RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 5 sources“Since when did you care if I was happy?”
The effect superheroes would have on the real world runs through some of the most acclaimed comics (and comics adaptations) of the modern age. Alan Moore provided the definitive take in 1986 with Watchmen , and Damon Lindelof took a creditable stab at continuing that thread in his 2019 HBO series based on Watchmen , extending Moore’s cynical take on costumed superheroing to incorporate America’s ingrained racist history and legacy.
(Of course Moore was grumpy about Lindelof’s efforts, but that’s Alan being Alan. And Lindelof’s speculative sequel was far superior to DC Comics’ woeful incorporation of the Watchmen heroes into DC continuity. But this comics nerd digresses.)
Lanterns attempts to walk a tightrope between Watchmen -style (both versions) superhero deconstruction and its necessary inclusion in James Gunn’s more colorful and hopeful reinvention of the DCU. And “OutKast,” Lanterns third episode, leaps purposefully off into the series’ prestige drama side, showing just how one Black family’s encounter with the superhuman nearly destroyed them all.
The episode begins with John Stewart falling out of the sky. Hal’s unwillingness to teach his supposed trainee how to fly comes immediately to mind, but when John plops down onto a waiting pile of mattresses in what appears to be an abandoned shopping mall and follows a series of understated arrows to a small, unimpressive office, what we get instead is a flashback episode to John’s recruitment into the Green Lantern Corps.
Blessedly, our first encounter with the mysterious Guardians of the Universe comes in the form of Laura Linney, whose unassuming invitation for John to wait sees the impassive former Marine do just that—through an entire day and night. Surprised to see him still in his uncomfortable seat the next morning, Linney’s surprise elicits John’s good-soldier-terse explanation, “I was told to wait.”
The Guardians, as comics nerds know, are the immortal beings who bestow the Green Lanterns’ rings upon beings they deem worthy to carry out their mission to police the universe. “We’re the ruling body of the cosmos,” Linney’s human-presenting Guardian tells John patiently, her beatific smile betraying the merest hint of the inherent hubris of the pronouncement. That’s key to Linney’s deliciously offbeat performance (she cocks her head ever so slightly when confronted with someone asking her to define her terms), and to Lanterns ’ take on what—in simpler times—was a standard superhero origin story.
The Green Lanterns are chosen, sure, but by whom, and under what authority? Linney’s unnamed Guardian approaches her recruitment duty with the placid assurance of a benevolent dog trainer, but “OutKast” is Lanterns ’ exploration of what their green ring does to those beings who receive it. And those who just miss it.
The man who missed the ring was John’s father (J. Alphonse Nicholson) who we see lifted out of his bed in front of the infant John by a green bubble in the middle of the night. Baby John hears an impassive voice ask, “Are you afraid?,” to which the terrified John Sr. screams that he is.
And so Hal Jordan got the ring. And John Stewart’s family was left to cope with the fallout from coming so close. It’s a bold move, showing that Hal and John’s destinies are entwined more than we thought. (and embroidered with perhaps one coincidence too many, as we’ll see.) It also allows Aaron Pierre to lay down some of the cards he’s been holding so close. John’s stoic willingness to put up with Hal’s dismissive bullshit wasn’t just John the Marine following protocol—John Stewart has been biding his time since he was that baby, watching his father fail at a test he’s been trained all his life to pass.
The episode plays out as flashbacks within a two-hander, Pierre and Linney’s interview elaborating on John’s clipped answers about the long and traumatic journey that brought him to that room. We see how Hal’s emergence as Earth’s first Green Lantern ate away at John Sr., his upright pride crumbling into drunken obsession until he shoots out the family’s TV when Hal makes his public debut. And we watch as John’s mother Bernadette (Jasmine Cephas Jones) not only talks her unstable husband down (expertly emptying the bullets from his gun), but sets out the terms under which she will continue living with him and their three children.
Race was central to all nine episodes of Lindelof’s Watchmen , the intersection of unthinkable power and America’s still-disfiguring taint of bigotry running thoughtfully through the narrative. Lanterns attempts to speak its piece largely in one family’s story, in one episode, and sometimes the strain shows. There’s a prosaicness to Bernadette’s lecture to her faltering husband as she spells out how their model family “didn’t break down every stereotype and conquer every fear” for them to stumble now.
But Bernadette’s steely determination is, in Parker’s uncompromising performance, the backbone of John Stewart’s origin story. While taking out the trash, Bernadtte is confronted by Linney’s Guardian with an apology for John Sr.’s failure and a consolation diamond as big as a doorknob. Shs then sits the powerful alien down at her kitchen table, and tells her visitor the flaw in the Guardians’ entire plan.
“Do you know how unfair it is to ask a Black man on Earth if he’s afraid?,” Bernadette asks, eliciting another telling head-tilt from Linney. As comics fans remembered the moment we heard about Manhunters , these Guardians aren’t as infallible as they like to imagine, and Bernadette, just as she had with the man she loves, refuses to allow outside factors to question the excellence she knows her family embodies. “We’re terrified daily of persecution and still show up, sometimes better than everyone else around us,” Bernadette schools the puzzled alien, concluding disdainfully, “Even in space, you don’t see us.”
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