The Flash: Did Barry Just Create Connor Hawke?

Spoilers ahead for tonight’s episode of The Flash, titled “Paradox.”

Tonight on The Flash, producers finally learned how John Diggle was impacted by the events of “Flashpoint.”

And it ties into the events of a fan-favorite episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (titled “Star City 2046”) from last season. When Connor Hawke — the Green Arrow who succeeded Oliver Queen in the comics — was introduced on Legends, there was a pretty big difference between his comic book version and his TV take.

In the comics, Connor Hawke is the son of Oliver and his college girlfriend Sandra (half-Black and half-Korean). He is an expert martial artist and like his father, he too is a master archer. At one point when Oliver was believed to have died, Connor took up the mantle of the Green Arrow. In the New 52, Connor is known as the Red Arrow and is a member of The World Army.

On TV, Oliver’s illegitimate son is a 10-year-old named William, while Hawke is the chosen name of John Diggle, Jr., who soldiered on as the Green Arrow after almost every other vigilante was dead.

Of course, there was some confusion among fans there, too. That story took place thirty years in the future, and it seemed like, timeline-wise, it might be a tight fit.

After all, John Diggle and his wife Lyla Michaels only had a daughter, named for Sara Lance when she passed away just before the child’s birth.

Not anymore, though.

As an unintended consequence of Barry creating a new timeline, the post-Flashpoint version of Sara Diggle is apparently a boy — John Diggle, Jr.

Does this mean that the dangerous, miserable future of that Legends episode could come to pass? Or will it play into future seasons of Arrow? Only time — heh — will tell.

After his appearance on Arrow last year, Divergent actor Joseph David-Jones said that while they hadn’t talked specific plans, there was some chatter about bringing Connor back, in spite of his reality seemingly being altered by the events of “Star City 2046.”

“I know that a couple of the writers are trying to push to get me back in there, because they really do like what happened with the episode,” David-Jones said. “I know that they’re trying to put me back in there but I don’t know what they’re going to come up with or what even is going to happen with Connor Hawke, but I know they’ve been talking about potential different outcomes of it because they are plan on cycling out some of the cast from the ship. So I don’t know what’s going to happen, or if that timeline is still set until they actually do go back to the past.”

The Flash airs on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW. Arrow airs on Wednesday nights, same time and place. DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Thursdays at 8.