What 'Arrow' Fans Need To Know After The 'Legends Of Tomorrow' Crossover; Who Is Connor Hawke?

Thursday night saw its most exciting episode of DC’s “Legends of Tomorrow” when it brought fans to "Arrow's" Star City. While visiting the home of The Green Arrow in the future, the spinoff series introduced a new character with major implications for the franchise’s canon.

At the end of last week’s episode, the group on “Legends” encountered an archer in the ruins of Star City that looked, acted and fought a lot like Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell). However, the archer revealed himself to be a different man, making fans everywhere wonder what happened to Queen and who this new hero is. While the episode addressed the future story of Queen in full, it also revealed the origins of this new character, and he has severe implications on the larger spectrum of the "Arrowverse."

It turns out the hero is Connor Hawke (Joseph David-Jones), who DC Comics fans will recognize as the son of Oliver Queen, who eventually takes up his cause and becomes the new Green Arrow. However, with “Arrow” Season 4 already introducing a storyline about Queen’s son, the TV show had to do a little clever rearranging. It is revealed that Hawke is actually the son of John Diggle (David Ramsey), Queen’s longtime crime-fighting partner.

“It just felt a little duplicative in light of the fact that this season we’re doing a storyline about Oliver having a son,” executive producer Marc Guggenheim told Entertainment Weekly. “It felt like, ‘Oliver’s got a son on ‘Arrow’! He’s got another son on ‘Legends’! As we were talking about it, quite frankly I forget who pitched the idea of ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if this was Diggle’s son?’ but it seemed organic, especially since we took the idea of Oliver as the dad off the table.”

The obvious question on the table is why, if he is the son of John Diggle, the character insists on introducing himself as Connor Hawke? The main focus of the episode is the idea that Deathstroke (Manu Bennett) had a son who returned to finish his father’s task from “Arrow” Season 2 and conquer Star City. In the initial melee, it is revealed that Diggle dies and Connor feels that it is because he failed to save him. As a result, he doesn’t feel worthy to carry on his father’s name. This little character caveat puts some teaser comments from Amell into perspective.

Prior to the episode airing, the “Arrow” star was asked about his character’s connection with Hawke. Although he couldn’t say much at the time, he basically told viewers that Oliver’s issue with the boy has less to do with his behavior and more to do with his abandonment of the Diggle name.

“I think that there is a begrudging respect between Oliver and Connor,” he told Variety. “Because Oliver certainly understands how difficult going out and being —or attempting to be — The Green Arrow is. All that being said, I think Oliver’s issue has to do with how Connor identifies himself, and not necessarily how he handles himself on the field.”

It seems that Queen takes issue with the fact that his best friend’s son doesn’t want to carry on the family name. Luckily, the hero’s journey on “Legends of Tomorrow” may not be done. Now that the team is already down a member thanks to the death of Hawkman (Falk Hentschel). With the series promising to regularly swap out heroes and two of its key cast members moving on to the “Prison Break” revival, it’s possible that Connor Hawke might find his way to the “Legends” crew once again in the future.