Lanterns Almost Used A Controversial Superhero Trope That Started in Green Lantern Comics, And It Would’ve Ruined the Show

HBO’s Lanterns made its debut on Sunday night, expanding DC’s live action world in a whole new way and wasted no time setting up not only a lot more to the world of Green Lanterns than we’ve seen to date in the DCU, but a major mystery. The eagerly anticipated series kept its word that it was a True Detective style drama when the pilot episode offered up events from three different time periods and culminated in a shocking death that left fans reeling, but it turns out that stunning premiere death wasn’t always the plan. There was another death the creative team behind Lanterns considered instead and while it would have been a not uncommon comic convention with roots in Green Lantern Comics, it would have completely ruined the series.

Warning: spoilers for Lanterns beyond this point.

The first episode of Lanterns concludes with a shocking revelation. John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) returns to Rushville after 10 years at the request of Sheriff Kerry (Kelly Macdonald) who reveals the dead body of Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) sitting frozen on the bleachers, his power ring missing. This sets us up for two big mysteries — who killed Hal and where is his ring — but according to showrunner Chris Mundy, they almost offed someone else — Sheriff Kerry.

“You felt that it’s been done and it was gonna be a disservice to her,” Mundy told EW.

Ultimately, killing Sheriff Kerry was abandoned because it was too much like “fridging” and it ended up being the right call, narratively, but it was also the right call for another reason: fridging is outdated, cliche, and might be the worst Green Lantern legacy.

Fridging Is a Bad Trope That Originated in Green Lantern #54 and Its Time to Move On

If by some chance you don’t know what fridging is, here’s your history lesson. The term “fridging” is short for “women in refrigerators”, a phrase coined by Gail Simone in reference to the murder of Alexandra DeWitt in Green Lantern #54 in 1994. First introduced just a few issues prior in Green Lantern #48, Alex is the girlfriend of Green Lantern Kyle Rayner. However, her time with Kyle and in comics is short lived when the villain Major Force, tracking down Kyle to take his power ring, instead finds Alex at their home, strangles her, and stuffs her body in the refrigerator for Kyle to find. Her death and, indeed, her entire character arc, had only one purpose: to be a plot point of suffering for a male character. While Alex’s demise is the one that prompted the phrase, brutality against female supporting characters in comics simply in furtherance of the male protagonists’ story is, unfortunately, a common and sexist tactic.

While there would have been some sense of comics “accuracy” in killing off a female supporting character to drive Lanterns’ story considering that the concept of fridging is so tied to the Green Lantern legacy, it would have been disastrous for the series. The idea that a woman must suffer for a man to have a meaningful emotional story is deeply dated and, honestly, offensive. Beyond the sexist tones of such a move, however, killing of Sheriff Kerry wouldn’t have had even remotely the same level of narrative impact. Hal’s death is a stunning twist that completely subverts what one would expect for a series about Green Lanterns. After all, Hal is the main Green Lantern that most DC fans know and is for many the entry point for this series. Having his death be our mystery and the emotional motivation for what one assumes is now John’s story, you get something far more creative, far more complex, and vastly more interesting than killing off a woman simply because you can. While that isn’t to say that Sheriff Kerry will make it out of Lanterns season one alive, at least her death isn’t a motivation — and that’s a big step forward for not only storytelling, but for the Lantern legacy.

Lanterns airs Sunday nights on HBO.