HBO Introduces Batman Villain Roman Sionis in Lanterns Episode 3

John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) has spent two months training to become a Green Lantern when HBO’s Lanterns begins. Episode 3 flashes back to the strange interview that led to him landing the job. Inside an abandoned shopping mall, a Guardian of the Universe played by Laura Linney questions John about his troubled childhood, military career, and feelings about Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) to determine whether he deserves the ring. Before that interview, Lanterns delivers a major DC Comics Easter egg with connections to a Batman villain we have already seen in live-action and potential ties to another rogue slated to debut later in the year.

The episode opens with John falling through the air and crashing into a stack of mattresses in an abandoned shopping mall. The episode later reveals this happened roughly two months before the main 2016 narrative. Arrows on signs lead John to an empty Famous Footwear on the upper floor where the interview takes place in the manager office. Just before he enters the store, a large sign for Janus Cosmetics appears across the way. John never approaches or interacts with the storefront. Unless you know your Batman history, there is no reason to give it a second thought, but it might wind up being significant.

What is Janus Cosmetics in the DC universe?

Janus Cosmetics is the company owned by the wealthy Sionis family in DC Comics. Roman Sionis inherits the business after the death of his parents, but his disastrous tenure as its leader leaves it on the brink of financial ruin. A product rushed to market without adequate testing disfigures hundreds of customers, forcing Roman to accept a bailout from Bruce Wayne and surrender control of the company.

Roman blames Bruce for this humiliation, and in seeking revenge, he becomes Black Mask, the Gotham City crime lord first introduced by Doug Moench and Tom Mandrake in 1985’s Batman #386. Janus is also the Roman god commonly depicted with two faces and associated with transitions, duality, beginnings, and endings. Naming the character Roman as a first name and associating him with a company called Janus is a direct reference.

Black Mask made his live-action debut in 2020’s Birds of Prey, where Ewan McGregor played Roman Sionis as a sinister Gotham nightclub owner and aspiring criminal kingpin. Birds of Prey belongs to the previous DC Extended Universe, so events from that movie are not considered canon in the new continuity overseen by James Gunn, though Margot Robbie returning as Harley Quinn remains unclear.

The Janus Cosmetics sign does not mean that McGregor’s Black Mask or any version of Roman Sionis exists in the world of Lanterns. It places a company inseparable from his mythology inside the new DCU. At minimum, it is a carefully selected Batman Easter egg. At most, it could be the earliest groundwork for a new incarnation of Black Mask or a light tease for Clayface.

Is Lanterns connected to Clayface?

Matt Hagen is the second and best-known version of Clayface in DC Comics. Introduced in 1961’s Detective Comics #298, Hagen is a treasure hunter who gains shape-shifting abilities after taking a dip in a mysterious pool of protoplasm. He can transform his body, impersonate other people, and reshape his limbs into weapons.

Batman: The Animated Series combines Matt Hagen’s story with elements of the original Clayface, Basil Karlo. This version of Hagen is a famous actor whose face is disfigured in a car accident. A corrupt businessman then supplies him with an experimental cosmetic that allows Hagen to reshape his appearance, but a seemingly lethal overdose of the drug transforms him into Clayface.

According to an Entertainment Weekly interview from July, the upcoming Clayface movie due out in October fuses elements of these different origin stories together. Directed by James Watkins with a screenplay by Mike Flanagan, Clayface follows a new version of Matt Hagen. He is a rising movie star who unwittingly sleeps with the girlfriend of a local mob boss who carves up Hagen’s face in response. A shady scientist treats him with a miracle serum, but instead of fixing the scars, it turns his entire body into clay. The movie emphasizes body horror over supervillain traits, but Lanterns might be laying groundwork for deeper connections in the wider lore.

There is no explicit connection between Janus Cosmetics, the Sionis Corporation, and whatever happens to Matt Hagen in Clayface yet. Across various iterations of these characters and companies in comics, animation, and live-action, enough parallels exist to make it a possibility.

This is not the only connection Lanterns shares with Batman’s corner of the DC Universe. Sheriff Kerry Kane (Kelly Macdonald) previously told Hal Jordan that she is originally from Gotham City, though no further details are given. Lanterns remains self-contained and focused on Rushville, Nebraska, but the show includes meaningful connections to the wider DC Universe. With that in mind, the Janus Cosmetics sign looms too large to be just another Easter egg.

Source: Polygon