The Apophenia of Hal Jordan
Apophenia: The tendency to perceive meaningful patterns in unrelated data.
Going to make a bit of an effortpost here as (as you can tell from my profile picture) I am a bit of a Green Lantern fan. Both Mauler and Metal have recently commented on how Lanterns fits a tired recent trope of old legacy heroes being knocked down to support a new, often diverse, replacement. This trend does in fact exist (see The Last Jedi, Dial of Destiny, and Black Widow). However, Lanterns doesn't really fit and I think that Mauler and Metal are misattributing it to the pattern. Hal Jordan, throughout the 70s to the 90s, was actually a lot of the things Mauler mentions here. John Stewart isn't a new diverse character. John Stewart being Hal's replacement is the story, not a part of some studio agenda.
I want to first look over Mauler's tweet. This take on Hal Jordan is not modern. If you read DC comics from the 1970s to the mid 1990s you will be surprised how arrogant, old, and angsty Hal is. In the 1970s, in his own series (starting with #76), he is the ignorant asshole that Green Arrow has to knock down and show the struggles of ordinary Americans. After Crisis on Infinite Earths, where most characters are rebooted or de-aged, Hal is made older and presented as a veteran superhero. Not many years later, Hal turns evil and dies. James Gunn seems to be pulling mostly from this era, from the Bronze Age to Zero Hour. His Superman, Suicide Squad, Peacemaker, and even what we know of Man of Tomorrow, all best fit the era of the Justice League International, a human-focused Superman, Panic in the Sky, and a ragtag Suicide Squad. Even looking at these adjectives is either puzzling because I don't see how they match the show or fit Hal Jordan of that era. Drunken? I guess he drank a little in the show, but he seems to be dealing with some trauma. Not exactly ooc for him either. Disheveled? Same thing. Arrogant? That's a core trait of Hal Jordan c'mon. Selfish? I don't see how he was exactly selfish here until we see the rest of the season. Lonely? see #1 and also not exactly out of character. Idiotic? See selfish. Loser? see #1. If I was to describe him here it would be likely arrogant tired asshole. Depending on what we see happened in 2006, that could be totally warranted and in character. Executed? We didn't see him die. Why is he here? In the scene right before this we literally had an alien who could mimic someone and it was specifically remarked that it would be accurate even after death. That feels like a pretty clear hint to me that something fishy is going on. People that have seen up to episode seven have even hinted that you get plenty of Hal and that this isn't what it seems. Metal even joked that this will be just the John Stewart show. Do we really think that this entire show will be set in 2026?
I understand that many other Green Lantern fans here might take issue with Hal Jordan's portrayal here, especially if they are fans specifically of Geoff Johns' Green Lantern run which does portray him as a more polished superhero. That is a correct interpretation, but this one is too. Also, if you've read Johns' run, you would know that the more polished Hal comes after his descent and starts literally with his Rebirth. You could have Kyle Chandler or even a younger actor take over the role and play that and it would be insanely comic accurate.
John Stewart is not a diverse new character and race is an integral part of his character. It would simply be unfaithful to make a mature adaptation of John Stewart, and his upbringing, and not have his race as a topic for the story. Since his inception in the 1970s, his character has been like that. I'm going to find it hilarious if MAGAts online find 1970s comic books too woke. Even in those early appearances, John did have conflict about being Hal's replacement.
According to Gunn, Tom King's initial vision for the story was the conflict of John being Hal's replacement and the subsequent buddy cop potential. This wasn't Lindelof's idea or Gunn's or some woke studio mandate, it was Tom King's pitch. Tom King knows Green Lantern lore and knows that the setup and predicament don't exactly make sense with the generally understood rules of the Green Lantern Corps. The show even addresses that with the 2006 Halogram. Some people, like Metal's chat, assume that this an error, when it clearly isn't. This is the mystery. I find it frustrating that Mauler and co. correctly argue that Disney projects like Marvel or Star Wars play it too safe and are boring slop and then when something presents a mystery and takes risks, it's immediately trampled upon. What would you like the studios to do?>!If Buffy season six had released today would we critique it for it's risks? How dare you have Spike do that. How dare you have Wesley do that in Angel season three. You kill that character in season six?!<Those are the best parts.
Nerdrotic has also been tweeting about how this show is automatically bad because it's a mystery box show. I could be wrong, but how is this a mystery box show at all? I thought the idea of the mystery box, according to JJ Abrams, was that not even the writer knew the answer to the mystery and that's why it was bad. Infamously that's why Lost sucked by the end. That's also why Westworld crumbled. They had no idea to such a degree that they could change it based on reddit comments. If Lindelof was the only guy here then maybe I could see the fear. This story was only really pitched as a single season, so I still don't really see how it applies but still I get it, but this story was Tom King's idea. I assume most people here don't know his writing but he doesn't really do mystery boxes. His mysteries are usually quite simple in the end. I would compare them to Game of Thrones mysteries where the answer is interesting but doesn't actually really matter and is more a launching pad for the story. Like who killed Jon Arryn is an interesting mystery but gets answered in a throwaway line in the fourth season and really was just there to get Ned to do things.
Throughout a lot of Metal's discussion of the episode, he mentions all of these mystery things like why did the grandfather >!(who is totally not Vandal Savage)!< bail him out? Why did the grandma fuck John? He presents all of these as flaws and weird. Can we let the story play out a little first? I see this and immediately think "I wonder how this will play out" but instead he was like "weird and boring". Can we have something objective here?
Edit: I also want to add that if Lanterns continues and there are other seasons with other Lanterns, there are so many other main Lanterns. Putting aside current Lanterns Guy and John, there is Kyle (who was the main GL from 1994 to 2005), Jo, Simon, Jessica, Alan, Razer, Aya, and many others that are all beloved.