Warning: Justice League spoilers ahead! Read on at your own risk!
Justice League has officially debuted, and it seems safe to say that the long-awaited DC film has polarized audiences. The critical reaction to the superhero team-up hasn't been quite as welcoming as the one received by Wonder Woman earlier this year, but there are some aspects of the film that already have DC fans going nuts with glee. In fact, as far as Clerks director Kevin Smith is concerned, the Green Lantern tease during the film's central flashback sequence is a standout moment. Smith opened up during a recent episode of Hollywood Babble-On and explained:
And so, they showed an alien you've never seen before, but he had a green energy and a Lantern ring. So, the idea was like fucking lanterns even back in the first age like were defenders of the galaxy and they came to earth to help. So, there is this one moment in this battle, this throwaway moment, where a fucking lantern is killed and he fucking hits the ground and all of a sudden, the ring shoots off his finger and takes off into space. Oh my god shit like that, seeing that on the big screen after reading that in comics for so long and watching Ryan Reynolds do it once was really wonderful. So, there's moments like that that really did it for me.
That's a spot-on description of the scene in question, as it involves a flashback in which the Old Gods, the Amazons, the Atlanteans, the humans and several Green Lanterns faced off against Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds). Based on Kevin Smith's recent comments during that episode of Hollywood Babble-On, the sequence works for him because it establishes a mythology that the DCEU can mine further down the line. The appearance of a Green Lantern millennia in the past implies the existence of the Corps and the Guardians of the Universe, which in turn means that all of the great Green Lantern stories that many DC fans grew up loving are now officially on the table for use in a film.
Of course, amid all of Kevin Smith's enthusiasm for seeing a member of the Green Lantern Corps in Justice League, we're not sure if his reference to Ryan Reynolds' Hal Jordan drums up great memories. After all, Martin Campbell's Green Lantern is better left forgotten.
That said, the future does look brighter than ever for the wielders of the Power Rings. A Green Lantern Corps movie pairing up Hal Jordan and John Stewart is still reportedly in development at DC Entertainment, which means we will likely see human Lanterns enter the DCEU within the next few years. Justice League ends with the promise that Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) and Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) are leaving "room for more" at the table in the new Hall of Justice, so the green-clad space cops seem like logical next steps. Now that the very idea of the Green Lantern Corps having entered the DCEU, anything seems possible.
Justice League is now in theaters, so make sure to check it out!
