‘Lanterns’ Episode 4 Introduces A Big Green Lantern Villain

HBO’s latest hit series and its third DC adaptation, Lanterns, has officially reached the halfway mark, and while we are yet to fully uncover the mystery of the Manhunters, the DC Universe has added yet another iconic Green Lantern character to its ranks.

Over the course of episode four, Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) are forced to investigate what appears to be a type of alien drone strike. They track the location where the strike was being commanded from and find out that it originated from a slaughterhouse. In the slaughterhouse, they find a room with alien sensors and portals, including a slaughtering room that uses lasers to kill cows. After exploring the facility for a while, they find the operator of the slaughterhouse, a man named Hector Hammond, who reveals himself to be a Manhunter.

The three begin talking, when Hammond calls out John’s parent’s home address and threatens to harm his parents. He tells John to call the aliens that asked him to track the Hunter. He reveals that he listens in on Hal and John’s conversation, revealing that John plans to take Hal’s ring. Hal doesn’t believe Hector is the Manhunter so he threatens him, Hector cracks and reveals that he isnt the Manhunter, and that he is just a human with the Macons (Garrett Dillahunt’s William) behind the strike.

In the comics, Hector Hammond is an evil genius who utilises the meteorite that gives Gorilla Grodd and Gorilla City their powers to experiment on others. He is later stopped by Hal Jordan, but when he breaks out of prison, he uses the meteorite on himself and his brain grows to inhuman proportions, granting him psionic powers as well as immortality. Hammond was created by John Broome and Gil Kane in 1961 for Green Lantern Vol. 2 #5

Hammond has once before appeared in live action, played by Peter Sarsgaard in Ryan Reynolds’ ill-fated Green Lantern film. He served as the primary antagonist of that movie. In that film, he is the son of a senator and old friend of Jordan’s (Reynolds), though when asked by Amanda Waller (Angela Bassett) to inspect the body of Abin-Sur, he is infected the DNA of Parallax and begins mutating into his villainous form.

With The People vs Gorilla Grodd in pre-production and his character still remaining a looming promise of threat, it is plausible that the DCU may be adapting Hector Hammond’s comic origin.

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