Ellen Gray | Seeking a superhero

THE CLOSER. 9 tonight, TNT.

IN TNT'S "THE Closer," Corey Reynolds plays Sgt. David Gabriel, who occasionally bumps heads with his boss, Deputy Police Chief Brenda Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick), over his by-the-book approach to solving crime.

Offscreen, though, Reynolds is all about the comic books, not the rule books, and the only head-bumping he's likely to be doing is against anyone who might stand in the way of his dream of playing the Green Lantern on the big screen.

Sgt. Gabriel probably doesn't go home and read comics, Reynolds conceded during a recent swing through Philadelphia, "but one thing that I love about portraying a smart, well-spoken, articulate character who's a good guy on television is that it sets me up . . . in the way I want to be seen.

"A lot of young, minority characters on television aren't necessarily portrayed as articulate and intelligent as Gabriel is," he said, adding that the part wasn't originally written with a black actor in mind.

All that said, Gabriel's image might suffer a dent or two after tonight's "Closer," a special 70-minute episode in which the ambitious young sergeant loses his temper and "basically crosses some lines within the squad, and forces Brenda to make some difficult decisions," Reynolds said.

The episode, titled "Ruby," centers on the disappearance of a young African-American girl, and like most episodes of the summer's most-watched cable drama, turns on what happens in the interrogation room.

"It's really going to redefine what people think of Gabriel," said the actor, who's hoping the attention he's getting for "The Closer" will translate into some progress into his efforts to turn John Stewart - the African-American architect who's the alter-ego of one of the most popular Green Lanterns - into a big-screen action hero.

"Warner Bros., [which] owns DC Comics," and the rights to the Stewart character, "they're sitting on a 'Star Wars' epic," said Reynolds, who's already written a script for one movie and outlined the remaining stories for what he sees as - naturally - a trilogy.

"I'm really eager . . . to get in there and present my ideas to them, because 'The Closer's' produced by Warner Bros., so I now have a few friends over there," he added.