Lanterns Episode 2: Manhunter You Say?

Warning: This review contains spoilers for Lanterns’ season 1 episode 2 discussing themes as well as the episode’s plot and ending.

Lanterns variant of Justice League Unlimited #23 available September 23rd, 2026.

“Trust Fall” wastes no time in bringing viewers back into the ring as it were. As Hal wakes up John in his shabby roadside hotel, the two begin “flight training.” Hal Jordan is the opposite of a precise person; he does things by his instincts, and that doesn’t exactly translate to his trainee John Stewart, who is a very precise person. The countless differences between their equally stubborn characters naturally destroy the chances of any training exercise succeeding. That is where the John Stewart plot of the episode comes into play.

Failing to learn how to fly, Stewart succeeds in creating a bird construct. A construct that remains even as John removes the ring to hand it back to Hal. Something that is, to say the least, very irregular. Kyle Chandler plays the scene very well; the subtle look of recognition on Hal’s face when John removes the ring and the bird stays just yells, “I might be out of a job.”

Lanterns’ second episode begins building up “Manhunters” as a dangerous mystery. Antaan, the extraterrestrial criminal who abducts John Stewart to “recruit him,” describes them as shapeshifters a part of the way into the episode. For the newer fans of Green Lantern, Manhunters are a long-standing villain of the Lanterns, regardless of who happens to be wearing the ring. To skip an overly long history lesson, what viewers would want to know is that Manhunters have traditionally been robotic beings who aren’t usually depicted as shapeshifters.

However, another shapeshifting character in DC Comics bears the title Manhunter, and that would be Martian Manhunter, one of the Justice League’s original founders. Martian Manhunter’s title comes from his role as an investigator, as “manhunter” was a common yet already old-fashioned term for a private investigator or police detective in 1955 when J’onn made his debut.

It’s possible that, to avoid the confusion of two different types of characters with the same name, the DCU is combining Martians and/or their evil White Martian variant into one homogenous “Manhunter.” Supporting this is the more recent, as far as comics go anyways, retcon from 1977 that brought the idea that the Guardians designed the Manhunters with the Martians in mind into DC lore. Alternatively, during the Millennium storyline in 1988, Manhunters were able to disguise themselves as humans using android bodies to pose as the friends and government allies of various prominent superheroes.

At the end of the episode we get a brief glimpse at Ulrich Thomsen’s Sinestro. For the long-term Green Lantern fans, of which I will shamelessly claim membership, this is a BIG deal. Shown in the trailers leading up to the first episode’s release last week, we see Sinestro imprisoned on an alien world, which is likely to be Oa, the planetary precinct of sorts for the Green Lantern Corps.

Sinestro immediately makes an impression on the screen, thanks in part to the talented acting skills of Ulrich Thomsen. When asked by Hal about Manhunters, Sinestro confirms the suspicion built by the episode up to this point, stating that if one still existed, they would be the second greatest current threat to Hal Jordan. After the clarification, Sinestro flips the conversation back on Jordan by asking him about John Stewart alluding to Hal’s current greatest threat in a piece of sharply written dialogue.

The ending of the episode works so well not just because it is visually incredible, but also because it directly confirms two plot threads. Those being John Stewart’s unparalleled potential as a Green Lantern, calling back to the bird construct, and the threat posed by even a single Manhunter.