When I spoke to Tom King, he was in an interesting spot.

A few weeks earlier “Supergirl,” an adaptation of his beloved 2021 comic book series “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow” (with art by Bilquis Evely) opened in theaters, where it underperformed and netted some harsh reviews (and which, it should be noted, King himself had nothing to do with), and we spoke a few weeks before “Lanterns,” his hotly anticipated new HBO series co-created by Damon Lindelof and Chris Mundy, debuts on HBO. Amidst all of this, King stopped off at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival to preview his new animated series “Mister Miracle,” based on his 2017 comic book.

Not that he seems particularly flustered. King is, after all, a former CIA operative, who uses his time management skills to stay awake and alert almost around-the-clock to finish his various commitments (he’s also in the midst of writing an “Archie” movie for Phil Lord and Chris Miller).

Of “Supergirl,” King said that he feels nothing but gratitude.

“That book started so small with so few people that believed in it, and even when it launched, it didn’t sell right off the bat, and it really was like wonderful nerds at comic book stores telling people about it and hand selling it and talking about it and then posting about it,” King said about his “Supergirl” book. “And that groundswell of support got it noticed. Now it’s like one of the bestselling comics of all time, and it all just came from literal word of mouth of people supporting a book they didn’t have to support. There’s this sense of, when I’m seeing the movie, what gratitude I have for those people. That’s a big emotion, and just seeing one of the planets is named after my daughter and getting teared up at that. So there’s that emotion. There’s the joy in Millie [Alcock]’s performance of embodying the rebellious nature of that character and how brilliant she brought it to life.”

Even if “Supergirl” wasn’t a hit, it doesn’t taint the original material, that’s for sure.

“Every time it goes out in the world, I feel it’s like it’s a ticket to join comics. It’s a welcome to my industry and that to me is pure joy,” said King.

And while King may be able to shake off the disappointment of “Supergirl,” his own HBO series “Lanterns” is arriving at a precarious time in the DC timeline. A number of shows proposed by Gunn and Safran, like a new “Wonder Woman” series called “Paradise Lost” and a “Peacemaker” spinoff centered on Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller character, have failed to materialize. What was once thought to be a grand, sweeping vista full of popular superheroes seems oddly narrow in scope.

And “Lanterns,” initially announced by Gunn and Safran but seemingly without their hands-on involvement, is looking to both widen the DC Universe but also attract an entire new set of fans – those more interested in the mature, sophisticated storytelling of HBO mainstays like “True Detective” than in whatever comic book issue is on the spinner rack in their local pharmacy.

But if there’s one man who is up for a challenge, it’s King.

Issue One

“Lanterns” was born in the same primordial soup as the “Supergirl” adaptation. In the earliest days of DC Studios, the Warner Bros. division run by James Gunn and Peter Safran, a writers room was assembled with television and film writers. King “was the comic book nerd in the room.”

The group started throwing around ideas as the central thesis of DC Studios solidified – a single, overarching story where actors would perform as characters across animation, live-action and videogames, where stories would weave in and out of one another to create a grand, ambitious macro-narrative. One idea that King put forth “was sort of a ‘Training Day’/’True Detective’ Green Lantern series.”

This elevator pitch started as a question – What could a “Green Lantern” show look like and what would we look at? “These are space cops. I want to see an awesome space cop show. We’ve never seen that version of it before, about two partners. I want to see the 9 o’clock HBO version. That’s literally what we said,” King said.

That became his pitch.

At the end of the day, after all the brainstorming had subsided, Gunn and Safran approached the whiteboard and asked King, “What are you interested in working on?” King told them that he wanted to work on the “Green Lantern” idea. “I think that would be something brilliant, so I want to work on that,” King told Gunn and Safran.

And so he did.

A brief history of the Green Lantern

The character of Green Lantern first appeared in All-American Comics #16, published in July of 1940. While the character and his attributes have changed over time, there are a few characteristics that have become steadfastly Green Lantern-coded – he has a magic ring, is allergic to the color yellow, has no fear and can conjure virtually anything he can imagine. The Green Lantern Corps introduced the idea that there are Green Lanterns all over the galaxy, each patrolling their own sector.

As a character, the Green Lantern has been notoriously difficult to adapt.

Kyle Chandler in “Lanterns” (HBO/DC Studios)

In 2011, Ryan Reynolds appeared as Hal Jordan in “Green Lantern,” a giant, expensive superhero movie that disappointed audiences (making $237 globally on a budget of $200 million) and critics alike and that Reynolds has mocked endlessly in his “Deadpool” movies. There were references to Green Lantern Alan Scott in the short-lived live-action series “Stargirl,” which ran on DC Universe and then the CW. And there was an assortment of Green Lantern animated material, from appearing in the 1977 series “Super Friends” to the short-lived “Green Lantern: The Animated Series,” to popping up in “The LEGO Movie.” He also made an impression in “Justice League: Unlimited,” an animated follow-up to “Batman: The Animated Series” which did much to canonize John Stewart as modern audience’s go-to Green Lantern.

For one of DC’s oldest and most storied superheroes, that’s not a lot of representation.

But in 2025’s “Superman,” Gunn decided to introduce Guy Gardner (played by Nathan Fillion), Earth’s egotistical Green Lantern who constantly butts heads with Superman. As the first film in DC Studios’ new DC Universe, it at least made clear that the Green Lantern – or Green Lanterns – were going to be important.

“Lanterns” imagines two members of the Corps – Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), as they investigate a murder in Nebraska that might have intergalactic overtones. We are forbidden from giving any plot specifics but just know that it is good. Real good.

Secret origins

When developing “Lanterns,” King new he couldn’t do it alone.“I was like, How do you make an HBO show? No one is better at that genre than Damon Lindelof,” King said. He knew Lindelof a little bit. The two had been working on “Watchmen”-related projects at around the same time – Lindelof on his Emmy-winning HBO series and King on his “Rorschach” comic book (which itself was loosely connected to Lindelof’s series). Around the same time Gunn and Safran suggested Lindelof for “Lanterns,” which King was thrilled by.

“I was very much the student in the room as a comic writer, not a TV writer. Damon’s a freaking genius. He belongs in the Mount Rushmore of TV writers,” said King.

Because King was living in D.C. and Lindelof had his own projects to worry about, they needed an incredible showrunner to run the day-to-day of the series. “Running a show is a whole endeavor,” said King. HBO suggested Chris Mundy, who had helped out on the latest season of “True Detective” after wrapping up his hit Netflix series “Ozark.” Both Lindelof and King were huge “Ozark” fans.

King and Lindelof gathered at Mundy’s house. They hit it off and discussed where the show could go and what they could accomplish with “Lanterns.”

HBO/DC

“The writers’ strike hit the next day and we didn’t see each other for six months,” King said.

Okay, that last part might be a little dramatic. ”We did see each other but we were contractually obligated not to talk about the material,” King admitted. “It was horribly frustrating to be like, Here’s this thing. Here’s two incredible people. Here’s Chris ready to lead the show and be the showrunner and Damon and I ready to do our thing, which is to fight over ideas. And then it was nothing for six months. Who knows what’s going to happen the other side of that? It could all die.”

King had been working during the strike – comics aren’t covered by the WGA – but the day that the strike ended, he got a call from Safran. His first question to King was, “Hey, where’s ‘Lanterns?’” King was relieved; it wasn’t dead. King texted Lindelof and Mundy. They were off to the races.

As for his approach to the character, King rattles off a list of creatives who have informed the version of John Stewart on “Lanterns.” (This character was created 40 years ago and has had many changes and updates in that time.) King cites legendary comic book writer Neil Adams; Dwayne McDuffie’s work on animated projects like “Justice League Unlimited;” Jim Starlin’s series “Cosmic Odyssey” (I had to look it up, it was a four-issue limited series in 1988 with artwork by Mike Mignola); and Geoff Johns’ “Rebirth” series and inspirations.

“And then we added just a little bit of our own creativity. I feel it’s a take on what’s in the comics. It’s not a recreation of what’s in the comics,” said King. “Lanterns has been around since 1940, so that’s 85 years of history. There are pieces everywhere that we were looking and taking from.”

Super-team

King demurs when you try and give him too much credit for “Lanterns.”

“It’s Chris Mundy’s vision and it was formed by a writers’ room of more people than me. I don’t want to say this was my vision of anything,” he said. But he did co-create “Lanterns.” And his playfully deconstructionist view of superheroes, less impish than Grant Morrison, not quite as erudite as Alan Moore, is all over “Lanterns” – its investigation of masculinity and responsibility, the odd contours of what a hero can be, the way that shades of characterization glimmer unexpectedly.

“I could tell that the original intentions and the stuff that Chris and Damon and I all talked about that fed into what Chris put together here, which is to say, from the beginning, it was to contrast superheroes. A lot of superhero content had lost its weight just because they felt so inhuman on some level,” King said, referring to “the characters and the world they were building.”

With “Lanterns,” King wanted superheroes who felt real again.

“So that when you looked at the screen, you felt like when they were touching earth, they were touching actual earth. When they were getting into fights, they were actually hurting. It wasn’t all green screens and CGI. I wanted to create something where these people that are gods are actually humans, because that raises the stakes so much when you realize that they can get hurt, that they’re just like us,” said King. “Superheroes can get lost in all the fuzzy nonsense of superpowers. I wanted to bring up the character and the actual adventures that come with this genre, which is what I’ve always done in my work.”

Kelly Macdonald as Kerry, Aaron Pierre as John Stewart and Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan in “Lanterns” (HBO Max)

King said that he’s always trying to do, in the comic book space, what Lindelof does in the TV space. “I’m trying to write ‘Mad Men.’ I’m trying to write ‘Leftovers’ with comics. I was trying to bring that same energy that I did in comic books like ‘Mister Miracle,’ like ‘Strange Adventures,’ like ‘Supergirl,’ to ‘Lanterns,’” King said.

“Lanterns” unfolds over multiple timelines, with unique mysteries embedded in each, something that Lindelof is intimately familiar with.

“I very much remember Damon and I’s first conversation about what makes a great TV show, just talking very abstractly, and he’s like, ‘We should do multiple timelines,’” King said.

Guy Gardner’s appearance in “Superman” actually gave them something to work from, because if he is the Green Lantern for Earth in “Superman,” where does Hal Jordan fit in? And John Stewart?

“How does that make sense? What happened? How do we answer that? That’s just a very basic story question before we got into character and stuff,” King said. “Something has happened to prevent them from having those rings or explains why they’re not in the Superman movie that happened in the past. So like OK, let’s tell a story about now and about the past, and that organically developed in there.”

We had heard that there was some discussion with HBO brass about just how nonlinear the show should (or could) be. King confirmed that there were talks about “how best to present that sort of time jump to the audience throughout the entire series,” but defers to Mundy, who he said “can speak better to how the decisions were made on the best way to present, because that’s his job, not mine.”

An excellent dodge. Superheroic, you could say.

When it came to casting John Stewart, King said that they looked far and wide for the right actor. “There were many young actors in Hollywood who approached us,” King said. Many of them said that it was a part they had always wanted to play. “He’s never been portrayed in live-action in a big way before and our goal was always to elevate the character and be like, ‘This is a guy who could stand up there with the other gods and go toe-to-toe,’” King said.

They wanted to make him like DC’s Thor.

And the generation vying for the role was raised on the “Justice League” animated series of the early 2000s, where Stewart is the Green Lantern of that DC Universe. “The idea was to restore him to that, or was to lean into that provenance and to give him that shine that Dwayne McDuffie gave him in that show,” said King.

Around the time they were casting the show, “Rebel Ridge,” Jeremy Saulnier’s excellent Netflix thriller starring Pierre, was released. “You’re watching it and going, That’s John Stewart,” said King.

“There are very few people you meet and you’re like, Oh, that’s a superhero. Usually, you meet an actor in person. They’re a little smaller. They’re much more beautiful than normal people, don’t get me wrong. But they seem human. You meet Aaron, you’re like, This is a superhero. He has burning green eyes. He’s 6’3”. He has such a presence,” King said.

Rewatching the episodes, King was struck by Pierre’s performance. “He shines so much in this show. He is the heart and soul of the whole thing, from the beginning to the end. We can talk about the chemistry he and Kyle have, but we were so lucky to get him. He’s a wonderful committed guy.”

Perhaps most telling is the fact that Pierre will appear as John Stewart in next year’s “Man of Tomorrow,” a feature film “Superman” sequel written and directed by Gunn. “The sky’s the limit,” said King.

The sky is the limit for King too.

In the next issue

Should “Lanterns” return, Mundy will be joined by new co-showrunner Christopher Cantwell, and a writers room has already been opened while they await a greenlight decision from HBO. Lindelof is busy with bestseller adaptation “The Chain,” also at HBO, and King has “Mister Miracle.”

“I learned so much from Damon and Chris in terms of how to tell a story, how to elevate a story,” King said. “Lanterns,” he said, is the first in-universe HBO 9 o’clock show, “a peak TV in-universe superhero show to try and do that.” He wants to try the same thing with “Mister Miracle.”

The comic book, which is now 10 years old, is something that King is always approached about. Readers will talk about their favorite part or how much it affected them. “That book moves people like nothing else I’ve ever written,” King said. “It’s not a book about mental breakdown. It’s a book about mental recovery. And a lot of people have gone through that and have recovered. And ‘Mister Miracle’ has sometimes helped with that.”

Considering the amount of people who have talked to him about it (he guesses thousands of people) and who have given him commentary, makes him feel like he’s had “10 years of audience feedback.” The new animated series is, in part, about “combining what the fans love about it with the lessons I learned from Chris and Damon to create something entirely new.”

King’s ambitions were driven by questions like, Can we create an animated series in that peak TV space? Can we create an adult animated series that lives in the “Breaking Bad,” “The Wire,” “White Lotus” part of pop culture, but is in the animated space?

“We’re doing it. We’re accomplishing it. It’s beautiful. It’s wonderful. We’re putting everything we have into taking this piece of art that I absolutely love and actually elevating it and making it better,” King said. “Now I get to actually get out there and create something, which is just an absolute privilege and joy,” he said.

He’s also working on the “Archie” movie for Lord and Miller and Universal. (He is also still writing comic books. His “Wonder Woman” series is wrapping up, he has a new creator-owned title dropping from Dark Horse called “Six of Us” and “more stuff” he didn’t detail.)

“Sometimes I’m talking about superheroes and suicide, and sometimes I’m talking about how much pizza Jughead can eat. My general schedule is I do ‘Mister Miracle’ all day, then I spend some time with my poor children, and then after they go to sleep, I work all night on ‘Archie,’” King said.

He shrugs. He’s in San Diego for Comic-Con and I can see the little layout of the hotel posted on the back of his hotel door.

“I get very little sleep, but that’s okay because back in my CIA training days, we were trained for sleep deprivation, so I can live off of very little. It’s finally paying off 25 years later,” King said.

When it comes to creating some of the most compelling work in fiction, sleeplessness might be the ultimate superpower.