Lanterns by The Upstairs Lounge
Aug 18, 2026 · 12 min · 6 segments
What exactly has Hal Jordan been doing with John Stewart for the last two months, and does any of it actually qualify as Green Lantern training? In this episode, I take a deep dive into the…
Whatever Hal Jordan has been doing with John Stewart for the last two months, John is increasingly convinced that it isn't training, and when he finally says so, Hal responds by calling him a substitute teacher, putting his Green Lantern ring on the dashboard, jumping out of a moving car, and leaving John to work out how to use it before the car reaches the bottom of a mountain, turning him back into a two-dimensional character.
Hal later calls that training.
Whether it was supposed to be training in the moment that he lost his temper is another question.
And John is right, at least by any definition of training we would normally recognize.
Two months in, he has never left Earth, hasn't worn the ring, and has not even been taught how to fly.
Hal casually tells him that he knows the drill when John's entire complaint is that nobody has shown him the drill.
Later, the ring itself will produce the most devastating assessment of Hal's methods possible.
A 10-year-old copy of Hal Jordan wakes up, discovers what his future self has apparently failed to cover, and is genuinely baffled.
So what is he up to? This is one of the biggest mysteries of the series so far.
Hal is either being neglectful, because whatever happened to him in the last 10 years has obviously left him in a place where he doesn't care anymore, or he's deliberately sabotaging John.
He has made it clear he neither wants to be replaced nor to give up his jewelry-shaped WMD.
Those are the two possibilities being pointed at, neglect or sabotage.
There's also an outside chance there will be a Mr. Miyagi explanation, in which two months of apparently useless chores turn out to have been teaching John exactly what he needed all along.
Perhaps Hal thinks the policing, judgment, and temperament have to come before the power ring.
Less likely, I think, but fine, it can stay on the board.
But right now the evidence mostly consists of John complaining that he is not being trained and Hal answering by throwing him off a mountain.
Whatever Hal Jordan has been doing with John Stewart for the last two months, John is increasingly convinced that it isn't training, and when he finally says so, Hal responds by calling him a substitute teacher, putting his Green Lantern ring on the dashboard, jumping out of a moving car, and leaving John to work out how to use it before the car reaches the bottom of a mountain, turning him back into a two-dimensional character.
Hal later calls that training.
Whether it was supposed to be training in the moment that he lost his temper is another question.
And John is right, at least by any definition of training we would normally recognize.
Two months in, he has never left Earth, hasn't worn the ring, and has not even been taught how to fly.
Hal casually tells him that he knows the drill when John's entire complaint is that nobody has shown him the drill.
Later, the ring itself will produce the most devastating assessment of Hal's methods possible.
A 10-year-old copy of Hal Jordan wakes up, discovers what his future self has apparently failed to cover, and is genuinely baffled.
So what is he up to? This is one of the biggest mysteries of the series so far.
Hal is either being neglectful, because whatever happened to him in the last 10 years has obviously left him in a place where he doesn't care anymore, or he's deliberately sabotaging John.
He has made it clear he neither wants to be replaced nor to give up his jewelry-shaped WMD.
Those are the two possibilities being pointed at, neglect or sabotage.
There's also an outside chance there will be a Mr. Miyagi explanation, in which two months of apparently useless chores turn out to have been teaching John exactly what he needed all along.
Perhaps Hal thinks the policing, judgment, and temperament have to come before the power ring.
Less likely, I think, but fine, it can stay on the board.
But right now the evidence mostly consists of John complaining that he is not being trained and Hal answering by throwing him off a mountain.
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