David Ramsey finally explains Diggle’s Arrowverse return, fallout from that Green Lantern cliffhanger

We’ve known for a while that David Ramsey would be coming back to the Arrowverse as both an actor and director, and now we finally have some details on how John Diggle will fit into a post-Arrow world.

Ramsey opened up to TV Line about his return, and addressed some wild DC Comics rumors fairly straight-on. Despite tons of speculation, no, Diggle will not be playing a Green Lantern when he shows up across Batwoman, Legends of Tomorrow, and more in the coming months. Instead, he’ll be playing a Wild West era character on Legends of Tomorrow. We don’t know much about the role, but if other guest casting is any guide, he’s likely a distant relative of the Diggle we know and love.

But what about that final shot of Diggle in the Arrow series finale, where we see him approached by a mysterious, green glowing object that many assumed was a Green Lantern ring by any other name? Well, that did happen — Diggle just declined to join up with those mysterious, green glowing heroes.

“[We’ll be] exploring what has happened to Diggle since encountering that green box, that will be explored in the other episodes – on Batwoman, Flash, Superman & Lois, and Supergirl. Whatever was in the box, he refused the invitation of. Let’s put it like that. But there are consequences to that,” he told TV Line. “[A]fter Crisis, he got back his wife, who was abducted by the Monitor, and he got back his daughter Sara, who was taken out of existence by Flashpoint. So part of Diggle’s story is that the last thing he would want to do right now is receive an invitation from something otherworldly, because he finally has his family back, and he lost his best friend to some otherworldliness.”

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Instead, Diggle remains Earth-bound and is helping his wife Lyla save the world in their own way while running A.R.G.U.S. So those A.R.G.U.S. duties will be part of what drives Diggle around the current state of the Arrowverse this year. He heads to Gotham to meet up with a doctor to try and address some debilitating headaches, and it sounds like his other appearances across Flash, Superman & Lois and Supergirl will be present day roles.

But on Legends, he’ll be playing the mystery cowboy and not a Green Lantern. So — the mystery of Diggle’s return has finally been solved. And sadly, we'll have to wait for that HBO Max series to see some real-life Green Lanterns on the small screen.

“Life for Diggle post-Crisis continues in the sense that he is a father and he continues to be an earthbound hero, but his duties at A.R.G.U.S. have multiplied,” Ramsey said. “But within that, he’s hiding something, and that’s part of what we’re telling in these stories.”

Ramsey directed the May 25 episode of Superman & Lois, and he’ll make his first on-screen appearance in Batwoman’s June 13 episode, with Diggle sightings to continue rolling out for several weeks across the other Arrowverse shows.