Grant Morrison has weighed in on HBO’s “Lanterns” after months of feuding with showrunner Damon Lindelof over a dismissive joke about the color green, and the acclaimed “Green Lantern” writer’s verdict lands somewhere between grudging respect and continued skepticism.
In the August 23 edition of his Xanaduum Substack newsletter, Morrison wrote that he “felt obliged to watch the first episode of Lanterns after criticising the glib dismissal of the colour green by writer and producer Damon Lindelof.” That single sentence carries the weight of a controversy that has followed the show since before its first trailer dropped.
The feud traces back to a 2024 appearance Lindelof made on the “Lovett or Leave It” podcast, where he quipped, “It’s called Lanterns, because we all agreed that the ‘Green’ was stupid, so now it’s just Lanterns.” The comment sat dormant for over a year until fans resurfaced it after the “Lanterns” trailer released with a washed-out color palette and no visible ring constructs. Morrison, who wrote a celebrated “Green Lantern” run for DC from 2018 to 2021, fired back on Substack with one of the sharper takedowns of the controversy: “TV writer/producer Damon Lindelof’s comments notwithstanding, the ‘Green’ in ‘Green Lantern(s)’ is not ‘stupid.’ Why does a writer attach himself to this kind of narrative if he thinks it’s fundamentally ‘stupid’? 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?”
Morrison did not stop there, adding, “The only people who give a f—k about the Lanterns TV series are Green Lantern fans. Why alienate them at the start? That feels more like ‘stupid.’”
Lindelof answered with an Instagram apology, posting a photo of himself in a Green Lantern shirt from his first Comic-Con and writing, “I have upset Grant Morrison, which means I have now pissed off MOST of the brilliant British/Scottish comics writers that I grew up idolizing.” He called the podcast joke “dumb” and “sloppy and careless,” and insisted green remained his “lifelong favorite color.”
Now that the show has premiered, Morrison’s newsletter shows a writer working through mixed feelings rather than holding a grudge. He praised Aaron Pierre’s performance as John Stewart and singled out Kyle Chandler’s turn as a version of Hal Jordan, though he added a pointed caveat: “he wasn’t any Hal Jordan I recognised. Willpower and booze don’t mix for a start.” Morrison said he would “stick with it for the engaging Chandler,” while criticizing the show for offering “way too much tell, not enough show” and for inviting “True Detective” comparisons that “only worked against Lanterns.”
The costume and effects question that started the whole fight resurfaced too. Morrison called “the lack of costumes and ring effects” glaring, though he chalked it up to budget constraints and a deliberate effort to distance the show from the failed 2011 Ryan Reynolds film. He also took issue with a specific line of dialogue, writing that Jordan’s comparison of ditching his uniform to not wearing a tie “as you get older” missed the point of what the ring and costume represent: “the Lantern uniform is not a superhero suit or personal fashion choice, it’s the uniform of the organisation Jordan works for.”
Morrison closed the section on a note that split the difference between the fight he picked with Lindelof and the show now airing on HBO. “Having said that, the approach seems to have worked, and mainstream reviews of the show are pretty positive, so fair dos,” he wrote, before asking a question that goes back to his original complaint: why build a low-budget, low-visual take on a franchise DC could be positioning against “Star Trek” or “Star Wars”?
Lindelof’s apology cooled the public feud, but Morrison’s newsletter makes clear the underlying disagreement over how “Lanterns” handles its source material never fully resolved. Does a partial thaw from one of Green Lantern’s most respected writers change how skeptical fans should approach the rest of the season?
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I thought Ryan Reynolds did a great job in that movie.
Ryan Reynolds can sleep at night knowing that he's no longer the worst live action Green Lantern.