Who Is Hector Hammond? His ‘Green Lantern’ Comics History, Explained

Did Lanterns just pull off a massive bait-and-switch on DC Comics fans? Certainly seems so.

In Episode 4 of Lanterns, John (Aaron Pierre) and Hal (Kyle Chandler) trace the satellite strike that blasted Zoe Macon (Poorna Jagannathan) and her truck to Timbuktu to a company called Atlas Inc., a company owned by Hector Hammond (Jason Manuel Olazabal), a mysterious businessman with a string of high-end slaughterhouses and virtually no history before the last few years.

Their investigation leads them to one of Hammond’s slaughterhouses, where he uses high-tech gadgetry to slaughter cows in ways that would make PETA faint. When they get there, Hammond is already anticipating their arrival. He reveals that he has been monitoring John’s calls and knows where his parents live. He threatens to use one of his satellites to destroy their home and plays Hal a recording of John calling Hal old, tired, and unworthy of the ring.

Hammond then claims that he is the Manhunter. But longtime DC fans already knew this was a lie.

In the comics, Hector Hammond is a Green Lantern villain who first appeared in 1961, Green Lantern Vol. 2 #15. He was a hoodlum who discovered a strange meteor that could accelerate human evolution. He is transformed into a highly evolved super-genius with an oversized brain. The transformation gives Hammond powerful telepathic and telekinetic abilities, including the ability to control other people’s minds and even take control of Green Lantern’s power ring. However, the extreme mutation caused his brain to become enormous, leading his physical body to atrophy.

And for anyone who remembers the 2011 Green Lantern movie starring Ryan Reynolds, Hammond should already be a familiar name. Peter Sarsgaard played a very different version of the character, a scientist who is exposed to the Parallax DNA.

For decades, Hector has been considered one of Green Lantern’s primary villains, repeatedly going up against the Corps. This makes what Lanterns does with him all the more surprising. Episode 4 turns Hector Hammond into an elaborate red herring in the larger Manhunter mystery.

In the episode, Hal calls his bluff by threatening to kill him and pretending not to care whether Hammond attacks John’s family. The tactic works: Hammond admits that he is human and claims the real Manhunter is Will Macon. In the end, Hammond turns out to be another decoy rather than the Manhunter John and Hal have been hunting.

Much like the Episode 2 reference to a Green Lantern inside joke, “Mogo doesn’t socialize,” which refers to the living planet Green Lantern created by comic guru Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons, Lanterns continues to reward longtime DC fans with deep-cut references to the comics.

Lanterns, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO Max