HBO's DC series "Lanterns" introduced the classic Green Lantern villain Hector Hammond in its fourth episode, though the show uses the character as a misdirection rather than a genuine threat. Co-creator Damon Lindelof and writer Justin Britt-Gibson drew on decades of comic book and film history to weave the character into the show's central mystery involving shapeshifting Manhunters, testing Lanterns John Stewart and Hal Jordan along the way.

In the episode, John and Hal trace a satellite attack to Atlas Inc, a company run by Hector Hammond (Jason Manuel Olazabal), whose lack of records before 1986 raises suspicions he is the rogue Manhunter they are hunting. After confronting him at a high-tech slaughterhouse and testing him with knowledge only a Manhunter would lack, Hal exposes Hammond as a fraud: he is really an engineer named Hector Gutierrez, bribed with advanced technology, who then reveals the true Manhunter is William Macon. The character originated in a 1961 comic by John Broome and Gil Kane and was previously played by Peter Sarsgaard in the 2011 "Green Lantern" film starring Ryan Reynolds.