Lanterns
I finished watching Lanterns, which was better than I expected—which for me means more serious. There was some fan backlash for turning the DC comic book into True Detective—which it sort of does, with the story unfolding in multiple time periods, and the nested flashbacks ultimately explaining very human motivations (which I liked). Great casting, by the way—Kelly Macdonald is always wonderful.
When I was a kid, even before I read comics, I was familiar with the two sets of characters: DC had Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman (I knew them from Saturday morning Super Friends cartoons), while Marvel had Spider-Man and the Hulk (the two biggest characters that made it to animated and live-action TV).
The DC characters were more famous—but once I began reading comics, it didn’t take long to see that the DC Comics, at the time (the 1980s), were kiddie stuff, compared to the grounded (relatively speaking) problems of the Marvel characters—particularly the X-Men, who became a fave.
So I became pretty much a Marvel reader and die-hard. Outside of the occasional book or two, I basically ignored DC—I think the most DC books I have are their 1980s Star Trek series.
Thus I remain pretty oblivious to the Green Lantern mythology...except that it seems, I’m sorry, pretty goofy. He can make anything, so long as it’s green? Well, okay.
So props to the Lanterns team for taking some kiddie tropes and making them actually about adult drama...although it was a little weird to have all the swearing and violence around the superpowers.
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