questions decide where you actually belong. 🛡️Avengers(Marvel Studios) 🧬X-Men(Marvel) 🐦Teen Titans(DC) 💊The Boys(Prime Video) FIND YOUR TEAM → 01 What kind of power would you actually want? The power matters less than what you would be willing to do with it. ASomething enormous and obvious. I would not hide it. BSomething I was born with, whether I wanted it or not. CSomething still growing that I cannot quite control. DNone at all. I would rather nobody sees me coming. NEXT QUESTION → 02 Why join a team at all? Nobody puts on the suit for the reason they say out loud. ABecause some threats are too big for anyone alone. BBecause people like me are safer together than apart. CBecause I did not want to do any of this alone. DBecause somebody has to hold these people accountable. NEXT QUESTION → 03 How do you feel about the people in charge? Every team has a chain of command. Very few of them survive contact. AI will follow a good leader and argue with a bad one. BThey have never protected people like me. I expect nothing. CI am still learning who to trust, and getting it wrong. DThey are the problem. That is the entire point. NEXT QUESTION → 04 What is your role inside a group? Every roster needs the same handful of people to function. AThe big personality. I take up room and I earn it. BThe one who protects whoever arrived most recently. CThe heart. I keep everybody talking to each other. DThe one who says the uncomfortable thing out loud. NEXT QUESTION → 05 How do you win a fight you should lose? This is the scene the entire film gets built around. AOverwhelming force, and a very good landing. BWorking together in a way nobody saw coming. CRefusing to give up long after I should have. DPreparation, leverage, and one extremely dirty trick. NEXT QUESTION → 06 What is this work costing you? Nobody does this for free. The bill just arrives differently for everyone. AMy private life. Everybody knows my face now. BMy safety. The world is frightened of me. CMy childhood. I grew up faster than I should have. DMy peace. I cannot stop now that I know. NEXT QUESTION → 07 How should the world see your team? Half of this job is public relations, and everybody knows it. AAs icons. The team everyone is relieved to see arrive. BAs people. Just people, which is all we ever asked. CAs proof the next generation is going to be fine. DThey should not see us at all until it is done. NEXT QUESTION → 08 The offer arrives. What makes you say yes? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your team. AThe scale. If the world is ending, I want to be there. BThe promise that I would not have to hide anymore. CThe people. I would be joining friends, not an employer. DThe chance to take down somebody who deserves it. REVEAL MY TEAM → Recruitment Is Complete Your Team Is…Four teams, four completely different reasons to put yourself in danger for strangers. This is the roster you actually belong on, what they would want from you, and what it would cost you to stay. The AvengersYou belong where the stakes are largest and the personalities are loudest. This is a team of people who are all used to being the most important person in the room, which is exactly why it works and exactly why it keeps nearly falling apart. The Avengers are not friends who became a team. They are a team that slowly and reluctantly became friends, and you would recognise every stage of that process. You can hold your own among big egos without needing to win every exchange, which is the real entry requirement here. The arguing is part of the method. This group does its best thinking mid-disagreement, usually at volume, usually in a very expensive building. When the sky opens, they are who shows up. You would want to be standing in that line. The X-MenYou have never had the luxury of being thanked for this. The X-Men protect a world that has never once been comfortable with them existing, and something in you understands exactly why they keep doing it anyway. This is the only team on the list whose central conflict is not a villain. It is being wanted gone by the same people they keep saving. You know what it is to be the outsider in a room and to decide, anyway, that you will not make yourself smaller so everyone else is comfortable. The X-Men are the most genuine found family in comics. People arrive with nowhere else to go and are never once asked to explain themselves. You would not be joining for the glory. There has never been any. The Teen TitansYou do not want colleagues, you want your people. The Titans are the team where the friendship came first and the world-saving turned up afterwards as an inconvenient side effect. Every Titan is somebody's sidekick who decided to stop being one. That decision, not the villain of the week, is what the team is actually about. You would be joining people who are all working themselves out at the same time as you, which is far less lonely than being the only one. The Titans lose regularly. Then they eat together and come back better, which is a more honest model of growing up than any other team here manages. The tower would be loud, chaotic, and the first place that ever felt like yours. The BoysYou are not asking who to trust. You worked out the answer a while ago and it was nobody in a cape. This is where you go once you have decided the people in charge need watching, and that nobody else is going to do it. The Boys have no powers, no mandate and no funding. What they have is leverage, patience, and a very high tolerance for consequences. You are the person in the room who notices the thing everybody else has quietly agreed not to mention. This is not a heroic team and it has never pretended otherwise. It is a group of damaged people doing necessary work in ways nobody would call clean. You would not sleep well. You would keep going anyway. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ Fear Can't Be Good for a Green Lantern, Right? Whether or not Sinestro forms his own corps, the idea that fear-laced yellow energy is tainting John Stewart's green power battery (and therefore his ring) can't be good, right? Anyone intimately familiar with the Green Lantern comic book essentials will know that the traditional weakness for members of the Green Lantern Corps is the color yellow. This is later explained as due to a "yellow impurity" caused by the fear entity Parallax, a creature trapped within the Central Power Battery at Oa. While there's no indication that this is what's going on here on Lanterns, the idea of a lantern battery corrupted by fear is a concerning one. Even if John claims to utilize his fear in the fight as Earth's newest Green Lantern, it's a bit of a tricky thing having a power ring that's powered by both green and yellow energy. It seems like those forces will eventually end up working against one another. Of course, it could also be a gateway for John, rather than Hal as is the case in the comics, to be possessed or influenced by Parallax. It's still a bit early to tell if Lanterns will go this route — and considering the grounded nature of the series, we'd guess not — but it's certainly an important question to consider when pondering how John's story may continue. Is Hal Jordan Really Gone Forever? Image via HBO With the revelation that Hal Jordan is indeed dead, having been killed by his own lover, it seems as if Kyle Chandler's take on the character is lost to us. Even the "Halogram" disappeared after John charged the ring, making it his own, and so Earth's first Green Lantern has vanished with hardly any fanfare at all. But Sinestro did say one thing that was particularly interesting: He told John that he could help bring Hal back to life for real. If that's true, it certainly makes us wonder about what could happen next. Again, there's been no confirmation about a Lanterns Season 2, but if a sequel did happen, it would almost have to include Hal or else risk a The Last of Us situation. Right now, it appears that Hal Jordan is no more. His ring is no longer his own, and he's now been buried six feet under. Even his backup consciousness has been erased (seemingly). With all that in mind, Lanterns continuing without Chandler is probably a tough sell. Now, there are ways Hal could return for the sake of the narrative. Season 2 could follow his adventures with Sinestro in his younger years, somehow tying into a present-day mystery that John is forced to uncover. That would certainly put Lanterns in the running for being one of DC's best television adaptations. However, the show (or the Green Lantern saga) continues beyond this inaugural season, we know that DC probably has more cooked up for the Corps — and hopefully for Hal, too. Lanterns Release Date August 16, 2026 Network HBO Cast Aaron Pierre John Stewart Showrunner Chris Mundy Directors Alik Sakharov, James Hawes, Stephen Williams, Geeta Patel Writers Damon Lindelof, Chris Mundy, Tom King, Vanessa Baden Kelly, Justin Britt-Gibson, Breannah Gibson Franchise(s) DC Universe Main Genre Sci-Fi Seasons 1 Producers Breannah Gibson, James Gunn, Peter Safran, Ron Schmidt, Vanessa Baden Kelly, Karen Wacker, Kiegan Downs Creator(s) Tom King, Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof Streaming Service(s) MAX Release Window 2026 Executive Producer(s) Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, James Gunn, James Hawes, Peter Safran, Tom King, Ron Schmidt