But I also think we had to fall in love with Hal first, so that we could get this moment of going Damn, I guess he’s not perfect to everybody. We love him, but looking at it from a different perspective, we could see how someone doesn’t. And then we immediately flip the script again in the next episode where it’s like, Yeah, John ain’t perfect either. These are two imperfect individuals who are learning to be friends.
How much can you say about what went into the decision to make the story be more linear?
Ultimately I think stories like this, especially when you’re telling stories in different timelines, just have to play a little bit. It’s a little bit of musical chairs sometimes. It’s about what makes things feel the clearest. There were several configurations of these episodes, but I think ultimately what landed on screen is the correct one.
So when Damon put this room together and you sat down to start making this story, what was the intention that he set forth, and what do you hope to leave people with, both as a self-contained thing and then obviously going into John being in the next Superman movie?
What we wanted to do was twofold. One, we wanted to make something that we all felt really proud of and that we would defend because we knew we would have to. Something that felt real and correct to us while simultaneously, the other part was that we wanted to make sure that we made something that we felt like the folks who grew up reading Green Lantern felt like we did those characters and the lore justice.
Sadly, we did not have an agenda [laughs]. It was nothing like that. It was just like, Do we feel proud of it? Do we feel like the folks who grew up and waited for the next edition to come out, would feel proud of it? And then on a larger scope, John Stewart is in the world now, and we want him to be the type of character that is 360, has a full backstory, is somebody that people can see as both heroic and flawed and real, and especially little kids can look at and be like, “I could be a Green Lantern.” Hopefully their parents don’t train them to be one from the beginning of their lives, but that they can look at and be like, oh yeah, I can be him. I don’t have to be perfect. I just have to be brave.
As much of a lightning rod as it’s been, and I think I was actually shocked at how much of a lightning rod that it’s been, it still feels like that’s the work and that’s what we’re supposed to be doing. And I don’t just mean that as Black creators, but just creators in general. In Peacemaker, for instance, when there’s an alternative Nazi universe, in that character’s world it felt like somebody having to come to terms with who he was. It was an important storyline to tell, especially in the world that we’re living in right now. That’s the work. You have to say, if this is what portions of our country are going through, we have to be able to have those difficult conversations and what better way to do it than to do it on television. It’s been hard to read [some of the backlash] and be like, that’s what y’all took from that?
