Is Sinestro the Key to Unraveling the Biggest Mystery in 'Lanterns'?

The Ringer-Verse

Daniel Chin provides a deep dive into the character of Thaal Sinestro within the context of HBO's 'Lanterns'. The episode traces Sinestro's

Key takeaways

• Sinestro is established as Hal Jordan's former mentor turned arch-nemesis in the 'Lanterns' series.
• The show deviates from comic history by focusing Sinestro's coup attempt on the Guardians rather than Korugar.

Main topics

• Sinestro's character history
• Hal Jordan and Sinestro's relationship

Notable quotes

Every hero needs a villain, especially in a superhero story.

Conclusion

A comprehensive analysis for fans looking to connect 'Lanterns' plot p

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:03) Every hero needs a villain, especially in a superhero story. And in the best of these timeless tales of good versus evil, the hero needs a worthy opponent. Superman has Lex Luthor, Batman has the Joker, and the Green Lantern has Thal Sinestro. This video contains spoilers for Lanterns episodes one through seven, so make sure you're all caught up with the series before watching this. For most of the first season of Lanterns, Sinestro was a minor character who played more of a role in Hal Jordan's past than anything related to the show's current events. He made a couple of brief appearances in the first few episodes before disappearing from the screen altogether. But that changes in a major way at the end of Episode 7, when Jon Stewart and the holographic ghost of Hal Jordan find Sinestro hiding on an alien planet. Speaker 3 (0:59) You must be drawing a story. Speaker 1 (1:00) Heading into the finale, Sinestro might just be the key to unlocking the show's biggest mysteries. My name is Daniel Chin, and I'm a staff writer at The Ringer. In this Ringerverse video essay, we're going to explore the history of Sinestro. In each section, we're going to ask and answer a key question about this villain. And to do that, we'll break down how the topic is presented in Lanterns before diving into the comic books to provide some context. One of the really fun things about this HBO series is how it reintroduces the world of the Green Lanterns as a story in progress. By the time the series premiere starts in earnest, Hal Jordan has already been a superhero for decades. Although the show provides some windows into the character's past, like when young Jon Stewart is getting apples shot off his head in episode three, it doesn't often wait around to catch the audience up on anything they might have missed. And so we're here to fill in those gaps. Now, let's begin with the most basic question. Who is Sinestro? You may remember the mustachioed alien from the time that Mark Strong portrayed him in the 2011 Green Lantern movie with Ryan Reynolds. For most of the film, he's bullying Hal either verbally, physically, or both, like in this sparring scene on Oa, when Sinestro humbles the rookie Green Lantern. Speaker 1 (2:09) I do believe I Speaker 3 (2:10) smell fear. Speaker 1 (2:10) Sinestro is Hal Jordan's former mentor and eventual arch nemesis, and he's often considered to be one of the all-time great DC villains. In Lanterns, we first meet Sinestro, played this time by Ulrich Thompson, at the end of episode two, when Hal pays him a secret visit in space prison. But earlier in the episode, after Hal wakes up in a Rushville hospital bed, Sheriff Carrie Kane asks him an important question first. Speaker 2 (2:34) So? Speaker 2 (2:36) What's with Sinestro? Speaker 3 (2:40) Why are you asking me that? Speaker 2 (2:43) You kept saying his name in your sleep. Speaker 1 (2:47) I'm not authorized to talk about that. While Hal might want to keep a lid on this conversation, Carrie has access to the internet, and the story of Thao Sinestro isn't exactly a secret in the DCU. After Carrie puts on her reading glasses, she recounts how Sinestro was a Lantern who attempted a coup and killed one of the Guardians, the ancient alien race who established the Green Lantern Corps. She also reads that Hal was the one who stopped him. This bit of exposition is an interesting entry point for the show's depiction of Sinestro. who's already had his fall from grace after once being considered the greatest Green Lantern of them all. Lanterns waste no time on focusing on the finer details of Sinestro's past, but we will. Sinestro was created by John Broome and Gil Kane, and he made his first appearance in Green Lantern No. 7, released in August 1961. That's just two years after Hal Jordan made his own comic book debut as DC's second Green Lantern. Back then, Sinestro had a bit of a different look. As you can see in these images from his debut, he had a darker red skin, but he still had that iconic receding hairline, though I guess it wasn't quite as bad as the Guardian in the panel next to him. Sinestro is introduced as a renegade Green Lantern, who abused his ring of power to install himself as the dictator of his homeworld of Korugar. When the Guardians discovered this, they stripped Sinestro of his ring and banished him to the planet Kward in the Anti-Matter universe, where Hal Jordan eventually fights Sinestro for the first time. Given that we're talking about the world of comic books and the fact that his debut came all the way back in