Review: In 'Lanterns,' the superheroes soar through a grounded detective story

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Set us as preferred For all their vaunted power, superheroes are at the mercy of the people who write them, draw them, play them on the screen, and by extension the producers and executives who decide what should go where and for how much.Sort of powerless, really.Sometimes this combination of forces works out well for the hero, and sometimes not so much.

The Green Lantern, a secondary figure in the DC Comics pantheon, had the ill luck to be trapped in a 2011 Ryan Reynolds film even its director didn’t like.Fifteen years later, he has had the very good fortune to be played by Kyle Chandler, and additionally to star in a television series — “Lanterns,” premiering Sunday on HBO — rather than a theatrical feature, with its investment in noisy set pieces and earth-shaking battles royale.I’ve often championed the supposedly humbler medium as the best place to tell these stories, with the time to investigate character, in all its shadings and ambiguities, and a haven for concepts too quirky or niche or ...

conceptual for conservative big-budget theatrical IP exploitation.And here again, I have been proved right.Creators Damon Lindelof (“Lost,” “Watchmen” and, best of all, “Mrs.

Davis”), comic book writer Tom King and Chris Mundy, who wrote for “Criminal Minds,” “Ozark” and “Bloodline” (in which Chandler starred), have expressly looked to television for inspiration — specifically to “True Detective” (on which Mundy worked), with its uncomfortable partnerships, and “Slow Horses” (for its disreputable hero, I guess), with “Slow Horses” director James Hawes helming the first two episodes.(I detect a hint of “Fargo” as well, for its Midwestern plainscape, dark comedy and bigger-than-life yet somehow ordinary characters.)“I’m a regular person, like you,” Hal Jordan (Chandler) ...