Lanterns Quietly Revealed That a Major DCU Threat Was Happening Years Before Superman (And No One Noticed)
Lanterns continues one of the weirdest DCU traditions, officially setting up a major threat years before Superman. James Gunn’s DCU has taken a very different approach to the MCU. There’s no “house style” here, with directors and showrunners given freedom to do their own thing. Lanterns is the result, a fantastic slow-burn mystery that embraces DC’s cosmic roots. This DCU has been aware of aliens for decades, and it seems the Manhunters came to Rushville in 2016.
All this is six years before Superman stepped out of the shadows; the strange visitor from another planet who dedicates himself to truth, justice, and the American way. It’s nine years before Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor showed the lengths some people would go to out of fear of aliens – and we now know he wasn’t the first to do so. We’ve even got alien detectors in Nebraska, and it’s more than a little amusing to imagine how the Macon family would have reacted to a Kryptonian walking through them.
Lanterns Has One Surprising Connection to Superman & the Rest of the DCU
In Lanterns episode 2, Hal Jordan sends John Stewart to pick up his Lantern. In truth, Hal simply wanted John out of the way – and he wasn’t exactly subtle about it. It seems Hal lives in something of a mansion, but he doesn’t exactly like it; the building is barely furnished, although there are delightful mementos of the Green Lantern’s past celebrity. The most important thing in the whole building, though, is the safe where Hal keeps the Lantern. Because it’s not just a safe.
Hal’s security system is pretty impressive. It seems he keeps the Lantern in a pocket dimension, presumably meaning it’s difficult – maybe even impossible – for satellites to detect it back in 2016. It’s safe to assume this was created by the Guardians, and it may well even be standard procedure for Lanterns. Notice that the safe only opens in response to Hal’s voice, and he has to say a specific phrase. There may well be security systems, perhaps an alarm, if he says anything else.
Hal’s Pocket Dimension is Technology We’ve Seen Before
Oddly, pocket dimensions increasingly seem to be a hallmark of the DCU. We don’t have recurring characters; there’s no Nick Fury equivalent. Rather, the franchise keeps returning to the idea of pocket dimensions. In Superman, Lex Luthor had created a pocket dimension that he used as a prison; it was notably unstable, literally threatening the entire planet. By Peacemaker Season 2, ARGUS had begun to explicitly hunt down pocket dimensions for fear the Metropolis incident would be repeated. There, we learned pocket dimensions can serve as gateways between different universes; a modern equivalent of the “Wood Between the Worlds” in C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew.
Given Hal’s pocket universe was created by the Guardians, it’s reasonable to assume this one is stable. That stability may come from its size; it’s the smallest pocket dimension we’ve seen so far, and John seems able to reach through it with ease (even if there’s little light inside). Still, the science is the same, and Superman proved unstable pocket dimensions can expand at a cataclysmic rate. It’s a smart way to show just how powerful Guardian science really is, because they’ve mastered something so catastrophic.
Where is the DCU Going With Its Pocket Dimensions?
Peacemaker‘s pocket dimension plot raised a lot of eyebrows, because it established a clear narrative thread between James Gunn’s TV show and Superman. Lanterns is less explicit, much less overt, but the connections are there all the same; we keep returning to the same ideas, exploring the same bit of pseudo-science. Pocket dimensions appear to be a dime a dozen in the DCU, originating with alien technology but increasingly mastered by Lex Luthor. They’re used for so many different purposes: as safes, prisons, and even as the threshold to parallel universes.
This particular idea seems to be a signature one for the DCU. The interesting question, though, is whether Hal’s pocket dimension is deliberate foreshadowing in the context of Lanterns; it’s entirely possible the idea has been planted here, a smart way of ensuring people who’ve only watched Lanterns know what they’re dealing with. After all, the Manhunters themselves were created by the Guardians, so these synthetic beings may well have mastered pocket dimensions too. What other secrets are hidden in Rushville?
