HBO’s Lanterns just dropped a massive DC Comics deep cut that changes everything about the Green Lantern Corps’ origins. Showrunner Chris Mundy and executive producer Tom King break down the hidden history behind the alien threat lurking in Rushville.
Lanterns team dives into Manhunters in DC Universe
HBO’s Lanterns episode 2 dives into Manhunter mythology, pulling from decades of DC Comics history, as Entertainment Weekly reports.
Executive producer Tom King describes the characters as a “deep, dark secret” held by the Guardians. Within DC lore, the Guardians of the Universe built the Manhunters before the Green Lantern Corps. They served as the very first intergalactic police force ever assembled.
The Guardians based their design on the Manhunters of Ma’aleca’andra, the Red Planet. These creations were robots, though, setting them apart from the later Green Lanterns. Over thousands of years, they developed beyond their initial programming entirely.
Their relentless “No Man Escapes the Manhunters” directive pushed them toward devastating consequences. A scientist named Krona then reprogrammed them to eliminate all organic life. Widespread destruction followed across numerous worlds until the Guardians stopped them. The handful of robots that survived scattered to different planets and assumed living disguises.
King originally proposed the Manhunter idea at the foundational meeting that launched the DCU. DC Studios co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran gathered writers at Safran’s home in Los Angeles. King pitched a True Detective-inspired cop series centered on DC’s space officers. Writers unfamiliar with DC responded strongly to the Guardians’ hidden failures. “These people who were trying to fix the universe got it wrong and then killed everyone and then tried to start again,” King shared.
Showrunner Chris Mundy reveals the team landed on Manhunters “pretty quickly” alongside Damon Lindelof and King. “It felt like you could have somebody hiding in plain sight and it tied back to the Guardians,” Mundy explains.
On the show, a single Manhunter conceals itself in Rushville, Nebraska. This synthetic creature constructs new bodies and integrates seamlessly into any civilization. A group of aliens now demands that the Lanterns identify themselves within 48 hours or face annihilation.
