5 Superhero Shows That Paved The Way For ‘Lanterns’
The 2026 HBO series Lanterns is taking DC's Green Lantern mythology in a slightly unexpected direction. The series follows veteran Green Lantern Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and new recruit John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), who team up to investigate a murder in the American heartland, with the case eventually leading them into something much bigger.
It's a superhero story, but the murder-mystery setup gives it a chance to spend more time with its characters instead of rushing from one big action sequence to the next. That approach didn't come out of nowhere. DC has spent years figuring out how to adapt superhero stories for television. And some of those shows experimented with ideas that Lanterns can take much further.
None of them were perfect. Some struggled with consistency and became increasingly strange as the years went by. But they all helped establish that superhero stories don't have to follow the same formula as the movies. If you're enjoying Lanterns, these 5 shows, which can be found on streaming services like Prime Video and Apple TV, are definitely worth checking out.
Smallville follows a teenage Clark Kent (Tom Welling) who is still figuring out how to control his powers, while managing his increasingly complicated friendship with Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum), Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk), and others. Instead of jumping straight to Superman, the series follows Clark through high school and eventually early adulthood as he decides what kind of hero he wants to be.
The creators of Smallville knew that people didn't need Superman to be Superman right away. The series worked best when Clark was making mistakes, falling in love, and generally behaving like a young person finding his feet in the world. It eventually became far too long and occasionally got stuck in its own formula, but the central idea was strong enough to carry the show for a decade.
Arrow chronicles the life of Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), who is stranded on an island for five years after getting into a shipwreck. The series begins with his return to Starling City, where he rejects his old life as a billionaire playboy in favor of becoming a masked vigilante known as the Arrow. Throughout the series, he remains determined to take down the criminals destroying his city.
The first few seasons of Arrow are some of the most grounded superhero television DC has ever managed to pull off. Oliver spends more time fighting criminals in warehouses than saving the universe. Although the show eventually changes direction, those early episodes proved that a comic book character could carry a television drama without needing to constantly remind viewers that he came from a comic.
The Flash tells the story of forensic crime scene assistant Barry Allen (Grant Gustin), who gains super-speed after he is struck by lightning during a storm that was accidentally created by S.T.A.R. Labs. With help from Dr. Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh), Barry learns how to control his abilities and soon discovers that he's not the only person who gained powers from the explosion.
Unlike Smallville and Arrow, the show initially placed Barry's personal life into the secondary story arc category in favor of a more comic book-focused style of storytelling, with alternate universes, time travel, metahumans, and a large slew of villains. The series helped demonstrate just how much mythology a superhero television show could build when it wasn't afraid to get a little weird.
Supergirl follows Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist), who has kept her Kryptonian abilities hidden in favor of a normal life working at CatCo Worldwide Media. After using her powers to save people during a disaster, she decides to protect National City as Supergirl. Her sister (Chyler Leigh) and a growing group of allies help Kara balance her superhero life with the person she is still trying to become.
Supergirl's biggest strength is that Kara never feels like just a female version of her cousin (Superman). She's optimistic and compassionate. But she can also be stubborn and occasionally make terrible decisions. The series also became increasingly ambitious as it introduced alien politics, alternate Earths, and a much larger DC mythology.
DC's Legends of Tomorrow begins when time traveler Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) recruits a collection of heroes and villains to help him stop an immortal tyrant named Vandal Savage from conquering Earth in the future. Together, they travel through history aboard the Waverider, trying to prevent changes to the timeline that could have disastrous consequences for the future.
Legends of Tomorrow is probably the most unusual show on this list because it eventually stopped caring very much about what a superhero show was supposed to look like. The series began as a fairly straightforward team-up but gradually embraced some genuinely ridiculous ideas. But that same unabashed storytelling is what made it extremely entertaining.
