When Lanterns’ series premiere ended with the discovery of Hal Jordan’s frozen corpse, it was met with a mixed response. It was certainly an intriguing hook for the show’s alien conspiracy — whatever threat they’re facing in 2016 is powerful and persistent enough to kill Hal in 2026 — but, at the same time, it seemed like the writers might be killing off the best part of the show before it had even really begun.

Hal’s death was mainly disconcerting because his “buddy cop” dynamic with John Stewart was what made the show work, and what made that pilot episode so engaging. Kyle Chandler shares electric chemistry with Aaron Pierre, and Hal and John still have a long road ahead before they reach a Riggs and Murtaugh-style mutual respect, so killing one of them would ruin that. But Lanterns’ second episode, “Trust Fall,” keeps Hal and John apart on separate solo adventures, and they’re just as much fun to watch on their own respective side quests. It was a ton of fun to see Chandler’s Hal ruffling feathers in Rushville in the A-story, and John’s B-story made me really excited to see him in Man of Tomorrow next year.

Pierre is great at playing John’s deadpan reactions to crazy things happening around him, almost like Jack Lowden’s turn as River Cartwright in Slow Horses. Both John and River take themselves super seriously, but keep getting in ridiculous, embarrassing situations where they have to save face. For River, it’s usually a false alarm during a training exercise, but for John — a Green Lantern in training — it could be anything from conjuring up a green bird that he has to keep alive or falling out the back of a van onto a busy highway. It’ll be endless fun to see that character as the voice of reason amidst the comic book craziness of James Gunn’s upcoming Superman sequel.

Green Lantern: The Animated Series Is A “Buddy Cop” Show Like Lanterns

Although the dreary trailers and the overall True Detective-style tone had some fans concerned, Lanterns has proven to be the hit that Gunn’s DCU needed to get back on track after the underperformance of Supergirl. Supergirl may have killed a lot of the hype that Superman created last summer, but Lanterns has restored some of that hype.

Thanks to Chandler and Pierre’s irresistible performances, Green Lantern is finally considered cool in the mainstream. After Ryan Reynolds’ live-action bomb in 2011, I didn’t think it could be done, but Lanterns has got casual viewers excited about the Guardians of the Universe and their cosmic footsoldiers. With all the hype around Lanterns, it’s the perfect time to check out the first Green Lantern TV show, Green Lantern: The Animated Series.

Although it was canceled after just one season, Green Lantern: The Animated Series was the best Green Lantern adaptation by far, and it’s still worth checking out. It has a similar “buddy cop” vibe to Lanterns, but in a cosmic setting. Green Lantern: The Animated Series starts out with Hal and his extraterrestrial partner Kilowog solving mysteries across the galaxy, but the team quickly expands into a kind of spacebound CSI ensemble.

Teams like the Avengers and the Justice League and the X-Men and the Fantastic Four are made up of costumed vigilantes doling out their own brand of justice. But the Green Lantern Corps is an intergalactic law enforcement agency; it’s an organized police force, so it opens itself up to the “buddy cop” and “police procedural” formats. Lanterns is a gritty, grounded, Earth-bound take on that concept, and it’s great in its own way, but Green Lantern: The Animated Series does the same thing on an intergalactic scale, so it’s much closer to the colorful, cosmic chaos of the comics.