Episode 3 of HBO’s Lanterns has sparked discussion, and from some of the online responses it seems that John Stewart’s Green Lantern isn’t only dealing with villains but is also facing something much more common—that discomfort which arises each time Black history is brought into a setting that some people think should stay racially neutral. The issue with that reaction is simply that John Stewart is Black, has been Black all along, and his Black identity didn’t suddenly appear because someone at Hollywood decided that Green Lantern needed a DEI makeover.
The story I observed in Episode 3 was not about Black victimhood; it was about Black strength, preparation, and resilience. I saw parents making an effort—on at least some occasions using methods which were intentionally uncomfortable to watch—to prepare their Black son for a world that they knew would not always treat him fairly. It is a reasonable debate whether or not viewers agree with all that those parents did, but to reduce the whole story to one of racial trauma overlooks what I think the episode was trying to say about discipline, survival, and overcoming fear.
John Stewart Was Never Just a Black Face in a Green Suit
John Stewart made his first appearance in Green Lantern #87 in 1971, a comic book produced by Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams. At the time he was introduced, America was still grappling with the effects of the Civil Rights Movement, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the growth of the Black Power movement, urban disorder, and large-scale national discussions concerning race, policing, poverty, and political power. The social atmosphere in which John Stewart was created was not merely incidental background; it had an impact from the outset on the kind of character John Stewart became.
John wasn’t just presented as a Black version of Hal Jordan with darker skin; he questioned authority, challenged police actions, and wasn’t afraid to challenge Hal Jordan as well. The experiences he had in America had a major impact on his worldview. Since more than 50 years have passed, it comes as no surprise that a television adaptation would examine how being a Black American man influenced the wearer of the Green Lantern ring.
Episode 3 Was About Strength, Not Victimhood
In episode three of Lanterns, entitled “OutKast”, the program goes straight into John Stewart’s background by examining his family, his childhood, his fears, his race, his military experience, and the various events that shaped the man who eventually donned the Green Lantern ring. What struck me about the way people reacted was that they so quickly understood those experiences in terms of trauma and victimhood, whereas I had almost exactly the opposite interpretation.
I witnessed a Black family who were trying to prepare a Black boy to grow up as a strong Black man. Their parents knew something that generations of Black parents in America have known, namely that the world outside one’s front door won’t always extend the benefit of the doubt to your child, and therefore preparing that child for reality does not mean that you are teaching him to become a victim; on the contrary, parents sometimes teach their children about the harsh realities because they don’t want those realities to defeat them.
The difference between telling a child that the world is against him, and therefore he is powerless, and telling him that the world may present challenges, and so he must become strong enough to meet them, is tremendous. One way of looking at things can lead to a sense of helplessness while the other promotes resilience, awareness, and discipline. This distinction is being overlooked in much of the discussion about Episode 3.
Black Parents Have Always Prepared Their Children for the World
It is precisely in this area that cultural experience becomes important; black parents having difficult talks with their children about the world is not an idea that has been come up with by DEI consultants or by modern Hollywood writers. For many generations black families have taught their children that they might have to work harder, should keep their emotions under control in certain situations, need to understand how authority functions, and must be ready for circumstances that lie beyond their parents’ control.
It is possible to discuss whether all the lessons that John Stewart’s parents taught him were healthy, and there is no doubt that some of their methods went too far. Yet, to understand their motivation, we have to go beyond the surface, since their aim was not merely to make John afraid of the world; they wanted to prepare him so that the world couldn’t control him through fear, a point that is especially important when considering Green Lantern.
Fear Is Literally Part of Green Lantern Mythology
The mythology of the Green Lantern has always been based on willpower and the ability to overcome fear. The ring doesn’t just reward physical strength, and being a Green Lantern isn’t simply a matter of being the strongest person in the room. Generally speaking, a Green Lantern needs exceptional willpower and must have the ability to face great fear without letting that fear take control of his actions.
The fact that the writers link John’s early childhood to his attitude towards fear does not mean they are in any way rejecting the Green Lantern mythology; rather, they are trying to show why this man has the qualities that could eventually allow him to hold the ring. The experiences of Hal Jordan should be used to account for Hal Jordan, and the experiences of John Stewart should be used to account for John Stewart.
The mere fact that John’s story involves his experiences as a Black American does not mean that the story becomes one of victimization. On the contrary, the scenario of a man learning to overcome adversity and mastering his fear is very consistent with the basic idea of Green Lantern.
Why should everyone else have a history?
The childhood trauma of Bruce Wayne affects Batman, the working-class background of Peter Parker is important to Spider-Man, and the fact that Superman is an immigrant is significant to his story. The experience of Magneto as a survivor of the Holocaust deeply influences the way he views humanity, and the fact that Steve Rogers grew up in the Great Depression and then became a soldier in World War II is relevant to Captain America. We regard it as reasonable that a character’s personal history contributes to their development, as such history shapes their motivations, fears, strengths, and beliefs.
However, when Black history is used to explain the strength of a Black superhero, some people at once convert that history into grievance politics. It is this aspect of the reaction that I find revealing since admitting to having faced adversity does not necessarily mean that someone is a victim. The fact that Black people have overcome difficulties is not the same as Black people complaining about difficulties, and overcoming adversity is one of the earliest foundations of the superhero story.
Black Strength Is More Than Black Suffering
We often treat Black history in such a way that it can only be understood in terms of oppression. I oppose this way of looking at it since Black American history is full of suffering but also includes remarkable strength, the establishment of institutions, faith, family, entrepreneurship, military service, invention, political organizing, resistance, and survival. One cannot separate these achievements from the difficulties Black Americans faced, but recognizing those difficulties does not in any way diminish the achievements.
Our ancestors would not have survived slavery since they were weak, and Black Americans would not have established churches, businesses, schools, and communities after they were set free because they were helpless. People did not go into police dogs, fire hoses, jail cells, and violence during the Civil Rights Movement because they had a victim mentality; it took courage, faith, discipline, and a willingness to face fear to do so, which is why recognizing what Black Americans have overcome can be an expression of strength instead of victimhood.
That matches the version in John Stewart’s story; the difficulties in his early background aren’t intended to make the audience sympathize with him, but rather to account for the strength and discipline he later achieves.
John Stewart Doesn’t Need to Be Hal Jordan With a Tan
If you decide to tell John Stewart’s story, you should tell John Stewart’s story and not turn him into a Black Hal Jordan, since recognizing cultural differences could offend some members of the audience. John’s experiences must shape his worldview in the same way that Hal Jordan’s do, and he can be acknowledged as Black while, at the same time, his American identity, his military background, his profession, his family relationships, his personality and his personal choices also matter.
The aim must not be to produce a Black character whose entire personality is rooted in racism; rather, the aim should be to create a fully realized Black man whose history has contributed to his strength, since these are completely different storytelling methods. John Stewart is no less universal because of his Black identity than Bruce Wayne is. To put it plainly, the fact that his parents were murdered is important.
Black History Isn’t “Woke”
We are now at a rather odd cultural stage at which merely recognizing Black history can cause something to be called “woke”. Since the term has been used so extensively, it has sometimes made it difficult for people to distinguish between imposed political messages and real history. There is a valid distinction to be made between altering a well-established character to advance current political views and acknowledging the racial and political history associated with a character who became part of American popular culture more than fifty years ago.
John Stewart was around long before corporate DEI departments, Black Lives Matter, social media, and the current endless online culture wars. He took on the role of Green Lantern in 1971, a time when America was engaged in major debates concerning race and political power. If anyone thinks that simply discussing race makes John Stewart a politically charged version of the Green Lantern, then they should look at the character’s origins and consider what America was like when he was created.
Maybe We’re Looking at Black Strength Through the Wrong Lens
What perhaps the most interesting aspect of the way people reacted to Episode 3 is not what the writers showed on screen, but rather what different viewers perceived when watching it; some saw racial trauma and victimhood, while I saw preparation, resilience, and Black parents making an effort to prepare their son for the realities that they themselves had experienced. Most important of all, I observed the development of a man who realized that fear could be present without allowing it to control him, a circumstance that seems well-suited to someone destined to become a Green Lantern.
John Stewart isn’t powerful because of the bad things that happened to him, and his strength doesn’t arise from asking the audience to sympathize with him; rather, it comes from the kind of person he became despite those experiences. It was not the ring that gave him his strength, but the experiences, lessons, discipline, and preparation that occurred before he entered the ring that helped shape a man capable of bearing its great responsibility.
That is the reason why I do not view Episode 3 as another Hollywood tale concerning a Black victim; instead, I see it as a story about a Black boy who was prepared to grow up to be a strong and fearless Black man, and there is a clear distinction between those two ways of interpreting it. By automatically seeing every portrayal of Black struggle as one of victimhood, we run the risk of removing the kind of resilience needed to surmount that struggle.
Black History Is American History
People may or may not realize it, but Black history is part of American history. It can’t be treated as a minor topic that is omitted when it causes someone to feel uncomfortable, and recognizing slavery, racism, and Jim Crow does not automatically mean one is engaging in victimhood. The more significant aspect is what Black Americans achieved despite these difficulties. A people progressed from being enslaved and legally considered property to surviving emancipation, Reconstruction, racial terrorism, segregation, and Jim Crow while at the same time establishing families, churches, businesses, schools, communities, and institutions.
That is why I do not regard John Stewart’s Black history as a flaw in his character; I see it rather as something that contributes to the strength of his character. Consider a Black American superhero whose fictional background is based on the actual history of a people who, time and again, were told that they were inferior, unwanted, and incapable, yet still managed to overcome the systems created to restrict them. That is not an example of victimhood; it is a history of resilience, strength, and determination—qualities exactly those that we would expect in someone selected to hold a Green Lantern ring.
There is no superpower more suited to that history than that of a Green Lantern, since the mythology centers on the strength to overcome fear, and the experience of Black Americans is perhaps the best example of that principle in American stories. Our history is not just a matter of what was done to us; it is also about what was unable to stop us and about the things that generations of Black Americans have built in the face of what was done to them.
John Stewart being Black therefore has no effect on the Green Lantern story or on the character being any less American. The journey he undergoes can stand for a people who came from slavery, overcame racism and Jim Crow, struggled for their citizenship, established institutions, and have still kept moving forward in the face of all the obstacles put in their way. It is not something that writers should have to conceal for a Black superhero to be acceptable to audiences who prefer that his race should be no more than the color of the actor’s skin.
John Stewart doesn’t need his Black history erased to be seen as universally heroic, since his history already includes one of the most imaginable American superhero tales—it’s the story of overcoming fear and adversity and not letting circumstances dictate your destiny. Given all that Black Americans have survived and overcome in this country, it is beautifully appropriate that one of us should eventually be given one of the most powerful rings in the universe and become the Greatest Green Lantern of all.
