Even though he never would have gone “full Green Lantern,” there were plans to make the connection a lot clearer to fans.
The history of Arrow’s John Diggle as a Green Lantern stand-in is long and sometimes frustrating — even for the people making the show. Because of the long-standing relationship between Green Lantern and Green Arrow in the comics, some fans almost immediately perked up when Oliver’s bodyguard/sidekick/best friend on TV turned out to be a Black former Marine named John. It didn’t seem to matter much that Oliver Queen is typically shown as teaming up with Hal Jordan, not John Stewart, or that Diggle’s last name was…well…Diggle. The speculation persisted until the show finally started to toy with the idea.
Eventually, in the series finale, Diggle was knocked over by some kind of cosmic item which audiences knew was a Green Lantern ring. In the previous season, we had met his stepfather, whose name was Stewart and who “basically” raised Diggle, so the accepted interpretation was that John was embracing his destiny (even if it was too expensive for us to see it on TV). There was another bit after the fact, where The Flash more or less said “eh, he didn’t like being a Green Lantern so forget about that,” but that’s a different conversation.
John Diggle (David Ramsey) in the Arrow finale.
– Warner Bros. TV/The CW)
The point is, there was a seemingly never-ending give-and-take between what fans (and actor David Ramsey) wanted and what producers were actually allowed to give. Since Ramsey wanted to continue appearing as John Diggle — who kind of became the Arrowverse’s Nick Fury, able to move between basically any show due to his official relationship with A.R.G.U.S. and his personal relationships with the heroes — that final “ending” couldn’t be an “ending” without getting approval to suit him up as a Green Lantern — something that either DC, or Warner Bros., or both, was always unwilling to give.
In the latest issue of his Legal Dispatch newsletter, Guggenheim addressed questions about this from “a friend…in the comic book community.” He confirmed that Diggle as a GL was always a non-starter, but they had tried and failed to get him a costume upgrade for the final season of Arrow:
“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,” Guggenheim said. “For example, check out the proposed Season 8 costume for Dig that we weren’t able to slip past the powers that be.” He actually shared two — one very Green Lantern-inspired jacket, and a second that he called more “subtle,” but that’s still pretty identifiable if you see it in the right light:
…It’s not hard to imagine that, if these had snuck past, the chest emblem would have lit up just right when that ring box opened at the end of the show. It’s worth noting the production name was “Green Spartan,” with Spartan being Diggle’s official callsign within A.R.G.U.S. and Team Arrow.
Guggenheim praised the work of Costume Designer Brie Thorpe and Illustrator Keith Lau on the sadly-unused designs.
There’s a lot of unspoken baggage here: first, this sketch comes the same week set photos from James Gunn’s Superman emerged, with some fans excited to see their first look at Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner in action, but just as many pretty unhappy with the look, drawing comparisons to the failed Justice League of America pilot from 1997. Of course, any costume fans don’t like also draws comparisons to The CW’s costumes, which ranged from feature-film quality to “dude in a leather jacket,” the latter being especially common on Arrow (where they were mostly just street-level vigilantes) and Smallville (where it first became a running gag).
Besides all of that, Guggenheim and Arrowverse boss Greg Berlanti both worked on the failed Green Lantern movie. They, along with Michael Green and Michael Goldenberg, were credited as screenwriters on the film (although an earlier draft of the script, available online, shows how wildly different the final product ended up). Guggenheim has spoken before about how, when The CW approached the pair to pitch on Arrow, he was so nervous about being seen as a “superhero killer” that one of the conditions was, if the show didn’t go forward, nobody would ever known it happened at all.
Of course, it did go on to happen, run for eight seasons, and spawn a sprawling shared universe that is the biggest DC Universe ever in live-action. Even if it never got a real Green Lantern.
