Despite taking place on Earth, and therefore less “cosmic” than the comics, the upcoming Lanterns series for HBO, based on DC’s Green Lantern mythology, already has several characters from outer space as part of the cast. According to Deadline, they’ve now added The Wire‘s Paul Ben-Victor to the series. Lanterns also stars Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan, Aaron Pierre as John Stewart, and Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner. Here’s his character description, and based on that, we’ll tell you why we actually think he’s playing Atrocitus.
Ben-Victor willl play Antaan, an extraterrestrial devoted to exposing the truth and exacting vengeance against those who wronged his people. Consumed by a deep and unrelenting hatred for the law, he is determined to deliver justice on his own terms.
The Green Lantern comics don’t have a character named Antaan. But they do have a character named Atros, short for Atrocitus, primary member of the Red Lantern Corps. Created by Geoff Johns during his stellar Green Lantern run, Atrocitus hailed from the planet Ryut. When the Manhunters, the original peacekeepers of the galaxy before the Green Lanterns, destroyed all life in his space sector except for himself and a few others, he blamed their creators, the Guardians of the Universe. He discovered the red energy of the emotional spectrum, fueled by rage. He harnessed it to start the Red Lantern Corps, ring wielders powered by hatred.
This Antaan character definitely sounds like Atrocitus to us. In the comics, his real name is “Atros,” but they could have changed it for live-action into something less on-the-nose. For DC fans this is exciting, as that means we’ll be getting to see different colored Lanterns on this series, not just the green variety. Hopefully this means we’ll see characters like Larfleeze, the greedy Orange Lantern, or even the hope-powered Blue Lanterns. This mythology has much untapped potential. Lanterns, executive produced by Watchmen’s Damon Lindelof and Batman writer Tom King, hits HBO sometime in 2026.
Content shared from nerdist.com.