Warning: This HBCU story contains spoilers from Episode 3 of HBO’s Lanterns.
An HBCU alumnus is playing a significant role in the origin story of one of DC Comics’ most recognizable Black superheroes.
Actor J. Alphonse Nicholson, widely known for his acclaimed portrayal of Lil Murda on P-Valley, stars in HBO’s Lanterns as John Stewart Sr., father of Green Lantern John Stewart, played by Aaron Pierre.
And after three episodes, Nicholson’s character has become much more than simply the father of the show’s co-lead.
Episode 3, titled “OutKast,” takes viewers deep into the Stewart family’s history and reveals that John Sr. was actually approached by a Green Lantern ring before Hal Jordan ever received it.
HBCU alumnus becomes part of Green Lantern origin story
The episode flashes back to John Stewart’s infancy, when a mysterious green light enters the family’s home.
John Sr., portrayed by Nicholson, is lifted into the air and confronted with a deceptively simple question:
Is he afraid?
John Sr. answers yes.
That answer changes the trajectory of his family.
The ring ultimately passes him over and finds Hal Jordan, played by Kyle Chandler. The experience leaves John Sr. shaken and resentful, particularly after Jordan emerges publicly as the hero who received the opportunity that nearly belonged to him.
Nicholson gets some of his strongest material of the series as viewers see the psychological aftermath of that encounter.
His character isn’t merely someone who failed a superhero audition. He is a Black father trying to process an extraordinary experience that nobody around him initially has reason to believe.
That becomes particularly important when John’s mother, Bernadette, played by Jasmine Cephas Jones, eventually encounters one of the Guardians herself.
Episode 3 changes what we know about John Stewart
The Guardian explains that whatever attracted the ring to John Sr. could potentially be inherited by his infant son.
That revelation sets the Stewart family on an extraordinary course.
Bernadette becomes the driving force behind raising young John to conquer fear, believing her son could eventually receive the opportunity his father lost. John Sr. participates in a childhood that includes increasingly extreme exercises designed to make their son fearless.
It makes Episode 3 less of a traditional superhero story and more of a complicated family drama about race, fear, ambition, parenting and generational expectations.
The racial component is explicit. Bernadette challenges the Guardian over the fairness of asking a Black man living in America whether he experiences fear without understanding the world in which that man has lived.
That gives Nicholson’s character additional weight.
John Sr.’s admission that he was afraid isn’t portrayed simply as weakness. The series asks viewers to consider what fear means for a Black man—and whether an extraterrestrial power capable of choosing Earth’s heroes understands that context at all.
Nicholson’s road began at an HBCU
Long before entering the DC Universe, Nicholson’s own journey as a storyteller developed at North Carolina Central University.
The Greensboro, North Carolina native enrolled at NCCU in 2008 as a theater major. During his time at the HBCU, Nicholson developed his passion for storytelling and began acting professionally in 2009.
He eventually moved to New York City in 2014 and made his television debut on the CBS drama Blue Bloods.
His career has continued to expand.
Nicholson earned widespread recognition and an NAACP Image Award nomination for his performance as Lil Murda in the STARZ series P-Valley. His credits also include Just Mercy, Self Made, They Cloned Tyrone, the Broadway revival of A Soldier’s Play and the one-man production Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green.
Nicholson has also remained connected to his HBCU roots. He returned to North Carolina Central in 2022 as a featured guest for the university’s Rock the Lyceum lecture series.
From HBCU theater to the DC Universe
Episode 3 demonstrates just how substantial Nicholson’s latest role has become.
The hour largely functions as an origin story for Aaron Pierre’s John Stewart, explaining the unusual childhood that eventually produces the disciplined and seemingly fearless man viewers meet as an adult. It also reveals that the Guardians aren’t recruiting John simply to assist Hal Jordan—they’re considering him as Jordan’s replacement.
And Nicholson’s John Stewart Sr. sits near the beginning of that entire chain of events.
His encounter with the ring creates a ripple that reaches from one generation of the Stewart family to the next.
For an actor whose professional journey began while studying theater at an HBCU, Nicholson has now found himself helping reinvent the live-action history of one of DC’s most important Black superheroes.
From HBCU theater to P-Valley and now the DC Universe, J. Alphonse Nicholson’s stage keeps getting bigger.