Super Hero movies usually feel exaggerated, and like they are cheats, that if you give so much powers to person or group of persons and throw on a costume it makes it too easy to create an exciting story out of. And so Super Hero movies are not really what we think of when we're thinking about really great movies.

It is because we feel like the costumes and otherworldly powers are kinda cheat codes, so these movies cannot be as great as other movies with relatively ordinary people and powers/fantasies that seem more creative and not the easy super powers, costumes and difficultly tenable desire to only use your powers for good.

The Batman trilogy with Christian Bale, Marvel's Avengers movies that ended with Endgame and a few others are quite considered great movies, but when we talk about truly great movies it seems it would be a tad ridiculous for Superhero movies to make the cut.

I bet usually not on the merits of each movie but because of the tag "superhero movie", it seems if you make a really great movie even it's greatness would feel watered down by the fact that it falls in the category of Superhero movies and Superhero movies shouldn't be viewed as as truly great unlike dramas and the like.

But all this has to stop. Lanterns (2026) just concluded and I'm not hearing arguments about why it is one of the greatest series of all times and I think that is a violation.

What a great season 1 that was!!

The suspense, twists, philosophical dilemmas, themes, cast, plot, every damn thing! All on point, delivering an absolute knockout!

Kudos to James Gunn for this happening while he's in charge. The fans haven't really given him his flowers and his taking over DC has mostly been wrought by complaints and criticism, but this Season 1 right here is something for the ages.

Everyone is supposed to love this series: the action movie fans, drama fans, thriller, superhero, fantasy, crime/mystery, romance, etc. There's something for everybody. While watching you can't help but be awed by how complete this series is for a superhero movie.

Infact if you logged on to watch it because you were in the mood for a superhero movie and wanted to see the lights, colours and flashiness of a superhero movie you'll be somewhat disappointed that you're getting a good dose of that coupled with a good dose of every other genre that impresses the more profound parts of your psyche.

Further Most Impressives

Cast Synergy

Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler make such a great duo to watch. They fit together like sides of a pod. Every other actor were terrific picks too.

Plot

This was the greatest thing about the series. All the facets of the plot, the twists, the suspense.

At first we started knowing that Nathan Fillion is Green Lantern. We saw him in Peacemaker and in Gunn's Superman. So when we saw a Lanterns series with Aaron Pierre and a different guy we started wondering what's at play here. Would this lead to Fillion being replaced? How the heck are they going to go about this?

Then we saw the crazy path Pierre had to go through to become Green Lantern and it was even more suspenseful wondering how Fillion ended up as Green Lantern.

Then we saw Pierre reject the ring at the last moment. It felt so anticlimactic and we were wondering what the point of continuing the movie was. What more was there to show? But boy did they have more to show! The story was still able to have that gorilla death grip on your attention and kept on bringing up twists that made perfect sense and provided perfect entertainment.

Until Pierre was now with another ring and Lantern to charge. Then the final scenes where he decided to be the sort of Lantern who does not answer to the Guardians, and to not stay hidden but tell the current Green Lantern about it letting him take the message to the Guardians too.

Taking it upon himself to be more of the true Superhero Green Lantern is supposed to be, and trusting that the Guardians if "they search their hearts" would come to the conclusion that he has the character to be left alone with all that power and no supervision.

Certainly because he was supposed to be Green Lantern but he let the ring go and now he's going to accept a different ring on different terms especially the term that he wouldn't be under the Guardians' supervision.

Climatic stuff!

Exploration of Themes

The theme of race, fear, moral dilemma, duty, love, honour were so well explored in this series, and it wasn't just in passing. It was part and parcel of the whole series. And truly profound, complicated, dilemmatic, suspenseful situations were created to explore these themes. At every point you really got to look deep in the heart of these themes.

Really great work.

Conclusion

I'll rate this a solid 9.1 and I'll say it's a shame people aren't going crazy over this series like they should.

This was such a top shelf stuff and it's a huge wonder whether they'll be able to do it again in a Season 2. Searches haven't shown that a Season 2 has officially been green lighted but it showed that there's still a writers' room working on it regardless. It's going to be a painful wait, but such is the life.

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Source of Cover Photo

The End

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Hi there, buy my novella Professor Otagburuagu. It promises to be thoroughly entertaining and intellectually stimulating. Written by myself and illustrated by Scandinavian artist @ katharsisdrill.

You can order the hard copy from anywhere in the world via this link:
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Roll with @nevies, I run a Humor, deeper thoughts, and sex talk blog here on Hive🌚