Lyla Michaels

"Sometimes, bravery isn’t enough; sometimes, the world requires us to be bold."

- Lyla Michaels

Lyla Michaels, codename Harbinger, is the director of A.R.G.U.S. Lyla is also the wife of John Diggle, the mother of Sara Diggle (in the pre-Flashpoint timeline) the mother of John Diggle, Jr., and an ally of Team Arrow and Team Flash respectively.

Early life
Lyla Michaels met John Diggle in Afghanistan, where both were serving as soldiers, and then got married. At the end of John's second tour, they rotated back state-side where their marriage couldn't adapt to a civilian life and they divorced. John went back to Afghanistan for a third tour, while Lyla was picked for service in A.R.G.U.S..

In around 2012, Lyla helped A.R.G.U.S. "liberate" and take down the apparently corrupt government of Kahndaq, as well as military general Ravan Nassar.

Hunting Deadshot
John met with Lyla rather than helping Oliver Queen, and gave her information on Deadshot. She was shocked, as they weren't even able to find his name, and he just explained that it was for something he was working on, a lie which she could easily see through.

John later visited the main A.R.G.U.S. building, Lyla spotted him. She scolded him for trying to use her to hunt down Deadshot, and told him to do otherwise. Sometime later, Lyla was to meet with Floyd Lawton and bring him in. However, Floyd did not show and tried to snipe her from a distance. Lyla was saved by John, who attempted to follow Floyd but was knocked unconscious.

Rekindling with John Diggle
Lyla meets with John and flirts with him when she discovers he is single again. She gives him information about military-grade weapons being stolen. She then reveals that she is single as well to him. They part ways soon after.

Lyla is missing in Russia, having been captured during an intel operation in a Russian gulag. John is recruited to break her out, because A.R.G.U.S. does not have sufficient resources for the op, and the political masters already consider her disavowed and dead to them. John arranges to get arrested and sent to the prison, where he finds Deadshot, whom he teams with to break Lyla out of jail. Returning to the United States, John and Lyla rekindle their relationship.

Lyla and John are enjoying a romantic interlude when they are sent on a mission by A.R.G.U.S. to lead the Suicide Squad in capturing and destroying a nerve gas in the possession of Gholem Qadir. During the mission, Amanda Waller kills Shrapnel when he tries to flee. This causes a rift between Lyla, who accepts Waller's methods, and John, who objects to their brutality.

Later Lyla poses as John's bodyguard to infiltrate Qadir's party. She removes a tracking device from Deadshot in order to evade an A.R.G.U.S. drone, and she and John reconcile their differences.

In a flashback sequence, Lyla is shown serving as a soldier in Afghanistan. She captures Gholem Qadir and is seen meeting John for the first time.

Lyla freed the Suicide Squad to stop Amanda Waller from destroying Starling City. During this coup, Amanda revealed that Lyla is pregnant with John's child but kept it a secret from him.

Fight against Onslaught
After the extremist sect Onslaught kidnapped a group of school girls, Amanda Waller brief a number of A.R.G.U.S. agents, along with Lyla. Waller inquired as to how far along in her pregnancy she was, to which she stated four months. Lyla suggested that rescuing the girls be their top priority, but Waller simply believed that taking out the leader Khem-Adam would suffice.

Rounding up the Suicide Squad, Lyla went to Guantanamo Bay to recruit Ravan Nassar. She suggested that he'd become too soft, but he knocked out the guards and agreed to join the team to help his country of Kahndaq.

Lyla returned home and told John of her mission in Kahndaq. Dig refused to let her go, even offering to take her place. Allowing him in place of her, Lyla revealed that he'd be working with the Suicide Squad. Lyla returned to Waller, confirming that Ravan's chip had been implanted in his spine, as well as informing her that Diggle would be going in her place.

Lyla helped the team on their way to Kahndaq, wishing John safety. Once they'd secured the kidnapped girls, Lyla sent in a Black Hawk to pick them all up. After the team returned from their mission, with Bronze Tiger's dead body, Lyla reported to Waller, informing her that Nassar did not want to return to the team, but to prison.

A while later, after Oliver had gone after the Renegades and the Church of Blood with no backup, Lyla helped Roy Harper to take Helena Bertinelli out of prison in order to help.

War against the League of Assassins


Lyla and John are expecting a girl and is only days away from labor. She is brought to the hospital but turned out to be a false alarm, only experiencing Braxton-hicks contractions. On her second trip to the hospital, she gives birth to her daughter with John by her side. Later on, she and John name their baby girl Sara in honor of their recently fallen friend Sara Lance.

Lyla was tracked down by Digger Harkness aka Captain Boomerang. Digger attempted to kill Lyla for her failed attempt of detonating his bomb located in his neck during his time in Task Force X. Lyla is hit by a boomerang and Flash took her to the hospital where John Diggle proposed.

Lyla, convinced John to go with Oliver to Nanda Parbat to help him rescue Malcolm Merlyn, as she knew that the last time he did not go with Oliver when he was apparently killed by Ra's al Ghul, John felt guilty, and she didn't want him to go through that again.

She married John for the second time. Their honeymoon was interrupted by Amanda Waller, who sent them with the Suicide Squad to rescue US Senator Cray from a hostage situation in Kaznia. It turned out Cray had staged the whole thing to boost his chances of winning the presidency. He and his men tried to kill the Suicide Squad and all the hostages, but the Squad managed to escape and free the hostages. Later, Lyla told John she had quit A.R.G.U.S. after Waller ordered her not to expose the senator, saying she wanted to set a good example for their daughter. She encouraged John not to leave Team Arrow.

Cisco Ramon contacted Lyla for information on General Wade Eiling, having been told by A.R.G.U.S. that he was on administrative leave and she told him that Eiling had been missing for three months and A.R.G.U.S. had been covering it up.

Oliver kidnapped Lyla as part of his trial to become Ra's al Ghul in order to force Diggle to bring Nyssa to him. When Diggle along with the rest of the Team Arrow arrived at the exchange sight to trade Nyssa for Lyla a fight broke out as Felicity managed to sneak Lyla a gun. In the end, Oliver managed to escape with Nyssa.

Becoming the Director of A.R.G.U.S.
Sometime after Amanda's death, Lyla became the director of A.R.G.U.S.. During her time as new director of A.R.G.U.S. she has stared making decisions similar to her late predecessor.

Personality
Lyla is a good-hearted, caring and intelligent woman, she is shown to care for her ex-husband John Diggle and is on good terms with Team Arrow, providing occasional backup, intel and support during their missions. She is a disciplined, capable and driven warrior with a sense of duty from both her time as a soldier and as an A.R.G.U.S. operative.

Lyla displays the personality of a realist. Though by no means immoral, Lyla has been shown to be at least partially compliant with Amanda Waller's brutality during operations, particularly the recruiting of dangerous criminals for Task Force X (Ben Turner, Floyd Lawton and Mark Scheffer) and ensuring their cooperation by installing explosives in their heads. Such actions have resulted in arguments with her ex-husband and his more principled personality. Lyla counters that some people "operate in the gray" saying that who are they to judge such people when they have taken lives in their line of work and living in the reality being "sometimes bravery isn't enough, sometimes the world requires us to be bold".

Ultimately, Lyla is true to her morals, more loyal to her principles and the people she cares about than A.R.G.U.S. as an organization. She jumps into action to lead the drone away from Gholem Qadir's mansion sparing innocents and if Amanda had not called off the drone strike planned to bomb Starling City, Lyla most definitely would have gone through with killing her superior.

Lyla is a loving mother to her kids from different timelines Sara (the original timeline) and John Jr. (the current timeline) after the incident with senator Joseph Cray, and after Amanda prevented her from telling the world the truth that he was not kidnap by those terrorists, they were actually working for him, as Joseph was attempting to make himself look like a hero, so he could become the next president of the United States, Lyla resigned from A.R.G.U.S., partly due to her morals, and mainly because she wants to be a good example for her daughter and wants Sara to be proud of her.

Lyla is also quite mature and understanding, having bore no ill-will against Oliver for kidnapping her, knowing full well he had no choice but to do so if he was to defeat Ra's al Ghul and dismantle the League of Assassins.

Since becoming the new director of A.R.G.U.S., Lyla has taken it upon herself to undo all the damage caused by Amanda over the years during her predecessor's time as the director of A.R.G.U.S.. However, she has begun to show qualities and use tactics similar to Amanda’s without believing that what she is doing is morally and legally wrong, which has lead to tension between her and her husband. Despite her encounter with Mirakuru soldiers, like John, she is freaked out by Barry Allen's super speed.

Abilities

 * Peak of human physical condition: As a former soldier and the leader of A.R.G.U.S., Lyla is in top physical condition.
 * Expert combatant: Lyla is a highly skilled hand-to-hand combatant, having developed her combat skills during her time as a soldier.
 * Expert markswoman: Due to her A.R.G.U.S. training, Lyla is an expert with firearms.
 * Bilingual: Lyla is capable of fluently speaking English and Arabic..
 * Network: As the leader of A.R.G.U.S., Lyla has connections within the organization.
 * Culinary Expertise: Lyla is a talented cook, with many of her family and friends praising her dishes.

Equipment

 * Guns: Lyla primarily makes use of a pistol, wielding it quite effectively. She also is proficient in handling small caliber to high caliber firearms such as a rocket launcher or an assault rifle.

Arrow
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Season 7
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The Flash
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Season 4
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Trivia

 * Since learning about Flashpoint Lyla has sometimes wondered what life would have been like raising a daughter instead of a son.

Behind the scenes

 * In DC Comics main continuity Lyla operated as a superhero known as Harbinger, and was a central figure of the massive DC comic book event known as "Crisis on Infinite Earths". On Arrow, Lyla uses the codename mostly during A.R.G.U.S. operations.