The debut footage for Lanterns, the collaborative DC and HBO project, has sent the Oa-obsessed into a speculative frenzy. The teaser raises immediate, lore-heavy questions: Why is Hal Jordan’s flight missing its signature emerald glow? Can we expect a cameo from Ch’p, the fan-favorite squirrel-like protector of H’lven, in this gritty, True Detective-inspired procedural? Furthermore, Hal’s assertion that he is the sole human within the Green Lantern Corps creates a continuity puzzle—does this mean Guy Gardner (played by Nathan Fillion in Superman) is considered non-human, or is the series a prequel set before Gardner’s recruitment?
Showrunners Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King have a mountain of narrative threads to resolve. However, the most fascinating detail for meta-obsessed fans isn’t about power rings, but corporate structures: if HBO exists within James Gunn’s DCU, has it also been acquired by Paramount Skydance, a conglomerate that seemingly populates the same fictional universe?
It’s a remarkably prescient question for a series that received the green light in mid-2024. In our reality, David Ellison’s Skydance Media didn’t finalize its acquisition of Paramount until late 2025, and only recently concluded a high-stakes bidding war against Netflix for Warner Bros. Discovery. Yet, Lindelof has a history of uncanny foresight; his Watchmen sequel famously mirrored real-world shifts in law enforcement culture years after its release. Perhaps he’s predicting the future once again.
The presence of HBO in the DCU wasn’t confirmed even after Superman featured a diegetic needle drop of “5 Years Time.” That musical choice implied the existence of Noah and the Whale and the career path of music mogul Martin Kierszenbaum, but it remained circumstantial evidence. That changed with a single, telling shot in the Lanterns trailer.
Regardless of when Lanterns is set, the show establishes that motels in this world offer free HBO, just as they do in ours. This complicates the media landscape of the DCU, especially since evidence suggests Paramount exists there too. In a key scene from Gunn’s Superman, Clark Kent playfully dismisses Lois Lane by calling her “Cronkite.”
In our world, Walter Cronkite was the legendary face of the CBS Evening News. While we haven’t seen a broadcast in the DCU, Clark’s nickname for Lois suggests a shared cultural history. CBS and Paramount eventually merged under Viacom in 1994; if the DCU mirrors our corporate timeline, it stands to reason that Paramount is a major player in this universe as well. This leads to a looming question: is the parent company of HBO facing the same destructive consolidation in the DCU as it is in reality? Curiously, Netflix is nowhere to be found in any current DCU scripts, potentially making the “streaming wars” a non-factor in this continuity.
In any case, we’re still holding out for Ch’p!
Lanterns is set to premiere on HBO this August—right around the time the real-world David Ellison expects to finalize his grip on the network.
Source: Polygon
