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With connective threads of the DCU coming together all over the place, fans are wondering how Lanterns‘ dark and mature approach to Green Lantern lore will tie-in with Superman and the larger DCU “Gods and Monsters” story arc. Well, one star of the show may have some light to shine on that subject (pun intended), as he teases that his Lanterns role could be a DCU villain who is powerful enough to destroy an entire universe.
Actor Garret Dillahunt is best known for roles in HBO’s Deadwood, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, No Country for Old Men, the Last House on the Left remake, and a variety of other standout character actor roles in many acclaimed TV and movie projects. Dillahunt has been officially cast in Lanterns as “William Macon,” who is described as “A modern cowboy who hides his “self-righteous, conspiracy-minded’ personality behind a charming façade.” The name and that thin description have a lot of DC fans that Dillahunt is actually playing “William Derek Hand,” aka the DC villain “Black Hand.”
DC’s Black Hand & His Importance to Green Lantern Lore
In the comics, William Hand is the son of a successful industrial family and an inventor in his own right; that origin was later switched, and Hand became the disturbed son of a family of morticians, who had a sick obsession with death and corpses. After sliding into a life of crime, Hand eventually gets hold of a “Cosmic Rod” (left on Earth by the Red Lantern, Atrocitus), which can absorb the light power of a Green Lantern’s ring. He would use the device to become a regular foe of Green Lantern Hal Jordan.
Things took a drastic turn when, in the DC crossover event “Blackest Night,” William Hand began to hear an entity speaking to him through the rod. The entity compels Hand to kill his family and then himself, a blood sacrifice that transforms Black Hand into the avatar Death for the dark entity Nekron. The undead Black Hand became the vessel through which Nekron unleashed the “Black Power Rings” on the galaxy, re-animating dead heroes and villains to be Nekron’s zombie version of a Lantern Corps. Following Nekron’s defeat, Black Hand gained new powers (stone touch), battled the Green Lanterns more times, and founded his own death-worshipping cult.
It’s the “Blackest Night” connection that Lanterns fans are now speculating about. The show has cast actor Paul Ben-Victor as “Antaan,” which seems like an obvious placeholder for the character of Atrocitus and that tie-in lore. Lanterns as a whole is being teased as an investigation in an ominous bit of lore or prophecy from the Green Lantern Corps that may be threatening the galaxy – and Blackest Night would certainly fit that bill.
Lanterns will premiere on HBO in 2026.
