For years, fans theorised that Arrow's John Diggle was really John Stewart, a character better known to comic book readers as Green Lantern.
It's since been confirmed that the show's bosses considered combining both characters, only for Warner Bros. to step in because it had its own plans for the Stewart in theaters (the ill-fated Green Lantern Corps movie written by Geoff Johns).
Still, the final season of Arrow teased the possibility of Diggle becoming a member of the Corps when he opened a box and found a mysterious glowing green object inside; while it was never explicitly stated, the insinuation was that it was a Green Lantern ring.
Other DC TV shows followed Diggle's quest to open the box a second time, with Reverse-Flash eventually helping him to do so. Gifted with visions of the lives he could lead, the hero also known as Spartan rejected the unseen ring because it meant leaving his wife and child.
Now, Arrowverse boss Marc Guggenheim has revealed Diggle's planned Green Lantern costume in a new blog post.
A friend of mine from the comic book community recently texted me with the following question:
Was the plan for Diggle to actually suit up as GL? Obviously things got...weird with that arc, but what was the thought about his next steps?
Unfortunately, we never got the approval to go full 'Green Lantern' with Diggle, but we were always trying to push the envelope as much as possible. For example, check out the proposed Season 8 costume for Dig that we weren’t able to slip past the powers that be:
(Serious props to Costume Designer Brie Thorpe and Illustrator Keith Lau.)
Whether he'd have worn this as a Green Lantern or to tease his eventual transformation into Earth's cosmic protector is hard to say; either way, we're not sure it works!
"I think we successfully teased it for a number of years. The fans were expecting something," Diggle actor David Ramsey previously said of his aborted Green Lantern arc. "And I think, you know, there are a lot of reasons why things don’t happen. You know, it’s kind of like, do you have a week for me to talk about this?"
"There’s so many things above my pay grade that happened, that you will never know, that happened behind closed doors. And that’s fine," he continued. "But yeah, I think just to answer your question, it would have been great to put on the ring, and put my feet into the boots of John Stewart."
Do you think Diggle should have become the Arrowverse's John Stewart/Green Lantern?