In short, Hal Jordan was a young, cocky hot-shot, a great place for a superhero to start, but very difficult to maintain, especially if the character makes mistakes. And, oh boy, does Hal Jordan make mistakes. Even before his most infamous moments, Hal would regularly give up his ring to go find himself, wandering around the country as a trucker or a salesman peddling toys and insurance. When paired with liberal loudmouth Green Arrow in the legendary series by Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams, Hal was the wet-blanket conservative, a cop constantly berated for his authoritarianism.
In the ’80s, Hal started dating a 13-year-old. In the ’90s, he went nuts and killed all the other members of the Corps, spending a few years as the villain Parallax. Then, in the 2000s, retcons explained all that away and Hal was back, trying to be as cool as ever. Not every fan has been ready to accept him.
The latest Lanterns trailer gives us glimpses of Hal in his prime, with a smirking (and mask-less?) Hal Jordan appearing on a CRT TV. But Chandler mostly plays an older, more grizzled Hal, a guy who has already done it all and isn’t so thrilled to be training new guy John Stewart. That could be a disaster, positioning Hal as the old dog who still thinks he’s hot stuff, setting up a story where we want to see the cocky old fart get taken down a notch.
But just look at the twinkle in Chandler’s eye when he makes that dollar bill. Look at the confidence he possesses when effortlessly creating a construct to deflect bullets or standing up to the local heavies. Chandler even manages to stay charming when Hal condescends to John, making us believe, if only for a moment, that maybe he should be Green Lantern forever.
We’re still a few months from the Lanterns premiere, so we still don’t know how the series will hand all the weird parts of the Green Lantern mythos. But at least we can look forward to Chandler’s take on Hal Jordan without the slightest hint of fear.
Lanterns debuts on HBO on August 16, 2026.
