Zack Snyder is posting Green Lantern again.
On Friday, Snyder shared a four-panel fan edit from Zack Snyder’s Justice League on Instagram: the ancient Green Lantern Yalan Gur blasting away at Darkseid, Darkseid swatting the beam aside, the Lantern’s severed hand on the battlefield, and Darkseid grabbing for the ring’s green light as it escapes him.
“Imagine if he had gotten that ring,” Snyder wrote.
He set the post to “That Terrible Strength,” Tom Holkenborg’s track from the Zack Snyder’s Justice League score.
The timing: HBO’s Lanterns airs its season finale Sunday, October 4.
‘Zack Firing Shots And We Love It’
The post blew past 1,800 likes within minutes, and the comments went straight to the HBO show.
“ZACK FIRING SHOTS AND WE LOVE IT,” reads the top comment.
“Your Green Lantern has more green than Lanterns,” wrote another fan.
More: “Your JL was already beyond…” “It would of been a problem.” And over and over: “Come back Zack!” and “COME BACK TO THE DC!!!!”
The comparison writes itself. Lanterns killed off Hal Jordan in the first episode, then confirmed it in Episode 6.
The series has also taken flak all season for how little ring-slinging it actually shows.
Snyder’s post is a Green Lantern at full power against Darkseid himself.
Snyder, for his part, has said he’s not watching any of the new DCU: no Superman, no Supergirl, no Lanterns.
Lanterns Heads Into Its Finale With No Season 2 Greenlight
The post also lands on a rough news week for the show.
HBO revealed Episode 7 drew 7 million U.S. viewers across its first three days. That is way below The Penguin, which averaged more than 27 million viewers per episode and still never got a second season.
Then on Thursday, a new rumor claimed the Season 2 writers room has staffed up: Vanessa Baden Kelly returning alongside newcomers Nakkiah Lui, Zack Whedon, and Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, five writers working under showrunner Chris Mundy, with Chris Cantwell aboard as writer and executive producer since May.
Yes, that Whedon. Zack Whedon is the younger brother of Joss Whedon, who took over Justice League from Snyder in 2017.
There is still no show to write for. HBO boss Casey Bloys said it on the record last month: no Lanterns Season 2 is in development, and no other DCU projects beyond Grodd.
A writers room has never been a renewal.
This Is Not The First Time
Snyder has seemingly weighed in on Lanterns before.
Back in March, when the first Lanterns trailer was getting roasted for its dull, brown color palette, fans caught Snyder liking a viral post pointing out that his Green Lantern scene was shot in his driveway and still looked more like Green Lantern than the HBO series.
Days later, Snyder posted new images of Wayne T. Carr suited up as John Stewart, the hero cut from Zack Snyder’s Justice League when Warner Bros. made him swap in Martian Manhunter.
“Some paths remain unseen… but the green glow is still out there,” Snyder wrote at the time.
The Merger Is Days From Closing
Snyder has also been on a posting run.
On Batman Day it was Batfleck. On Wednesday it was Batman v Superman production art, one day after our exclusive that The Dark Knight Returns is being looked at as a two-part event movie, the graphic novel with no changes.
Now it’s Darkseid and a Green Lantern ring, two days before the Lanterns finale.
All of it comes with the Paramount-Warner Bros. deal about to close. Paramount settled with California last month, and the $111 billion merger is set to close by early October.
Snyder asked fans to imagine Darkseid with the ring. His comments are imagining something else: Snyder back at DC.
