Lanterns: DC Green Lantern Series Ordered to Series By HBO

The DC Universe is officially headed back to the small screen.

Variety is reporting today that Lanterns, a series based on the iconic superhero the Green Lantern has been picked up by HBO for an eight-episode first season.

This will be the first DC live-action series created under the auspices of chairmen/co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran.

The show will be helmed by Chris Mundy of Ozark and True Detective: Night Country fame, who will serve as showrunner.

He’s joined by Damon Lindelof (Lost, Watchmen, The Leftovers) and Tom King (Mister Miracle, Supergirl) who will co-write with Mundy and serve as executive producers.

“We are elated to be reuniting with both Chris Mundy and Damon Lindelof as they partner with Tom for this fresh take on DC’s Green Lantern,” said Casey Bloys, chairman/CEO of HBO and Max Content in a statement.

“As part of James and Peter’s vision for the DC Universe, this first new live-action series will mark an exciting new era.”

Safran called the project “a huge HBO-quality event” that is “very much in the vein of True Detective.”

The series will center on Hal Jordan and John Stewart (not the Daily Show host), two names that are likely to be familiar to longtime DC fans.

“We’re thrilled to bring this seminal DC title to HBO with Chris, Damon and Tom at the helm,” Gunn and Safran said in a joint statement.

“John Stewart and Hal Jordan are two of DC’s most compelling characters, and ‘Lanterns’ brings them to life in an original detective story that is a foundational part of the unified DCU we’re launching next summer with ‘Superman.’”

Variety notes that the current project took the place of an earlier planned Green Lantern series that never came to fruition.

Mundy’s gritty drama will be the first live-action DC series of the Gunn era, but it is not the first series overall.

That distinction belongs to the animated series Creature Commandos, which is expected to debut later this year.

But it’s today’s announcement that really has DCU fans psyched for things to come.

The superhero subgenre has experienced some dizzying highs and depressing lows in recent years, and there are hopes that Gunn, who put a unique spin on the usual tropes as director of the Guardians of the Galaxy films, is the man to turn DC around.

Only time if the public still has any interest in cape dramas, but it sounds like HBO is all-in on the experiment.

What do you think, TV fanatics?

Is Lanterns the light at the end of the tunnel that comic book fans have been waiting for? Hit the comments section below to share your thoughts.