‘Lanterns’ Rewrote John Stewart’s Origin Story and Tom King Just Explained the Real Reason Why

HBO’s ‘Lanterns‘ has spent its opening episodes rewriting expectations at nearly every turn, and its third episode may be the boldest swing yet. Instead of leaning on the character’s decades old comic book history, the show has built an entirely new backstory for John Stewart, one that has fans of the source material buzzing.

The change centers on how John Stewart, played by Aaron Pierre, became Earth’s second Green Lantern, and why the show’s creative team felt his original comic book origin needed a serious overhaul.

John Stewart’s Origin Story Before ‘Lanterns’

In DC Comics, John Stewart has actually had a few different origin stories over the decades. When he first debuted in Green Lantern number 87 in the early 1970s, his backstory was that of a young architect who also had strong feelings about civil rights. He was introduced in December 1971, depicted as the only son of a single mother, chosen by the Guardians of the Universe to serve as Hal Jordan’s backup after Guy Gardner was injured.

The character’s origin was rebooted twice during DC’s New Earth period, with the post ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ and post ‘Zero Hour’ iterations both having more tortured childhoods, with one version giving him an alcoholic father who abused his wife regularly. Across all these versions, one thing remained consistent according to the show’s own writers, John’s story never got the same depth of lore that Hal Jordan’s did.

Writer Vanessa Baden Kelly told TheWrap that when the writers room was first discussing John and Hal as characters, one of the things that kept coming up for them was that there was so much lore surrounding Hal’s backstory, but John’s was comparatively thin. That gap became the starting point for what ‘Lanterns’ would eventually build instead.

What Changed in the ‘Lanterns’ Episode 3 Twist?

A clip from the third episode confirmed that the Guardians told John’s parents he had been chosen to become Sector 2814’s next Green Lantern as a baby, which is why his parents raised him in such an unusual way, including shooting an apple off the top of his head to prove he had no fear. That detail alone reframes everything viewers thought they understood about how John ended up beside Hal Jordan.

The episode reveals that Hal Jordan actually got his ring after the Guardians pulled him from his bed in the middle of the night and asked him one question, are you afraid, and Hal immediately answered no. But Hal was not the first person tested that night, since the Guardians had already approached John Stewart Sr, played by J. Alphonse Nicholson, who answered yes and was immediately disqualified.

John Stewart’s father was actually the one originally chosen to become Green Lantern first, but he failed the test out of fear, and Hal Jordan was selected instead. Impressed by Bernadette, John’s mother, the Guardian offered a second chance for the ring to her and John Stewart Sr’s infant son, kicking off John’s lifelong preparation to become the ideal Green Lantern candidate.

That preparation was not gentle. Bernadette and John Sr immediately began training their son from childhood to be fearless, subjecting him to regular target practice, including the apple on the head test, along with various other distressing situations that shaped him into a stoic young man who eventually joined the U.S. Marines. The season premiere’s cold open, which appeared to show a fairly normal upbringing, turns out to have been a very deliberately misleading setup, painting a picture of an abusive father who made life under his roof miserable due to his obsession with turning his son into a superhero.

Why the Show Gave John Stewart a New Backstory

Writer Tom King explained that the team wanted to give John Stewart the same kind of defining hook that characters like Batman and Spider-Man have, comparing his upbringing to a Tiger Woods or Williams sisters kind of story of relentless, engineered preparation. That framing turns John’s origin into something less about a random twist of fate and more about a family building a superhero from scratch.

The episode, titled ‘OutKast,’ delves into an origin that is entirely unique to the world of ‘Lanterns,’ tying John’s story into more modern conversations around race. That racial framing has become central to understanding why the show’s creative team decided to move away from the version of the character readers have known since the 1970s.

‘Lanterns’ has built something that borrows pieces from multiple eras of the comics while adding an entirely new emotional core to the character. One of the show’s collaborators noted that nobody wants an adaptation that is completely and totally vigilant to the source material, because then it would not really be an adaptation at all, arguing that characters like John and Hal continue to resonate by evolving to fit the times they are told in.

Fan and Critic Reaction to the New Origin

Critics have called the extended flashback episode a deliberately misleading setup that pays off in the show’s strongest hour yet. The series has never been shy about playing with expectations, jumping between 2016 and the present day while slowly unpacking exactly how its two very different Green Lanterns ended up paired together in rural Nebraska.

The show follows new recruit John Stewart and Lantern legend Hal Jordan as they investigate a murder in Rushville, Nebraska, with the story split across a 2016 timeline focused on Hal training John and a present day 2026 investigation set roughly a year after the events of ‘Superman’ and ‘Peacemaker’ Season 2. Reporting from an advance screening noted the series had been performing strongly on HBO since its debut, citing solid ratings and favorable reviews heading into this pivotal third episode.

Longtime readers of the comics have been vocal about the shift, with plenty of conversation online comparing this new engineered upbringing to the architect and Marine backstories fans grew up with. Whether this radical new take deepens John Stewart’s legacy or strays too far from what made him iconic in the first place seems to be exactly the kind of debate ‘Lanterns’ wanted to spark.

Do you think John Stewart’s brutal, engineered childhood makes him a stronger successor to Hal Jordan, or does it erase too much of the John Stewart you remember from the comics?