{"id":896134,"date":"2026-09-18T04:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T04:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/896134\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T04:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T04:32:10","slug":"stuart-fails-to-save-the-universe-wanted-green-lantern-settled-for-flash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/896134\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Stuart Fails To Save The Universe’ Wanted Green Lantern, Settled For Flash"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from Thursday night\u2019s episode of HBO Max<\/a>\u2018s Stuart Fails to Save the Universe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the title of this week\u2019s episode (\u201cSpoiler: We Couldn\u2019t Get Green Lantern\u201d) suggests, the creators of Stuart Fails to Save the Universe really did want the Green Lantern to be at the center of the show\u2019s DC comic crossover.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnfortunately, the man without fear was already booked.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey told us we couldn\u2019t have him because of [HBO\u2019s live-action series] Lanterns, which I understood,\u201d Zak Penn<\/a>, one of the series\u2019 creators, revealed to Deadline. \u201cChuck [Lorre] was a little grumbly about it, but Bill and I pointed out to him that Flash was actually perfect. If we needed something that\u2019s going from dimension to dimension, Flash worked even better than Green Lantern.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLike Penn says, the episode ultimately sees Stuart (Kevin Sussman) and his friends stuck inside a comic book, where Mr. Freeze is terrorizing Gotham City. To get out of that dimension, they go off in search of Golden Age Flash for help. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was half opportunity and half what they encouraged us, but Golden Age Flash appealed to us a lot, just because he\u2019s kind of silly. No offense to Golden Age Flash,\u201d Penn said. <\/p>\n

\n\tIf it seems kind of backward that the gang would trek all the way to Central City to enlist The Flash to help them take on a villain in Batman\u2019s territory, that\u2019s the point. The writers reveled in the opportunity to poke fun at the more far-fetched notions accepted in comic lore.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBill [Prady] and I were laughing a lot [about] the whole notion of Gotham City isn\u2019t where New York City is, which makes no sense,\u201d Penn said. \u201cAll those things were just kind of built up humor and things that we felt about comic books. So, the next obvious decision was, in terms of a villain, let\u2019s put the villain who seems right and that people know more, and then have our characters comment on the fact that he\u2019s the wrong villain for this piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPenn is surely considered the superhero expert of the group as a Marvel vet who also famously wrote a script for a Suicide Squad film that went unused. However, he says his fellow creators Prady and Lorre, as well as several of the other writers, had their own affinity for DC comics to draw upon for the episode.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe and the writers thought a commentary on how a layperson would navigate a comic locale like Gotham City \u201cseemed like the perfect sense of humor for our show.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf you were in the DC universe, it would be pretty boring a lot of the time because you\u2019d just be sitting around waiting for planes,\u201d he laughs, adding that the irony is there\u2019s also a bit about that exact notion in an early episode of Lanterns. <\/p>\n

\n\tThat other DC show didn\u2019t steal all Stuart\u2018s thunder, though, and in fact there is plenty that the comedy series can get away with that its drama counterparts cannot in that the writers can lean into the quirks of these convoluted superhero universes rather than shy away.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOne of the things about this show that\u2019s really fun is that you know when you work on an actual comic book movie, you really have to be rigorous about the consistency of the reality, because people will pick you apart if you\u2019re not, and on this show we kind of took the attitude of \u2018we\u2019re going to purposely break things and then have the characters notice that the multiverse doesn\u2019t work as well as it should,’\u201d Penn explained. <\/p>\n

\n\tSimilarly, Penn says the episode could adopt a visual style more consistent with comic books without asking the audience to do more work suspending their disbelief.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[Director] Robbie McNeill deserves a lot of credit, because he really added a bunch of stuff, like the way the frames panel at certain points, which is something that I don\u2019t always think is effective. Back in the early days of comic book movies, when people did that, I think it really took you out of it,\u201d Penn told Deadline. \u201cBut this show\u2019s sense of humor needs that, so it was really helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe writers worked closely with DC\u2019s Jim Lee to develop the versions of the comic characters that appear in Thursday\u2019s episode. Lee teased the partnership<\/a> over the summer at San Diego Comic-Con, assuring the audience in Hall H that the DC IP would be in good hands with the Stuart team.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSome of the DC characters they have in it, I think are some of the best versions I\u2019ve seen of those characters, and so I\u2019m super excited for you guys,\u201d Lee said at the time.<\/p>\n

\n\tPenn, who had previously collaborated with Lee and the DC team on Ready Player One, remembered the Stuart reteam fondly: \u201cThey were great. They basically said, \u2018How can we help? Other than we won\u2019t give you Green Lantern.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe series has already been renewed for a second season ahead of next week\u2019s Season 1 finale. Penn tells Deadline he \u201cwould be shocked\u201d if the writers didn\u2019t once again mine from the DC universe in future episodes, but Season 2 is still in early stages.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe writers\u2019 room hasn\u2019t started yet. Next week, we\u2019re going to get back together and start talking about this,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from Thursday night\u2019s episode of HBO Max\u2018s Stuart Fails to Save the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,17300,52644,427,376083],"class_list":["post-896134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-hbo-max","tag-stuart-fails-to-save-the-universe","tag-tv","tag-zak-penn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}