How ‘Lanterns’ Creates Modern Relevance in John Stewart’s Origins

Lanterns has been absolutely crushing it on HBO since its debut two weeks ago. Terrific ratings numbers and fantastic reviews have only supplemented a story that we believe is absolutely worthy of telling. As the series gears up for its third week, The Nerds of Color was invited to an advance screening of an upcoming episode that, surprisingly, was incredibly relevant in the most poignant way imaginable.

Without going into spoiler territory, this week’s episode of Lanterns will be diving into the origins of John Stewart. This is incredibly important because, as many may know, when the character debuted in 1971, in the pages of Green Lantern #87, he was one of the first African American superheroes ever in comic book history. As a college educated architect, John was meant to be a more positive depiction of Black representation in comics during a time when most Black characters were depicted in a negative or hostile light in fictional media. It was absolutely groundbreaking, not just for DC Comics, but also for the entire industry. And as such, honoring the origins of the character and what it represented was important to everyone involved in Lanterns, particularly showrunner Chris Mundy, star Aaron Pierre, and episode 3 writer, Vanessa Baden Kelly.

Exploring the idea of John Stewart becoming a Green Lantern in modern day America today may not seem like a major deal. However, when you drill down into it, the idea that opportunities in this country have historically been easier for White American males than POCs is undeniable. This is the light in which Baden Kelly and Mundy are approaching John’s origins. Additionally, they’ve smartly chosen to highlight the grey areas of his upbringing, showcasing the ugly nature of what POCs have to do to be seen, both in the country and beyond.

This past week, Baden Kelly, along with Episode 3 stars Jasmine Cephas Jones and J. Alphonse Nicholson, sat down for a special panel — moderated by Trey Mangum of Blavity — to talk about and deconstruct their interpretation of John Stewart’s origins for this week’s upcoming episode of Lanterns, and ultimately how they adapted it to represent the current issues facing POCs today. Here’s what they had to say:

Baden Kelly, a former child star from Kenan and Kel, was asked about how she got her start in the industry and how that influenced her writing of the episode. “Growing up on Nickelodeon, I wasn’t in Los Angeles. I wasn’t in New York. I was in Orlando. So, from the South, people were taking their children to all of these auditions and all these other things. We were like regular kids that rode their bikes to and from school, and somebody put something in newspaper about being on TV. That’s how we ended up kind of stumbling into television and film. For those of you guys who remember at that time, Nickelodeon was not doing what Disney Channel was doing,” she started.

“So stumbling into your purpose and what you’re going to do for the rest of your life is one thing, right? But I didn’t grow up in a family who was purposing to make me something when I grew up. I didn’t have stage parents. I was around stage parents. I knew what that was like, but I wasn’t around that. And so for me, again, I was very lucky. We had writers and directors [on Kenan and Kel] like Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Kim Fields and Brian Robbins, and all these people who had also had childhood acting careers. And for me, it was just important that I could stay in this beautiful art form that I had found as a child. Really, I was just gonna have to find a way and make a way. And when I was really little, Kim Fields had told us that she said, ‘You know, there’s gonna be a point in your life when you get older, and they’re not gonna cast you for the stuff they used to cast you for. And you better be able to do something else. You better be able to direct. You better be able to write.’ And I thought I was gonna be a director because that’s what her and Malcolm did. But writing took off for me almost instantly… We did a lot of work in the digital space, and no matter what we did in the stories we would tell about us, about our experiences, which I felt so lucky on the backside of it, that I had not continued all the way through. I stopped childhood acting at about 16, and came back in my 20s. I felt lucky because I had so many life experiences to be able to pull from in my writing and in the storytelling I was doing. But it didn’t really matter how well we crafted those stories were in these types of spaces. We were not seen. Those stories were not seen as prestige, or those stories were seen as like too pedestrian or what have you.”

She continued discussing her career transition to assistant to Mundy on Ozark. “I knew I was gonna have to kind of break into those spaces regardless of what my resume said because they weren’t gonna take me seriously unless I started. So I started all over again as an adult, and now here we are almost 11 years later, sitting on stage on one of his shows with these incredible actors, telling a story like this. Giving the world one of DC’s preeminent Black characters. And all I can say is that for me, from childhood till now, the legacy has been find a way or make a way. It’s what I’m teaching my son. It’s what I hope all of you as creators take with you. If somebody’s not going to give it to you, if they’re telling you you’re not enough, or it’s not good, that’s okay. On to the next one until you get your ‘yes.'”

The episode touches upon how the opportunity to become a Green Lantern was given to a White male Air Force pilot like Hal Jordan, and how the test the Guardians conduct might differ dramatically for Black candidates on Earth. Jones was asked about a line from Baden Kelly’s script (“Even in space you don’t see us”) resonated with her as she was reading the episode.

“I think everybody on the stage has had a moment or two or three or four or five where they have not felt seen or not heard or have been overqualified for something and still not have been seen as an equal,” she said. “And I think that statement really represents that. One of the first things that came to my mind is my father [Ron Cephas Jones] doing Richard the Third at the Public Theater, and coming out of that play with a standing ovation. And he and Stephen Adly Guirgis, an amazing playwright who is White [are standing on the street after the show]. And he asked Stephen to hail him a cab, because even though he just did Richard the Third, he couldn’t get a cab because a cab wouldn’t stop for him because he was a Black man. And so that to me is the epitome of what that sentence holds. And I remember loads of conversations my father had with me coming into this business and being like, ‘You’re gonna have to jump. You’re not only are you Black, but you’re a Black woman. So you’re gonna have to jump through so many hoops and be overqualified sometimes.’ And so yeah, that sentence held a lot of weight for me. And shout out to you, Vanessa, for just writing an amazing episode and giving us an amazing platform to jump off of.”

Nicholson was then asked about how his role as a father impacted his ability to portray Stewart’s father in the episode. “I’m a father, so I start there,” he began. “I start with my babies who are much older than these little babies that I worked with [in the episode], but I know what it is to be a flawed parent. I know what it is to feel like a failure. I know what it is to feel like that you’re not enough, and so now you just gotta breathe and believe and trust [episode director] Stephen Williams, trust my cast, trust my scene partners, and trust the writing. Which, as I’ll continue to say, it was as soon as I read it, I said, ‘Oh, this is by a Black woman. A Black woman wrote this. She knows me. She knows who I am’… So you understand the caliber that comes with that, and so you bring your best. But at the same time, you just breathe and believe, and you show up, and I feel like that’s what I tried to do. I just tried to show up the way I do in other roles, and because I am a father, it was pretty easy to sip into. Though I’ve never shot an apple off my son’s head [as we see in the episode].”

Many will see the major influence John’s mother had on his path to becoming a Green Lantern. When asked about the role, Jones stated, “When I first read this episode, I was just so excited that I wasn’t a prop… So many times the wives are a prop. I’ve read a script before where a mom is asleep while guns are going off, and I’m like, ‘why is she asleep in the other room?’ It doesn’t make sense. It’s like people don’t know how to write for mothers… And so I was just so ready and so excited to play all of the complexity and the nuance. I wanted to take it there. And it was, you know, when she goes for the really militant side. It was a little influenced by the essence of Lady Macbeth. Me and Stephen talked about that all the time. This is a Lady Macbeth moment where she’s like sitting on the couch and she’s in his ear and makes up the idea, but also it is really important that she explains to her son why she’s doing this… I love that she says ‘it’s so human to not want to hurt the people that you love, and that is really important. And I know what we’re doing is really hard, and we’re training you to be a superhero.'”

Baden Kelly was asked about how she approached the idea of John’s parents being overzealous in his upbringing, pushing him to become a Green Lantern, and the influences that inspired her to write about his parents’ approach in the episode. “Conceiving the fact that John Stewart was created to be a Green Lantern, it did start off with the room thinking that it was going to be John who was leading that charge. And we talked a lot about Earl Woods. We talked a lot about Richard Williams… Steph Curry. The more we would talk about those types of families and those that level of parenting, I would just keep bringing them up again… And I’m like, ‘so where’s John’s mom?’ Because she’s either dead or she on board, cause ain’t no way you doing that to my baby if I’m there and I’m not on board. And as we talked about it more, because it just is this hard thing for people to conceive sometimes… but the moms really do be the driving force. Like it really is them. And when you sit and you think about the stories, even like the fictionalized versions of it that we’ve seen, or the documentaries and what have you. You hear Steph Curry’s mom, say Steph wanted to give up, and [she] told him [not to]… I mean, while Venus is trained, or while Venus is in Florida, her mom’s training Serena. And we just graze over all of that stuff. And in this particular medium, and on a show like this, and in a place like this, it was like, ‘nah, give [John’s mom] her space. But what was interesting is considering the visceral reaction you see people have from it when dads do it, [they’re like] ‘that’s what dads do.’ When moms do it, they’re like ‘she’s emasculating him. She’s terrible. What an evil!’ But Sonya was doing it. The Woods family was doing it. And when you see the outcome, nobody really questions it. But the mom’s part of the story fades to the back. And so, what happens when we actually take a little bit of the focus not only on what is physically happening as far as the training, but also what we saw with what Bernadette and young John had. Where I’m crying when you get back in. I go through this with my son all the time. I’ll rip into him about something sports wise and then go cry because I’m like, ‘Am I doing too much?'”

Nicholson added to the discussion about the portrayal of John’s mother in the episode. “I grew up in the South as well. And knowing how most matriarchs of the family are the Black woman, right? It’s the woman who is carrying all the weight and is working multiple jobs and regulating emotions. And I’ve been in that position myself, and you have to recognize that, as a man — and I challenge all fathers and men in this room to recognize that — it’s the women in your life that hold you up. That are much stronger than what you are. We can help create babies, but we don’t push them out… So you start to understand your place in the world, which is to be a supporter and a provider and to protect. So when we start to understand that, and how we see it on the screen, it’s gonna have an effect on you, whether you want it or not.”

Baden Kelly’s episode of Lanterns will be debuting this Sunday on HBO. We encourage everyone who has ever felt like they’ve never been seen and has been forced to fight tooth and nail for a voice to watch this. Not only is it a gripping spectacle of emotional television, giving so much weight to John Stewart’s character, but it is also a biting and sobering look at how and why the deck is sometimes stacked against POCs in this country and all over the world. We honestly would not expect any less from the team that brought us Watchmen, and we think you’ll feel the same.

Stay tuned to The Nerds of Color for more coverage of Lanterns coming very soon!