'Lanterns' Co-Creator Apologizes For ‘Dumb Joke’ About the Superhero After Fan Backlash
The co-creator of an upcoming superhero TV show made a colorful joke about the hero, Green Lantern, that had comic book fans seeing red. Damon Lindelof, who is one of the minds behind the HBO Max series Lanterns, threw up a white flag and did a little brown-nosing, issuing a mea culpa which hopefully will have him back in the black when it comes to the fandom.
Lindelof Draws Backlash for Comments on Character
Lindelof, who created Lost and HBO's Watchmen series, is one of the minds behind Lanterns, which stars Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre as two members of the intergalactic police force the Green Lanterns. Though many of the comics are cosmic adventures, following characters like Hal Jordan and John Stewart (Chandler and Pierre, respectively) as they use their power rings to fight evil, the upcoming series looks to be a much more grounded affair. The first trailer for the show came out a week ago, and it looks promising—if light on superpowers.
Perhaps that's why a 2024 interview Lindelof did got resurfaced. Appearing on the the Lovett or Leave It podcast, Lindelof joked that the then-in development series was just titled Lanterns instead of Green Lanterns because "we all agreed that the 'Green' was stupid, so now it’s just Lanterns."
The joke irked comic books fans—and comic book creators. Grant Morrison, a celebrated comic writer who wrote on a Green Lantern comic from 2018 to 2021, wrote a response to Lindelof's joke on Substack.
"TV writer/producer Damon Lindelof’s comments notwithstanding, the 'Green' in 'Green Lantern(s)' is not 'stupid,'" Morrison wrote. "Why does a writer attach himself to this kind of narrative if he thinks it's fundamentally 'stupid'? You don't hand CSI scripts to patronising writers who condemn forensics experts and their haircuts as ‘stupid’, so why hire people who are ashamed and in denial about the comic book material they’ve been assigned to develop? Why don’t they turn down jobs they’re not suited for?"
Lindelof Said the Joke Was 'Dumb' and Earnestly Apologized on Instagram
"I have upset Grant Morrison, which means I have now pissed off MOST of the brilliant British/Scottish comics writers that I grew up idolizing," Lindelof wrote in an Instagram post on Monday night. "I made a dumb joke on a comedy podcast. I’m not going to bob and weave about context, the joke was dumb, the fandom is not. I owe them an explanation and a genuine reflection of my actual feelings."
Accompanied by a photograph of himself wearing a Green Lantern t-shirt from a 2004 ComicCon panel appearance, Lindelof wrote that Green Lantern had always been one of his favorite comic characters.
"For a quiet, uncoordinated kid, there was nothing cooler than a hero whose superpower was his imagination," he wrote. "And green is not stupid, it is my lifelong favorite color and I have a questionnaire that I filled out in third grade to prove it."
Lindelof readily admitted that he was "was sloppy and careless with [his] words" and promised to do better so that he could be worthy of the Green Lantern oath. "Until then, I’ll let the show speak for itself and I can’t wait for you all to hear what it has to say."
It's a pretty good apology, as far as these things go (and it's not like the stakes were ever that high in the first place). Lindelof's comic book credentials shouldn't be in dispute. This is the guy who created a Watchmen TV show that, while perhaps sacreligious to Alan Moore, was clearly a very well-thought out and well-intentioned continuation of the comic story. Him making one joke about green being stupid probably doesn't imply much.
And, besides... Given how the Ryan Reynolds-led Green Lantern movie from 2011 was an infamous failure, you can kind of see why executives might not want to have the exact same title for a big new show.