When Barry Allen traveled back in time to save his mother during the season two finale of ‘The Flash’, the Scarlet Speedster set in motion a series of events that would change the fates of many characters throughout the Arrowverse. One such modification was that instead of having little Sara, Lyla Michaels and John Diggle from ‘Arrow’ gave birth to a son named John Diggle Jr, which is a name that has popped up elsewhere on The CW. Fans may recall that when the crew of the Waverider visited Star City in the year 2046 on ‘Legends of Tomorrow’, the team encountered Connor Hawke AKA John Diggle Jr. AKA the Green Arrow. However, that was presumably a different timeline than the one that we’re in right now. So is the young John Jr. the same person that grows up to become 2046’s version of the Emerald Archer? Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim recently weighed in.
While discussing the matter with Entertainment Weekly, one of the architects of the popular DC Comics shows revealed that they haven’t actually settled on the answer to that question just yet:
“We go back and forth on that. That was certainly a notion of ours. It’s hard for me to honestly answer the question without committing to a version of time travel, because in order for that to be the case, then Flashpoint would’ve had to have happened. You start to get into the very, very complicated time travel rules that, quite frankly, I as a writer don’t have an appetite to answer unless we tell a story one day that deals with John Jr., and even then, I don’t know if we would directly address that issue head on. Anyone who watches Legends knows that, by design, we don’t spend a lot of time discussing temporal mechanics — some people like that and it annoys the hell out of other people.”
Time travel is a really tricky thing. Considering that the Legends traveled forward in the pre-Flashpoint timeline, one would assume that the 2046 with Connor Hawke no longer exists. But when Sara was born, that would mean that John Jr. was born later. So consider this: What if in the post-Flashpoint timeline, John Jr. was born first and then Sara becomes the second born? Barry’s time traveling debacle may have just shaken things up a bit and knocked some major events out of order. That could be an easy explanation to keep Connor Hawke in the Arrowverse if Guggenheim and company decide to revisit the character. Or, as he alluded to in his comments, they could just not address it. Either way, if that’s a direction that they want to take, then John Diggle certainly has an interesting future ahead of him.
Do you think that John Diggle Jr. from ‘Arrow’ will grow up to become Connor Hawke on ‘Legends of Tomorrow’? Or do you think that that timeline is long gone thanks to The Flash’s actions? Share your thoughts and theories in the comments.
Despite being a “professional writer”, Ben likes run-on sentences far too much. For more of his attempts at being funny and the occasional insightful thought, follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
