Welcome to the Couch Club, our recurring column devoted to all things #DCTV! This week, Joseph McCabe looks at John Stewart’s hero’s journey over the first season of Lanterns.

SPOILER ALERT: The following column contains spoilers from the first six episodes of Lanterns.
 

Live-action adaptations of superhero comics walk a fine line between the stylized and the realistic. To its credit, Lanterns has walked this line with the sure steadiness of its protagonist, John Stewart. It’s a show that’s had young John’s parents shooting apples off their son’s head in the backyard of their suburban home. It’s had Hal Jordan, Earth’s long-serving, sworn protector in the comics, leaving his trainee to die in a car explosion on more than one occasion. And it’s a show focused on a hero’s journey—as famed mythology scholar Joseph Campbell defined it in his landmark book The Hero with a Thousand Faces—recalling such disparate figures like Odysseus, Siddhartha and Luke Skywalker. It’s John Stewart’s hero’s journey that comes to the fore in Lanterns’ most recent episodes.

Act I of that journey, according to Campbell, is the Departure, in which the hero lives an ordinary life before receiving the call to adventure. He initially refuses that call, then meets a mentor who offers him guidance and helps him cross the threshold into the unknown.

The first act of John’s journey—like those of many pop culture heroes—doesn’t always mirror Campbell’s description (which writers often use as a suggestion rather than a rule). It’s presented in flashback throughout Lanterns’ first three episodes. John’s father was once considered by the Guardians of the Universe to be Earth’s Green Lantern, but he was passed over. The psychological effect of that dismissal on John’s parents ultimately denied John a normal life, as they took steps to make him an even better man than his father. However, he does eventually receive the call to adventure when the Guardians decide he could one day replace Hal Jordan in the role denied to his father.

Any self-doubt on John’s part is immediately extinguished by a lifetime of duty, first to his parents, then to the U.S. military, essentially rendering him fearless—the first requirement of a Lantern. Then Hal Jordan arrives at John’s home and introduces himself as John’s mentor. Hal will help him enter Campbell's “unknown.” Hal’s arrival in John’s life is the major twist that Lanterns takes on the classical hero’s journey, as defined by its second act.

Act II is the Initiation, in which the hero learns the rules of the new world he’s entering, confronts the central challenge of his journey, triumphs and wins some type of prize. In the case of Lanterns, the mentor whom John acquires in Act I becomes his central challenge in Act II. (It’s as though Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader were the same person in Luke Skywalker’s story.) In John’s case, Hal represents both enlightenment and danger, the latter culminating in episode 4 (“The Weenie”), wherein Hal decides he’d rather risk John dying in a car fire than see him take his power ring.

The mystery that brings the two men to Rushville, the hidden Manhunter, and the body count that results from an alien hit squad targeting that Manhunter plays out beneath John’s personal journey. Both storylines climax in episode 5 (“Lights Out”), when John’s body is restored by Zoe and he has his showdown with Hal. After beating him in a fistfight, John finally takes Hal’s ring—the “prize” that Campbell describes. But John then decides he doesn’t want it after all.

“He probably doesn’t even remember why he wanted the damn thing,” John tells his Guardian recruitment officer Lianna, “and neither do I.” His rejection of the ring could be viewed as another twist on Campbell, but I prefer to think of it as John’s acquisition of another prize—wisdom.

Act II concluded, John’s third act begins. Act III of the hero’s journey finds its champion beginning their return journey home, but they must face one final test, in which they acquire a greater reward with which they can then help others. In episode 6 (“Bad Optics”), we catch up with John in 2026, ten years later after his showdown with Hal. Now a successful architect, he’s running his own business alongside his brother Marcus. A call from his mother, however, sends him back to Rushville to again meet with Hal, who’s just served time in prison for destroying the town. Hours later, Hal is mysteriously killed and John realizes his mission isn’t complete. He buries Hal and takes his ring, intent on finding who murdered his mentor, with the help of the ring’s “Halogram.”

“You never came home,” Marcus tells him. “You’ve been stuck in Rushville for ten years and you ain’t leaving until you finish whatever the hell it is you and Hal motherf*ckin’ Jordan started out there.”

As John begins his final test, will we see him finally complete his hero’s journey? Will he win the ring once and for all, and henceforth use it to help all mankind?

Stay tuned…
 

Lanterns, starring Aaron Pierre as John Stewart and Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan, airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and HBO Max.

Joseph McCabe writes about comics, film and superhero history for DC.com. Follow him on Instagram at @joe_mccabe_editor.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Joseph McCabe and do not necessarily reflect those of DC or Warner Bros. Discovery, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.