A small town in Nebraska, a pair of cops, a dead body and a secret far larger than the people of Rushville are prepared for. That is the premise of HBO’s Lanterns, and it’s exactly why the series succeeds.
Take away the power rings and the nods to the comics, and what’s left in Lanterns is a detective show, and a strong one. Kyle Chandler plays veteran Green Lantern Hal Jordan, and Aaron Pierre plays John Stewart, the new recruit who will eventually inherit Hal’s mantle. Together they take on a grim murder case that gradually widens into a cosmic conspiracy. The show was created by Chris Mundy (Ozark), Damon Lindelof (Watchmen) and comics writer Tom King, and the trio plainly understands what actually drives it.
There’s superhero material in every corner. The series is strongest, though, when it commits to the mystery, which never gets predictable, and to the rapport between Chandler and Pierre, which holds up the show’s deliberate pace.
If Lanterns has left you hungry for more hard-boiled mystery, you’re in luck. There’s no shortage of great detective shows out there. Most of them simply skip the magic rings and exploding aliens. Here are five worth queuing up once the season is over.
Start with True Detective
Streaming on: HBO Max
Viewers keep holding Lanterns up against True Detective, and the comparison fits. The anthology moves slowly and (usually) puts two detectives on one case. Season 1, starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey as Marty and Rust, is likely the closest thematic cousin to Lanterns.
Keep going after that. Season 2 didn’t match the first, but it works as a grim California noir packed with moody, doomed figures such as Ray Velcoro (Colin Farrell) and Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams). Season 3 steadies the ship, with Mahershala Ali giving a masterful performance at the heart of a mystery about aging and memory.
The newest installment, Night Country, delivers another strong duo in Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis). Even without any link to Lanterns, True Detective would deserve a place here. It laid the groundwork for the modern take on the genre.
Spider-Noir drapes a faded hero in a trench coat
Streaming on: Prime Video
For something nearer to the Lanterns recipe, comic book source material that won’t follow superhero conventions, this is the one. In 1930s New York City, aging private investigator Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage) is struggling to cover his bills. Some extraordinary events then nudge him back toward the suit of the Spider, a role he abandoned years earlier.
Reilly is as world-weary as they come. Picture Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep, only he’s also a superhero long past his best days.
The series leans heavily on noir and hard-boiled fiction, and its Depression-era world feels authentic. A melancholy mood hangs over all of it (particularly in the high-contrast black-and-white version), setting it apart from most standalone superhero mysteries. The action sequences are striking and memorable, yet it’s the quieter character moments that make Reilly worth following. It’s a gorgeous, clever show with a clear sense of its own identity.
The X-Files set the template for detective duos
Streaming on: Hulu
Any conversation about investigative partners has to include Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). Both series do share an extraterrestrial element, although The X-Files largely sticks to grounded cases built on dark secrets.
The show runs on sustained paranoia and tension, blending conspiracy with the paranormal. Mulder is the believer, Scully the skeptic, and that tug-of-war is its core. It also learned early on how to balance monster-of-the-week installments with a larger serialized story, including the enigma of the Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis), who lurks across all 11 seasons.
The mythology does get tangled, and the later seasons take big swings trying to outdo earlier revelations. That matters less than you might expect, since the real appeal is seeing Mulder and Scully evolve. Their relationship is what holds the whole thing up.
Mare of Easttown gets more out of seven episodes
Streaming on: Prime Video
This is the pick for anyone drawn to the small-town secrets of Lanterns. Detective “Mare” (Kate Winslet) looks into the murder of a teenage mother and the disappearance of a young girl, while gradually unraveling under the weight of her own personal troubles.
Easttown, Pennsylvania, is suffocating. Everyone has their eyes on Mare, and she can neither dodge their expectations nor get far enough from the job to sort out her own life. The series is less interested in slick whodunit mechanics than in grief and how people in a close-knit community bear it.
Its length may be its greatest strength. It ties everything off in seven episodes and keeps its focus squarely on Mare, a compelling character study. It’s grim, and it won’t suit everyone. But for fans of small-town mysteries driven by terrific performances, it’s tough to top.
Watchmen is the Lindelof tie-in you should have predicted
Streaming on: Prime Video
Lindelof is the clear connection, but the 2019 limited series stands on its own merits. Set 34 years after Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ comic, it takes a subversive approach to already brilliant source material and constructs an alternate history of the 20th century.
It drags the real-world Tulsa massacre out of buried history and places it at the forefront, using a grounded superhero lens to explore historical racism and generational trauma. A large part of the story tracks masked police detective Angela Abar (Regina King) and her colleagues as they pursue a knotted conspiracy connected to a white supremacist group known as the Seventh Kavalry.
Rather than a conventional whodunit, it’s a puzzle box that rearranges timelines and viewpoints so every payoff lands with more force. It feels built for our turbulent present, offering a scathing, prescient critique of state-sanctioned violence and how often it entrenches systemic bigotry.