The tweet heard round the world has fans wondering if The CW series is preparing to introduce some more changes, and more heroes, this season that might lead to a spin-off!
Though it’s only just entered into its Third Season DC’s Legend of Tomorrow which premiered four weeks ago on The CW, is apparently already going through some changes — and some may have a significant affect on the series’ cast as the adventure progresses. Accused of having “broken” the timeline, the Legends returned to 2017 at the beginning of their new season and learned that there were some very serious ramifications to all their time-traveling last year. No matter how careful they had been throughout their journey, they returned to a present that was hardly recognizable.
The Legends one-time captain Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) was forced to establish a new organization, sanctioned as the Time Bureau, the group is responsible for fixing time aberrations and tasks itself with correcting the damage created by the Legends. Rip effectively disbands the group and confiscates their time-ship The Waverider and casts the team of adventures to the wind. No longer deemed necessary, but more of a liability, the group returns (unsuccessfully) to mostly normal civilian lives, with the exception of Nate Heywood (Nick Zano).
As Steel, Nate is the most inexperienced costumed crime-fighter. He emerges on the scene in Central City and immediately draws the attention of one of the city’s own speedsters Kid Flash (Keiynan Lonsdale). Though it may suggest that the Legends are effectively defunct, before the end of the Season 3 premiere episode, the group is reunited and find themselves once again onboard their time-ship, with the exception of Vixen (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) who has returned to her native homeland in her own time period. Amaya Jiwe would eventually reunite with the group by Episode 2.
A Changing Roster
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow had always been intended to have an evolving — or rather revolving — roster. Early on in the inception of the television series, it had been rumored that the executive producers were considering a different format entirely from the serialized time-traveling bandits that took over the feel of the narrative. Imagine Legends as an anthology series with a changing cast of DC Comics characters starring in 2-3 episode arcs, teaming up and crossing over with the other CW series Arrow, The Flash and even Supergirl to inhabit an entire televised continuity.
We now know that not to be case, but the Legends cast has already gone to several changes since its debut. It’s been confirmed that original series regular Victor Garber who was first introduced in The Flash as one-half of the Nuclear Man Firestorm would be leaving the show this season. The actor will be returning to Broadway taking over the role of Horace Vandergelder in the successful revival of Hello, Dolly! opposite Bernadette Peters. What it will ultimately mean for the presence of Firestorm, who is also played by Franz Drameh, has yet to be developed.
Recently Legends introduced a new series regular in the form of Zari Tomaz (new series regular Tala Ashe) the inheritor of the power of Isis the paramour to the DC Comics villain Black Adam. Only having just interjected herself into the line-up, Zari is already proving a very interesting addition to the team dynamic. How her story will evolve over the season has yet to be written, but the computer hacker from a dystopian future-tense with the power of a weather goddess will more than likely have a profound affect on the story arc.
Twitter Me This
So when the DC’s Legends Writers Room (@LotWritersRoom) went on Twitter only two episodes into the season and asked its followers “Who would you like to see spin-off from Legends?” fans had some choice ideas of their own to share. Clearly over the course of its last two seasons, there have been several secondary characters guest starring that have made a significant contribution to the overall continuity, including the Old West gunslinger Jonah Hex, that is the televised and expanded DC Universe. Most notably in Season 2 the “Golden Age” heroes of the Justice Society of America made their debut.
With the JSA’s inclusion into the expanded storyline and the recruitment of one of their own (Vixen) into their ranks, audiences are aware that the Legends along with their friends in Star City and Central City are actually part of a far-reaching legacy of heroics. Though Hourman was suggested as part of a longer subplot in Season 2 first seen at cliffhanger to Season 1, it was the additional members of the JSA including Commander Steel, Stargirl, Dr. Mid-Nite and Obsidian that played major parts in that season’s arc. Consequentially fans have asked that more about the JSA be revealed, perhaps in a spin-off!
During the First Season of Legends the roster also included Hawkman and Hawkgirl the lovers resurrected through time to confront that season’s “big bad” Vandal Savage. Both of the winged wonders served at one time or another as core members of the JSA themselves, and would eventually join the contemporary Justice League. Their backstory even played significantly into their time-traveling that season, and it might not have been improbable that the pair were among the unseen members of the JSA, and could turn up again in a JSA centric spin-off!
Interestingly on The Flash another “Golden Age” hero was introduced in the form of Jay Garrick, the original Flash (played by “Original 1990 Flash” John Wesley Shipp) as the Crimson Comet of Earth-3, but that doesn’t insinuate that the Flash isn’t himself a member of this continuity’s JSA. After all part of the Speed Force powers is the ability to vibrate within the multiverse. Ever since making a cameo in the premiere episode, rumors have circulated that Wally West, the Kid Flash would be joining the line-up on Legends officially. Perhaps the pairing of these two heroes Jay Garrick and Wally West would prove an interesting confirmation of the heroes’ legacies.
And imagine the story-telling opportunity presented with Garrick mentoring Wally through the pitfalls of mastering his speed abilities. By the time the young hero returns to Central City, he may well be ready to outrace Central City’s Flash (Grant Gustin) — not to mention that this would also be stealing a page from the books themselves, as Garrick does have a significant influence over shaping the lives of both Barry Allen and West. Another DC character that appeared in Season 1 Valentina Vostok would also make an interesting addition; the Soviet scientist becomes a member of the reformed Doom Patrol — the unluckiest team of adventurers.
There were several other suggestions for heroes that might spin out of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow though audiences seem to all orbit around revisiting the Golden Age of the DC Universe and insert John Wesley Shipp as Jay Garrick / The Flash in a series regular role to fill out the histrionics of that era. Only time will tell if the Writers Room will take any of these suggestions, but fortunately for them on Legends what they have in spades is TIME!
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow airs Tuesday nights @ 9pm EST time, following The Flash.