BREAKING:DC Studios Shake-Up: James Gunn and Peter Safran Are Out, and a Marvel Insider Is Taking Over

New ‘Emerald Knights’ Concept Art Shows Guy Gardner Battling a Manhunter in the Green Lantern Show That Never Was

Avatar photoByJosip Kraljik Published on
0 Comments
Warner Bros. Pictures

Share:

HBO’s ‘Lanterns’ may have brought the Green Lantern Corps to TV, but fans still can’t stop wondering about the cosmic series that came before it. The scrapped Green Lantern project known as ‘Emerald Knights’ has become one of DC’s great what-ifs, and new artwork keeps adding to the story.

The project had big ambitions from the start. HBO Max ordered 10 one-hour episodes, co-written and executive produced by Greg Berlanti, Seth Grahame-Smith and Marc Guggenheim, with Grahame-Smith serving as showrunner. The story was set to span decades and galaxies, beginning on Earth in 1941 with the very first Green Lantern, secretly gay FBI agent Alan Scott, and 1984 with cocky alpha male Guy Gardner and half-alien Bree Jarta.

Now another piece of the puzzle has surfaced. New concept art from ‘Emerald Knights’, shared via One Pixel Brush, shows Guy Gardner and Bree Jarta facing off against a Manhunter. In the image, a Manhunter hovers over a wrecked street at sunset while the two Lanterns prepare to fight, surrounded by glowing green energy and smashed cars.

RELATED:

‘Lanterns’ Writer Chris Cantwell Fires Back at Cancellation Reports

The scene fits what fans already knew about the show. Guggenheim has said his original take was set in 2 time periods and used the Manhunters as its main villains. He also said Emerald Knights was his original title pitch.

This isn’t the first look at the series. Last month, Guggenheim posted concept art on Substack showing what Finn Wittrock would have looked like as Guy Gardner. One piece showed a team of Green Lanterns, including Guy Gardner, Kilowog and Sinestro, fighting an alien species in space, which Guggenheim said was planned for the first episode’s opening sequence.

Bree Jarta also got her own design. Laura Jean Shannon created a costume design for Bree, a half-human Lantern of Sector 2814 invented for the series. While Wittrock was cast as Guy, the team never found an actor to play Bree.

The show had a long and complicated history. It was ordered under former DC Films president Walter Hamada, and after his exit, the studio decided to redevelop it with a much smaller budget. After showrunner Seth Grahame-Smith left, the show was retooled on October 26, 2022, to focus only on John Stewart.

The project was ultimately replaced. Berlanti’s series was scrapped as part of the new DC Universe direction under Peter Safran and James Gunn. Safran said Berlanti had envisioned more of a space opera, while their version would be a more terrestrial, True Detective-style investigation story.

The cast has made no secret of their disappointment. Jeremy Irvine, who was cast as Alan Scott, told The Direct he was “so gutted” when he learned the series had been cancelled. He added that the team had “really good ideas for it” and that the “scripts were great.”

The timing has made the new art especially popular. ‘Lanterns’ premiered on HBO Max on August 16 and has become one of HBO’s biggest new shows. Still, the scrapped series had a 2-timeline structure, a large Lantern roster and a 1941 setting that would have made for a very different superhero show.

The Manhunter image may hit a nerve in particular. The aired series kept its Manhunters in human form, and never showing a true Manhunter is one of the loudest complaints fans have been leaving on James Gunn’s Instagram. For those fans, this new art is a glimpse of exactly what they wanted to see.

Would you rather have seen the cosmic, space-opera approach of ‘Emerald Knights’ or the grounded detective-style story of ‘Lanterns’?

Have something to add? Let us know in the comments!

Don't miss:

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted