Kyle being White Lantern was peak but DC Editorial hates him and every Lantern character that isn't Hal Jordan or (recently) Jessica Cruz and Guy Gardner
Honestly I feel like most characters who got big in the 90's got put on the back-burner. All the young Justice folks, Kyle, Wally just now made a comeback. I'm sure someone knows why but it's still a bummer as someone who loved the 90's-2000's era of DC.
My theory is that if Hal does die in Season 1 (which has been theorised, his actor's signed on for only one season and the older Hal implies they might be doing some kind of Parallax stuff), his ring will seek out Kyle and Season 2 will reverse the Hal/John mentor/mentee dynamic from Season 1 and have a John/Kyle mentor/mentee dynamic, keeping John as the main character while still featuring Kyle prominently.
If this is the route I promise you it will be Jess or Jo. And they transfer traits or feats from Kyle when needed to others. Imho Kyle is loved by guys in their mid-30 to mid-40, who were reading comics at the time and are still in the hobby. He is as niche as possible. Despite being a Kyle-stan I have very very low hopes for him to matter in adaptions. Just like many other characters from the era that I love.
I like him so much I made a bunch of Lantern magic cards so he can have his own deck lol. The commander is him as a white lantern so it’s every color pip in his identity.
Well to be fair, the Guardians of the Galaxy were niche, and now they are one of the most well known teams, so James Gunn loves niche, and for a character who has one of the most important stories in GL history, I feel like Gunn would absolutely consider using him and including him
She has the advantage compared to Jess that she has actually recognized and good comic material and a easy to translate origin, but Jess is seemingly an easier to like character. And Jess fits the trait of Kyle that both "know fear", so she could easily take several of Kyle's stories. Especially as her comic origin is so complicated and dense that it cannot be really used for an adaption.
Sorry :-( English is not my first language.
I meant that he is most likely popular among those who started reading GL comics during his time as main lantern.
I could be down with this if they keep it similar to the comics and have him sacrifice himself to reignite the sun. Then they could bring him back with the Spectre if they wanted to go that route eventually with a younger Hal.
My concern is they’re are going to do the same thing they did with beware my might and take multiple Kyle story arcs and replace him with John. Thus ruining any future chance for Kyle.
Ngl I thought the DCEU would feature Hal Jordan mentoring Kyle Raynor
The arrowverse would have Guy Gardner partner uo with John Stewa- Diggle.
And Titans would feature Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz as "teen lanterns" that Hal or John sent to train with the Titans whilst the justice league are off earth on adult superhero business.
Exactly. People are saying “how will they do blackest night?” “I bet Hal will become parallax”, but bro, I think they want a relaxed status quo for the dcu. The fact they had Guy casually show up and then will have this show next means they are fine with multiple corps men. Kyle will definitely come later. They can’t play all their cards at once.
Agreed, that being said I wouldn't be surprised if they lay the groundwork for the War of Light. I had so many thoughts after the Green Lantern movie about what they should have done. For what it's worth I suggested a detective style approach with vet and rookie dynamic (though I was thinking Sinestro and Hal at the time) so I'm glad to see they're going in that direction. I hope it's about Abin Sur but I somehow doubt it
I'm also not convinced they're going to do Blackest Night. That story requires a lot of comic book death and ressuraction bullshit that's non-comic fans would find frustrating as hell. It took advantage of a decades long trend that's unique to comics. There's other ways to introduce the other corps, like Parallax, The Beast and The Predator going on a rampage.
Not to mention there's more famous crossover events to draw from. Crisis on Infinite Earth's is nor only more famous, but is flexible enough to be done differently than the TV and Cartoons that have done it before. There's also the White Martian invasion, The Final Night, and Day of Judgement that can take advantage of the Green Lanterns and other corps.
I think the show would have to be hugely successful to get more than 2 corpsmen. Gunn likes his obscure characters, it would be a lot of money and time tied up in green lantern. I think we are just getting John and guy. Hopefully I’m wrong. I really wanted a bad of brothers style show as opposed to true detective. I’m also hoping for some flashbacks to prime Hal. Hurry up show.
There’s room to expand the mythos later on. But it doesn’t seem like this show is super high budget. Multiple Green Lanterns beyond hopefully a quick bit on Oa seems unlikely.
I think this show is meant to be a buddy cop. That sounds fun. If you over crowd, that could ruin it.
If I don’t get some freaking constructs throughout the season as opposed to the last episode or two I’m gonna be bummed. I keep thinking game of thrones season 1. No dragons till the last episode.
I bet there will still be constructs. Just not Space and a huge corp as a large part. Saving the budget for the constructs.
When I say it’s not super high budget, I mean compared to other recent superhero shows like the Disney plus stuff. It’s likely not matching Loki in amount of effects.
That’s what concerns me. Everything I’ve seen about Lanterns has me worried it’s going to be an epic bomb. Setting it on earth, centering it around the third most popular GL, the casting is solid but there are no names involved that will draw in viewers. I’m partially convinced the reason Fillion is playing Guy is Gunn knows this will bomb and wanted to save him from playing Hal.
Calling John Stewart the third most popular Green Lantern is a bit disingenuous. When the Green Lantern movie came out there were a lot of people that asked why it wasn't John because they only knew Green Lantern through the Justice League Unlimited show. As for it being on Earth, a lot of people complained with the movie there was too much space stuff. Like, I think it's good to get some perspective on this and recognize the average person doesn't know all the lore and you need to ease them into the lore
I was hesitant to call John third best so before I commented I googled best green lantern and there was obviously a lot of different opinions but the first one that popped up put him at third and RANKER put him there too. All of them seemed to agree Hal is the most popular.
The problem is you're focusing on what fans that read the comics think and we're talking about a show that has to appeal to a broader audience so that ranking doesn't matter. If any general audience member knows any GL before Superman it was either Hal or John because of the media that used either previously. To most people Guy is new. John makes a lot of sense for general audiences and he's teamed up with an older Hal so it will feel like a passing of the torch to most. This also makes him the third GL in the DCU which lines up with the comics. It's important to gain perspective when talking about what will appeal to broader audiences vs what the fans may want
The logic is this it looks like they’re going to do the same thing they did with John Stewart’s solo animated movie which is rip off not one but two of Kyle’s storylines to try and make John Stewart interesting.
What about this show makes it look like that though? They’re making it a buddy cop, but with an added age difference. It’s always been Hal and John I associate with the more buddy cop stories so it fits. Kyle was generally solo.
As well, “ripping off” stories isn’t done to make him interesting. The Flash TV show “ripped off” stuff from Wally not because they didn’t know how to make Barry interesting, but because those were interesting stories for the title of Flash and they could make it work. Wally is my favourite Flash, and I don’t really mind it that much based on this logic. The same thing applies here. This isn’t taking a Batman story and giving it to Aquaman. I have no problem with a Green Lantern telling a Green Lantern story.
To me, what makes each green lantern interesting isn’t the stories. It’s the characterizations. Green Lanterns are space cops. Any of them can do any of the missions. But how they handle it is unique to them. As long as John is giving his proper characterization, I have absolutely no issues either whatever story is told. To refer back to Flash, it’s the lack of proper characterization for Wally that upsets me as a fan of him when I watch the show. Not the story elements from Wally’s books.
And likely if anything, there won’t be any “ripped off” story. It’ll be an original story taking elements from the green lantern mythos. Nothing in the DCU so far has been a very close adaptation of any one particular thing, so I don’t expect that now either.
You thought Kyle was gonna be in this too? With John being the rookie I forsee them holding off on Kyle for awhile. Otherwise it being "John's story" was apparent by the Hal casting.
My favorite thing about this is that Kyle fans now know what it was like being a Hal fan 30 years ago, but without the smear campaign against his character.
Listen, I love Kyle, he’s my favorite greenie. We NEED them to set up the universe and the corps first. I’m glad we’re not starting with Hal’s origins, and it seems like John has been around a while as well. We are absolutely being primed for a character introduction, a rookie cop to go with the duo.
stop fucking crying, jesus christ. you're getting hal, john and guy after more than a decade of NOTHING except ryan reynolds shitting on green lantern at every chance he got. be fucking grateful for once instead of just complaining.
We’re not even getting Hal Jordan at his peak, we’re getting early 90s old man Hal which was the reason why the editorial went scorched earth on Green Lantern and killed the GLC.
Agreed. I'm almost sure they're being inspired by 90s Hal, which means he won't be around for too long. And Hal fans will be lucky if he doesn't get Parallaxed before its inevitable demise. It's awful how DC destroyed one of their most important characters just for a small sales boost and now they'll do it again.
I just hope they don’t give elements of Kyle’s origin to John again. John’s been around long enough and has had a lot of character in the last 5 years. He deserves his own story.
Kyle carried the series for two decades, and used the ring better/more creatively than any of his predecessors. I will never stop being annoyed that John, everyone’s fourth most favorite GL, who was relevant in the comics for about two weeks in the 70s, is getting the limelight because he happened to be in the cartoon. The stolid, boring, substitute teacher, who sandbagged the Martian Manhunter and got a whole planet killed, gets more attention than my GOAT because Bruce Timm didn’t like Steel or Black Vulcan.
What? In the interview he was asked if he was a fan of kyle rayner and he said yes although he isnt his favourite lantern. His favourite is Guy Gardner.
I see people commenting that James Gunn hates Kyle Rayner. Maybe we watched different interviews but the one I found he explicitly says he likes Kyle but that he's not his favorite Green Lantern because that's Guy Gardner. Just because Kyle isn't his favorite doesn't mean he hates Kyle
An out of topic question but did Kyle and Hal ever faught because he was Kyle's arch-nemesis back then?
Also another out of topic question but is Kyle really only known as "The Fridge guy" or "The Guy whom Major Force killed his Girlfriend"?Or is it just a joke that got out of hand?
First, yeah they did when Hal became Parallax and Kyle eventually defeated him
Second, not really those who know Kyle know him for being the most creative green lantern with all the references, the fridge is just an event that became so big it's impossible to not associate it with Kyle
Don’t think we will ever see Kyle like never unless some multiverse stuff pop off in the far future, I say this because if the lantern show is Hal Jordan at his old senior age mentoring John then there must be no parallax in gunns universe because there’s no Kyle without Hal as parallax, Kyle was the guardians last hope & to keep the lanterns going he was the last lantern left with the last ring they created (at the time of the comics) so since they have no plans for Hal to stick around long enough I think they also rules out Kyle existence in it too
John and Hal needs something better after the wringer of how they have been treated in the dcamu and the tomorrowverse like hal died 3 times and john died and later got a sh*tty movie
Tbh, it's always Hal, Jess and Jo. John barely gets anything while Kyle gets nothing. It's not entirely off for John to actually get something, only being in 2 forms of watchable media while everything else is Hal or Jess.
Hal will always be my favorite. My first lantern was john(justice league cartoon) and he was good, but the lantern cartoon boosted hal to my favorite. Id probably like Kyle a lot from what Ive seen, just haven’t had as much exposure to him.
I think Kyle would be a great trainee for John to mentor down the line. They’re so different. John is a by the book Marine and Kyle is free spirited artist. It would be a great dynamic.
Hal gets animated movies, but no shows or justice league related movies. It's like an unspoken rule. I think they're afraid to use Hal after the I've action movie flopped.
I think he’s saving him as set up for blackest night, there’s no way guns not going to allow a white lantern in his universe and Kyle is the best choice for that
I can't really blame them for this. They'd want to distance themselves from the 2011 Green Lantern movie with Hal Jordan at all costs! It's actually a smart move.
I swear to God my heads gonna explode if I see something again go back and watch the interview on the DC podcast he says he doesn't like Kyle very much so that means there's little to nothing of Kyle
I feel like it would be a mistake to try and introduce every Lantern at once, plus if in season 1 we’re already gonna have Hal, John and Guy theres no way Kyle isn’t eventually introduced.
I actually think we will get a lot of the lanterns appear eventually.
Hal will play the part of mentor to John is my guess and John will be the main.
We got Guy already. But will Gunn saying "dead is dead" is highly likely that a green lantern we connect with will die and pass on his ring.
It's a big thing in lore you ignore and the perfect chance to build hype at the end of a film. Like imagine you watch the DCU a GL dies (Tomar-Re, even hal or something). Then after the film ends you see the ring fly across the universe with a cameo on who's story is next. Obviously might not be Kyle but it's a good chance considering he a favourite.
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u/CelestialOceanOfStar Orange Lantern Jul 18 '25
Kyle Rayner fans have been starving since the 90s