On a personal level, I quite like Legends of Tomorrow. It’s like somebody took Dr. Who, wrapped it up in Firefly and threw the sticky mess into the Arrowverse. Doctor Mal Reynolds and his trusty time–space ship flying throughout the centuries and righting wrongs with the help of his misfit companions, long coat and laser shooting revolver. I mean, Rip Hunter and his Legends tracking down Vandal Savage… with his long coat and laser revolver. It’s been an absolute blast so far but when I step back to look at the big picture, it all falls apart. The entire reason that Rip recruited the Legends was so that he could save his wife and child. Apparently, he tried saving them a few days before they died but was unable. But what about the preceding week, months or years? How far back did he keep going before giving up?
With no concrete plotline beyond stopping Vandal Savage, Legends of Tomorrow is too abrupt. There’s no backstory or sub-plot. It’s simply; there’s Savage, let’s attack him. Drat, we failed. Let’s do exactly the same thing again later. Arrow had Oliver get closer to Felicity, break apart, lose Laurel and now struggle to overcome Darhk‘s magic. LOT has suffered a bizarre love triangle between Kendra, Ray and Carter with a side-helping of the second triangle relationship between a pyromaniac, kleptomaniac and ninja-assassin-zombie-maniac. The Flash has seen Barry thrown away his powers, gone through a lot to get them back and is dealing with the second parental death in as many seasons. Legends saw a weird paradox involving one-half the burning man drugging the other. Given credit, it’s had a lot fewer episodes it’s sibling shows in the Arrowverse but it feels rushed and the plotline is somewhat patchy. Remember the Oculus?
Time Master Druce revealed that Time Masters use the Oculus as their window into time and the device that allowed them to control events. If you used it, you didn’t see a possible future but the future future. Rip saw Ray dying to destroy the Oculus and was later there in the instant before it happened. Then Heatwave took Ray’s place. Then Captain Cold took his place. We managed to stop before White Canary could step in but it was a near miss. For a device that saw the definitive future, the Oculus was wrong an awful lot in the short time it appeared.
The entire season has been based around trying to stop Savage from conquering the world but here we hit the second time-travel plothole. Rip travelled back to just after Vandal became immortal before failing to kill him. Frankly, as a seasoned political target, Vandal would almost certainly be trained to defend himself (as he did). So why not just travel back a few decades more and knock angry adolescent Savage on his pimply rear a few times? If Rip turns squeamish at the thought of going after a baby, just pick up the family and drop them a few continents away. Even if some weird time divergence problem springs up whereby Hath-Set has to be around for Hawkman and Hawkgirl to come into their powers, don’t go at him with a knife. Use the jump-ship and gun the sucker down. Take Kendra along to convince the palace guards and still religious Hath-Set to stun them long enough for Kenda to stab him in the back.
Season 2 has already been confirmed but who will be the villain of the piece? Chronos was a time-travelling villain but he was rewritten as Mick’s brainwashed persona. Per Degaton was a time-travelling maniac and CW cast him as a dictator of his own little nation before Savage murdered him and took his place. There are a few others with time-travel capabilities but most of them are patently ridiculous. Maybe CW could take another villain and grant them time-travel abilities which would be an interesting twist. Nobody would be able to predict their next move if somebody like Clive Yorkin or Last Resort was introduced.
CW is potentially heading for a Crisis so the group could possibly do their bit in tracking down the responsible party. And for the love of all that is holy, can somebody bring back Constantine? Team him up with Arrow or Flash, cram him into Snart’s empty seat. Having magic in your quiver, running alongside you or some time-travel pun where Johnny boy joins CW can’t hurt.
With the last episode of Legends of Tomorrow leaving us hanging on the crumbling edge of a cliff, we are introduced to Rex Tyler. For those who don’t know, he served as Hourman in the DC Universe. Not only do we have a living Legend (pun) standing before the new crew of Time Masters but he introduces possibly the best part of the Arrowverse yet: The Justice Society of America!
Having the Justice League show up is not something that we can hope to see due to licensing but the JSA? The founding fathers of superhero teams? Legends of Tomorrow may have been off to a rocky start but the introduction of Rex Tyler and the climatic season finale has left me wanting more.