Arrowverse fans were convinced that Arrow's John Diggle was actually John Stewart, a character best known to comic book readers as Green Lantern (Aaron Pierre will finally bring the Justice League Unlimited fan-favourite in DC Studios' Lanterns next year).
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 Stewart in theaters, with the ill-fated Green Lantern Corps movie written by Geoff Johns. A TV show was also being made in conjunction with the big screen project.
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.
Talking to Screen Rant, David Ramsey reflected on nearly becoming the Arrowverse's Emerald Knight. "Marc [Guggenheim] and I tried for six seasons," he started. "Obviously, there is a lot of politics around property as big as Lantern."
"Of course, it would have been great," Ramsey continued, revealing that John Wesley Shipp's Flash from Earth-90 was supposed to "[come] from another universe to say, 'John, where's your ring?' Obviously, we had Colonel Stewart playing my father in Ernie Hudson...it wasn't for a lack of trying, but the right decision was made."
Explaining why it was for the best, Ramsey added, "I think, honestly, personally, there was so much going on at the time that it's in the hands it should be in now. Because I'm not quite sure what would have happened with as much as was going on politically, with the property. I think the reason why Diggle didn't become the Lantern was on point for his character."
Even if The CW hadn't pulled the plug on its Arrowverse TV shows one after the other, it's hard to say where Diggle's Green Lantern might have fit into plans for the character at the time.
As noted, Greg Berlanti had been developing a Green Lanterns TV series for HBO Max, revolving around Alan Scott, Guy Gardner, Simon Baz, and Jessica Cruz. DC Studios scrapped that and shifted the spotlight to John Stewart and Hal Jordan.
The closest these TV shows ever got to introducing Green Lantern came when Stargirl introduced Alan Scott's daughter, Jennifer-Lynn Hayden, a.k.a. Jade. By the time Lanterns premieres next year, the character will have been absent from our screens since 2011's Green Lantern.