Lantern Watch: Who Are The Manhunters?

Welcome to the table,

For over 20 years, I’ve had a replica of Hal Jordan’s Green Lantern ring hanging from my keychain. This replica of one of the most powerful artifacts in the DC Universe was gifted to me by a really good friend. While it does not allow me to fly, travel through space, or create energy constructs, or be seen as part of the Guardians of the Universe police force, it does remind me that where there is a will, there is a way.

I bring up the Guardians of the Universe because, while the emerald knights of the Green Lantern Corps are iconic and well-known in most pop-culture circles, the Manhunters are lesser known yet still very important to the conversation, especially with the new Lanterns show on HBOMax, as revealed in the final trailer for the series released in July.

The Manhunters were the first long-arm-of-the-cosmic-law that the little blue folks known as the Guardians of the Universe would create to help police space and aid various worlds against the forces they determined to be evil.

This species of alien robots, for a time, served the Guardians loyally. As they became more self-aware, gaining knowledge from their various policing actions across the cosmos, the Manhunters began to diverge from their instruction, seeking out ways to punish — more than police — the spaceways and various star systems they were meant to be guarding.

This growing understanding of themselves only fueled their hunger for power. They eventually rebelled against the Guardians as they saw justice and law as less important than the act of hunting and punishing anything they decided to be evil.

The Manhunters were no match for the Guardians, though, and the majority of them were destroyed, with those who remained functioning escaping into exile. The hatred of their creators festered in that exile. In secret, the Manhunters began to rebuild their numbers with the intent to return and destroy not only the Guardians but also the Green Lantern Corps — the force the Guardians created to replace them as the new planetary police.

The Manhunters would then go on to infiltrate various planets, including Earth, and set up small cults and double agents in various rungs of society, including Superhero groups and those in higher rungs of power who could affect actual change in a world.

While we have yet to see how these entities may show up in HBOMax’s Lanterns outside of the trailer, with the newest incarnation of the Green Lantern streaming now, it is safe to assume that any and everyone could be a sleeper agent or undercover Manhunter waiting to activate and do their best to destroy both Hal Jordan and John Stewart.

Until next time, beware their power, Green Lantern’s light.