A Major DC Hero Has Officially Been Written Out of the DCU By Lanterns, And We May Never See Them

DC Studios has finally released its second original series with Lanterns, the new HBO Max drama that is carving out an all-new corner in the larger DCU. Featuring Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre as John Stewart, the show has been sold as a gritty, Earth-bound, and True Detective-inspired take on the “space cops” that are part of the Green Lantern Corps. With the arrival of the show, the larger DCU now gets two more of the beloved characters to wear the ring in the pages of DC Comics: one that fans have been waiting fifteen years to be done justice in live-action, and the other that they’ve been waiting to appear in live-action at all.

The opening scene of Lanterns‘ first episode goes big on set-up for the rest of the series, but provides a lot of context for the larger DCU. In the scene, set in 1996, a 60 Minutes interview pulls back the curtain on the status of Hal Jordan as the Green Lantern, revealing that by this point he’s already been in possession of the ring and monitoring Sector 2814 for at least ten years. There’s a key detail in the interview, though, that seems to mark a major indicator for DCU history compared to DC Comics history, when it reveals that Jordan is Earth’s “first Green Lantern,” meaning one DC character is off the table: Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern.

The DCU Just Skipped the Original Green Lantern, Alan Scott

As noted, the first scene of Lanterns offers some table setting, but for now we’re focusing on one specific line as the reporter interviewing Hal Jordan adds a caveat to his insistence that he’s just a regular person, calling him “Earth’s first Green Lantern.” Jordan doesn’t dispute this, adding with a laugh, “Yeah, I guess that’s true.” To that end, it seems pretty clear that Alan Scott is off the table

Now, for anyone who has dipped their toes into Green Lantern lore, there’s a clear reason why the DCU would just skip over Alan Scott. Though he was the first hero to be called Green Lantern, and predates Jordan in the pages of comics by almost twenty years. That said, despite sharing the same superhero name, the two couldn’t be more different.

Yes, both Alan Scott and Hal Jordan are “Green Lanterns,” and yes, they both have magic rings, but that’s largely where the similarities end. For Scott, he became the crime fighter after coming into possession of the ring, whose abilities are pretty ill-defined at best and whose villains are largely just regular people. When Hal Jordan was introduced in Showcase #22 in 1959, it came with a total reinvention of the Green Lantern mythology, introducing the idea of the Green Lantern Corps and the green willpower-fueled rings that can do anything.

As comic mythology grew, evolved, was rebooted, and retooled, Alan Scott’s history as the Green Lantern was still given a place in comic history, which included retcons that not only made his ring part of the larger intergalactic mythology that was built over decades but also made him an honorary part of the Green Lantern Corps. In the DCU, though, that may not be the case.

DCU Already Has 3 Green Lanterns, And Maybe More

Lanterns seemingly implying that the Golden Age Green Lantern, Alan Scott, isn’t around doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of other heroes with the ring. The series puts both Chandler’s Hal Jordan and Pierre’s John Stewart front and center, but fans already know that Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner is out there too, as he appeared in 2025’s Superman. Trailers for the show have implied other Green Lanterns are out in the universe, like Ch’p the squirrel, and, of course, Sinestro, but Alan Scott hasn’t even been whispered about.

There’s another piece of info about the DCU, though, that might very well indicate that Alan Scott wasn’t a thing at all in the past, and it also came in Superman. When the film moves to the Hall of Justice, an expansive mural is seen on the wall revealing the extensive list of superheroes and (good-leaning) metahumans that have appeared in human history. Though it includes characters like Sandman, Zatara, Liberty Belle, Bulletman, and others, Alan Scott as Green Lantern isn’t in the picture…literally.

To that end, given that there are three human Green Lanterns already in the picture for the DCU, all of this evidence seems to point to Alan Scott not having his chance in the spotlight at all. Granted, plans change, and retcons can certainly happen in the DCU, maybe one day a story gets told that brings him into the fold and reveals he had the ring (or rather a ring) at some point in the DCU’s past. For now, though, maybe don’t count on him appearing.