Hal Jordan has been Earth's Green Lantern since 1986, which means he might have come into contact with a certain metahuman at some point. DC fans have been speculating that the superhero would likely have wanted to check out an alien spaceship crashing in Smallville, Kansas when Kal-El arrived after Krypton's fall.
As is usually the case with the Man of Steel's backstory, he is then raised by farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent. And, as one fan theorized, this might be what put Hal off from intervening. They suggested: "The concept of Hal checking out the crashed spaceship in Kansas only to see a tiny baby Clark in Ma & Pa's hands and immediately backing off because he can't 'take care' of this cutie patootie of a threat, so Hal just checks in regularly as Clark grows up."
Now this is a cute headcanon, but we're going to be honest, we're not sure that Hal is the caring, uncle type. Other fans weighed in too with their ideas, with one imagining that "young Clark sees Hal on TV all the time and wants to be a hero like that some day." This one does seem more likely as we've already seen a young John Stewart doing just that too.
There has been no indication yet that Superman and Hal have crossed paths, but given Nathan Fillion's Guy Gardner is set to appear and John will feature in the sequel Man of Tomorrow, it does seem likely their lives have intersected. We'll have to wait and see whether this gets addressed in the HBO show or not.
In the meantime, there is plenty to keep us busy while watching Lanterns as we try to uncover who killed Hal Jordan and who the Manhunter is. The show is airing weekly, so check out our Lanterns release schedule for how to watch and our Lanterns review for why you should be.
