Legends of Tomorrow
is a really interesting show. It's a perfect storm of superheroes, time
travel, and spaceships, a series that wouldn't exist were it not for Arrow and The Flash becoming so popular. Kicking off from the success of its predecessors allows Legends of Tomorrow to give us a superhero tale with an interesting twist — these heroes aren't really heroes at all.
Right
from the pilot episode, the team is told that they've been chosen
simply because they have no impact on history. Suddenly, this mission is
as much about the characters regaining a sense of purpose as it is
about saving the world from Vandal Savage.
Spurred
on by Sara Lance's impassioned speech, the team decide to try and
change their fate — but this turns out to be almost impossible, because
fate is biased against them.
Worst. Heroes. Ever.
In
the penultimate episode, the Legends learn that their actions (and to
some extent, their entire lives) have actually been manipulated by the
Time Masters to help Savage rise to power. This is such an interesting
continuation of the idea that the Legends aren't really heroes in the
classical sense of the world, and goes a long way to explaining why the
team inadvertently screw up every single one of their missions.
Ultimately of course, the Legends destroy the Oculus and in doing so they regain their agency (while accidentally dooming the Earth to invasion by the Thanagarians).
By the end of the finale, the team have given themselves a new mission
to protect the timeline, right before Rex Tyler crashes into the scene, teasing a team-up with the Justice Society in Season 2.
This makes Legends of Tomorrow
less a show about superheroes, and more about how these characters
become the heroes they want to be. Each character has a very different
path to achieve this — Sara has to overcome her urge to kill, Leonard
slowly turns away from his villainous persona, Kendra has to defeat
Savage, etc.
For
an audience, this is a really interesting aspect of the show. It makes
the Legends engaging and relatable: After all, it's not like any of us
could just leap into a superhero costume and immediately succeed at
whatever we do. The Legends are fallible, even underdogs to some extent,
and that makes them intriguing. But there's another reason the Legends
are legends and not heroes — they're out of time.
Away From The Spotlight
In a lot of ways, superheroes only become heroes when the public accepts them. That's a theme which Arrow
really excels at exploring, as Oliver Queen goes from mistrusted
vigilante to genuine hero of the people. And yet, the entire point of
the Legends is that they can exist outside the timestream, hopping back
and forward through time in secret. Ironically, although Laurel inspires
Sara to become a hero in the light at the beginning of the show, the
Legends operate in the shadows.
But
again, this just makes the Legends more interesting. Despite leaping
into their hero costumes, the characters rarely (if ever) refer to each
other by their alter-egos — Leonard is called "Snart", not Captain Cold;
Ray's armor is called "the Atom suit" a lot, but he isn't called Atom;
and the word "Hawkgirl" is never mentioned throughout the show.
This
just goes to show that superhero titles are essentially social
constructions intended to divert attention away from true identities. In
Legends of Tomorrow, the characters are living their entire
lives as part of their mission. There's no need to hide their
identities, and therefore no need for alter-egos.
And although this might save them from Flashpoint in Season 2, the Legends are about to take several steps backwards.
Back To The Start
Just in case you hadn't realized, Barry's decision to save his mother in The Flash finale has plunged all the DCTV shows into a new, alternate timeline. This will have an interesting effect on Legends of Tomorrow
Season 2— because of their mission on the Waverider, the characters
will probably become time remnant duplicates, cast out of the new
timeline.
There's
a delicious irony about this. Although their status as time travelers
will save them from Barry's changes, this means that now they're even
more "nobodies" than at the beginning of Season 1. Just when they've
regained their autonomy from the Time Masters' control, the Legends will
discover that no-one in 2016 recognizes them. And they'll have their
alternate versions to compete with.
With the exception of Sara, Ray, and Rip, all the Legends had their origin stories in The Flash. If Barry never becomes the Flash (as is likely now he's changed the past), then Stein would still be a professor, Kendra would still be a barista — and of course, Leonard and Mick would still be villains.
This
leaves the Legends floating out of time on the Waverider. Sure, they'll
be having new adventures with the Justice Society, and maybe even teaming up with Supergirl, but as for going home? That's impossible now. And personally, I can't wait to see how the team deals with this in Season 2.
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