Patrik Walker is an Emmy Award–winning writer who covers all things Comics & Superheroes. His work can also be found at the Dallas Cowboys, The Sporting News, and CBS Sports, among other outlets. One of the most respected names in his field, he is also a diehard enthusiast of all things comics, anime, gaming and movies — thriving in spaces where discussions involving those or similar topics reign supreme.
What if, one day, you discovered one of the DC Comics superheroes in the Lantern Corps (Green) was once a New York City detective — opposite Olivia Benson. That day is today, friends, because, yes, there's a version of Green Lantern that was once portrayed by Chris Meloni, the famed Detective Elliot Stabler from Law & Order fame (Special Victims Unit and Organized Crime).
It's a project that has been forgotten by most, but it's back in the limelight for 2026, thanks to Warner Bros. dragging it out of the vault and dusting it off for HBO Max. On January 1, fans of the Lantern Corps will have a chance to either rewatch or to feast their eyes for the first time on Green Lantern: First Flight, an animated movie with Meloni voicing Hal Jordan — the first-ever human to be honored with a green ring from the Lanterns.
Meloni's Jordan was written by Alan Burnett, produced by Bruce Timm and directed by Lauren Montgomery as a part of the DC Universe Animated Original Movies (yeah, that's a mouthful) for Warner Bros. in 2009, and also saw a run on Cartoon Network a few months later. The film sees Hal Jordan combat the supervillain and regular headache of the Lanterns Corps, Sinestro, who has come to odds with the Guardians of the Galaxy over what he perceives to be a softened way of handling justice.
Loosely put, the Guardians handle crime after the fact, and Sinestro wants to proactively eliminate the threats before they have a chance to break the law — shades of Minority Report, if you will.
Chris Meloni's Green Lantern Is Worth the Watch
Image via DC ComicsExpect a much different version than the one portrayed in the live-action series to come, also for HBO Max, titled Lanterns, but there's still a good bit of time before that arrives, thanks to a delay that pushed it to late Summer 2026 (Peter Safran, co-CEO of DC Studios alongside James Gunn, explained this recently, by the way).
"It was about when it made sense for it to be released, so (HBO Max) could get the right lead in, the right promotion. Because it's an important show for everybody, and the show is going to be great. It was about the right timing, so it's going to be… it's late summer. But there's a reason for it."
Having now enjoyed Nathan FIllion's Guy Gardner in 2025's Superman and impatiently awaiting 2026's Lanterns, there's no reason to not revisit an animated gem by way of Green Lantern: First Flight, an excellent way to ring in the new year and, let's be honest here, nobody has ever consistently taken issue with many of the DC Animated Universe, anyway, so it's truly safe to have high hopes when pressing play on this one. After all, it's not as if it's the live-action one starring Ryan Reynolds, of which, as a consensus, DC fans try to never, ever speak of.
Release Date July 28, 2009
English (US) · 