Because I Need People to Scream With, Let’s Talk the Legends of Tomorrow Finale
Spoilers to follow for the Season 1 finale of The CW’s Legends of Tomorrow.
Holy cow. They brought in Hourman.
I mentioned in a piece I wrote for HitFix yesterday that with Supergirl moving to The CW next season and the creators planning a four-show crossover, we’re basically getting a “Justice League” before Zack Snyder’s movie but looks like we’re set to get the Justice Society of America too (yes, again).
Legends of Tomorrow was just wrapping up their first big adventure and heading off to the next (without Hawkgirl and Hawkman) when another DC Comics character crashed (literally) into the fray.
His name is Rex Tyler and…
Back in 2013 I wrote about The CW developing an Hourman series. Even though I actually really like the character, I was annoyed at the time because the current landscape was seeing several male DC heroes getting TV shows (Flash, Constantine, Gotham). I still think this character wouldn’t have worked in a solo outing but I do love his inclusion on Legends of Tomorrow. I’ll steal my own words to save time describing the character:
He was created by Ken Fitch and Bernard Baily and has had a few incarnations along the way – Rex Tyler, Rick Tyler, and Matthew Tyler. Most of my experience with the character comes from Geoff Johns’ Justice Society of America version (and beyond), the man who has a successful marriage to superhero Jesse Chambers, aka Liberty Bell, aka Jesse Quick. His powers grant him the ability to see one hour into the future (but with random visions) and also super strength, speed, etc. (also for a limit of one hour) by using a drug called Miraclo. Also, he can only use that drug once a day because it’s not so great on the body.
Patrick J. Adams is the actor who’ll be playing him come Season 2 and you can bet there will eventually be some swapping of continuity to get Rex to meet up with The Flash’s Jesse (who may also be developing powers next season).
“With his final words in the finale, he planted a pretty deep flag about where we’re headed in season two, which is not just introducing Hourman but introducing his teammates in the Justice Society of America,” executive producer Marc Guggenheim told The Hollywood Reporter. “For comic book fans, everyone knows the Justice Society is really the precursor to the Justice League, so it’s a pretty big move in our DC universe here on TV.” Guggenheim also teased the villain for next season:
“The season two big bad is actually not going to be the [alien race of] Thanagarians,” Guggenheim says. “It’s going to be something else entirely. All I’ll really say about the nemesis in season two is Vandal Savage looks like a walk in the park compared to what the Legends will be facing. This will be a much, much bigger threat. I’m going to leave it at that because when we do reveal it, it’s going to be pretty big. People will be asking, ‘Vandal who?’ once they get the full picture of what our team is up against. It’s going to be way bigger than what you can even imagine, I can guarantee it.”
I’ve enjoyed Legends of Tomorrow but it’s not my favorite superhero show. While the characters are strong they’ve got a big issue with their time travel logic and rules. I mean, time travel stories are inherently problematic but if a creator picks their rules and sticks with them, it’s usually acceptable. Legends of Tomorrow unfortunately is all over the place in that regard and handwaving is more the the rule than the exception. Regardless, I think the creators will be able to learn from their missteps and put together a solid second season.
Now the question is, which other DC characters will come along for the ride? Jack Knight Starman would be near the top of my list though Mr. Terrific would be easy and make a lot of sense since Curtis Holt has already been introduced on Arrow. Also crossing my fingers for Stargirl and Power Girl. Sound off, let me know what you thought of the episode and the potential going forward!
The finale itself was crazy yet entertaining. It was a good plot to take advantage of the show’s fantastical elements, but I wish it had been peppered through earlier instead of everyone drawing the right conclusions out a hat in the finale. https://mattthecatania.wordpress.com/2016/05/26/dc-on-tv-finales/
Ma Hunkle, always.
Finally watched it today. Unf I love this show, warts and all. The entire CW line-up actually, though Arrow has been pretty obnoxious and weak the last two years, relying WAY too much on nonsense soap opera crap and everyone feeling SO guilty about what they did or didn’t do all the time (Curtis has been the breath of fresh air this season). I feel like that show is eating its own tail with all the retread of story and emotional beats.
JSA, so much love! Flash is still the best. Supergirl was my second favorite this year, and I have NO idea how I managed to make time for all these damn shows (because I still watch and enjoy Agents of SHIELD immensely). It could be so easy to nitpick them but I avoid it because frankly they’re all fun rides and WAY better than the poorly written, unnecessarily grimdark Snyder Murderverse.
Also, shout out for how completely traumatized Ray looked when Mick threatened to shave his head. I love their dynamic. XD
So it looks like we will be getting Nix Degaton based on this kind of reveal. :o
I mean, all the pieces fit.
Degaton was a huge foe for the JSA, and there was a whole storyline in all star squadron about Degaton getting his hands on a time machine and using it to try changing history so the nazis won…By trying to erase the JSA from history.
On top of that, Legends of Tommorow actually introduced Degaton, so it would fit very well.
Mostly though, im surprised by this reveal. XD
My latest theory after Alan Scott was axed, was that it would turn out to be Hourman actually. Admittedly though, I was thinking of Matthew Tyler, the robot who actually did time travel though.
The question is really how this will go.
These writers like to take alot of material from roughly ’75-’92 eras in terms of comics. All Star Squadron was an 80s comic that took place in the middle of world war 2, so I feel like it will get used.
The premise of the Nix Degaton story I mention was that Nix planned to aid Japan in not bombing Pearl Harbor, but rather help them to touch ground in California, and turn it into a land war. To do so, he recruited villains across time offering them survival in exchange for servitude (and threatening to send them back to their deaths otherwise.) And captured the JSA, including the trinity, Seven Soldiers of Fortune and the Spectre.
The few remaining heroes not on in his clutches (Liberty Bell, Johnny Quick, Robotman, Plastic Man, Hawkman, Shining Knight, and Phantom Lady) Banded together to foil his plan and save the JSA!
Based on the inclusion of Hourman, they are obviously going a different route with the roster. Possibly even going across time in their recruitment.
Thus, it is probably fair to assume that whoever these announced new characters are, they will either be heroes, or the decendants of heroes.
I flipped my shit when he said “Rex Tyler” and accidentally woke everyone in the house. I hope they bring in Courtney Whitmore next season.
I found myself genuinely delighted by the last two episodes. Especially how genuinely funny and irreverent they were. If they can maintain that tone in season 2, the show will be amazing.
But damn, am I going to miss Snart. His voice and ridiculous accent were the best part of the show, and I loved his reluctant hero character arc. Plus, he got one of the only romance storylines that didn’t feel forced. (Canary and the nurse being the other one. I’d guess Caity Lotz would have chemistry with drywall, though.)
And here I had this whole theory laid out that season two was going to be a multigenerational version the Invasion! storyline featuring shapeshifting Durlans in the 40’s with the Justice Society and the main body of the invasion being the Thanagarians in the 2100’s, and it turns out the invasion isn’t even the threat for season two. I still think we’ll get to it eventually.
The previous casting announcements for season two included a black, female character who belongs to a paramilitary group in the 40’s. The character has to be either race or gender swapped to be someone from the comics (at which point it really could be just about anybody), but I can’t shake the feeling that it’s Zinda Blake, considering she has a history of jumping time to end up on a team with Canary.
The other character is a male character who seems to be based out of modern day, he finds out he has superpowers which will allow him to live up to the legacy of his grandfather (who presumably has superpowers, too, though they don’t specify). I have a friend who knows the JSA better than I do and he suspects Amazing Man or Damage, though I’d also toss in Jack Knight Starman if they gave him inherent powers rather than them being limited to the Cosmic Rod.
The finale was an oddly strong episode for the uneven first season. It benefitted greatly from having mostly used characters that existed in other shows for some time, so the actors were for comfortable in the roles (Rip Hunter being a surprisingly prickish exception, what’s his deal?).
Personally I’m glad they’re done with Savage, as the actor who played him was not that great. I’m not too heartbroken about losing the Hawks, either, because oof, Carter was all voice, no presence. Disappointed we lost weekly access to Wentworth Miller, though– how in the hell will his deal to be a wider regular between the shows work? He’s kinda, y’know…erased from history.
One thing that I hole out some hopd for was based on mark Waid’s absolute evisceration of the producers on what he perceives they did to Jay Garrick in The Flash. They assured him they have utter respect for Jay’s legacy in the comics, and weren’t going to ruin that. Which makes me go back to wondering who’s in that iron mask.
I’m think that may be another Jay Garrick, from the same earth that this Rex is from.
He really thought they were going to leave “Jay Garrick” hanging like that? That seems…odd from a writer’s standpoint.
They did mention recently that Henry Allen’s mother’s maiden name was Garrick. Not sure where that’s going, but they could be hinting that there’s a Jay Garrick on Earth One a couple generations back.
Nah, always assume that the producers are going for maximum angst potential for Barry. The man in the mask is totally Earth 2 Henry Allen.
The new comic peek at The Flash shows Zoom using another time remnant. Perhaps Zoom himself is a time remnant, and the man in the iron mask is the original Jay Garrick.
Can we all agree that Sergeant’s name was Joe?
As long as Sgt. Rock didn’t just randomly get killed off by Savage, we can call him whatever we want.
I love the idea of the JSA, so I hope this is done well. I was somewhat disappointed that, yay, another dude shows up. Boy howdy, we don’t have enough of them. I think the new direction of the show is a good one. The overarching Savage plotline never worked for me. Let’s see the team protect the timeline and deal with new threats, not stuck constantly failing to take down VS and having to run hither and yon trying to catch him.
I enjoyed the episode more than I expected. Still feeling the loss of Snart, but this show won me back a bit with Sarah’s badass fight against Savage. Non-super-powered woman takes him out in one-on-one combat. Yes, Sarah, you are awesome. The three-in-one fight was pretty decent; everyone had a part to play, which is good.
I am sorry we lost Kendra, and sorrier that she was never given much of a chance–constantly being knocked out, kidnapped or sidelined. I just wanted to see her hawk out and start bashing everything with her gilded mace. However, being rid of Carter takes a lot of the sting out. My god, what a terrible waste that character is. Please let him never appear again.
But we need more women on this show. Not just one or two. And this show needs better writing, ASAP. Less romance crap, let the women drive the story as much as the men, not just sit around talking about men.
I would have liked to have seen Jax and his mom. At least Clarissa got to show up. Mick’s scene with Snart was surprisingly touching, as was Sarah and her dad.
I wasn’t fond of the Hawks as a couple, but I’m going to miss Kendra but hey, Hourman and possibly the JSA! LoT has been hit or miss, but it’s been entertaining and I actually grew to love the characters, even if Rip is a bit of a stiff.
I thought LoT was going to be an anthology series? Where previous seasons would be disconnected and have nothing to do with one another, more or less? Kind of like AHS.
I was hoping S2 would be Birds of Prey.
Can Sara just lead this team now? I don’t really like Rip all that much…
And like most, thankful the Hawkpeople are gone because that just wasn’t working. Such a damper on the rest of the show.
I don’t really like Heatstroke or whatever his name is, so I’m bummed he’ll be coming back. I also find the actor that plays young Jax kind of irritating.
If you’ve guessed it I haven’t been a huge fan of this show overall. xD
I’m wondering exactly how they’ll resurrect Snart from the dead because YOU KNOW he’s too popular to be gone for reals.
I really want Lisa Snart/Golden Glider to be included in this next go round. I really like that character (and totes ship Lisa and Cisco), and I think she deserves more screen time and development. I’m not surprised she wasn’t included in S1 of LoT, but I feel like she would have been a more interesting/balancing pick than Heatstroke.
Since Vixen probably can’t get her own live action spin-off now that Supergirl is at CW (I’m a bit conflicted) I imagine she might get pulled into LoT. The CW teaser for their next year of DC shows featured her pretty prominently, so I’m fairly certain she’ll be a bigger part in one of the four shows. Since there are some team vacancies in LoT, could go there. Since Laurel is dead and Sara is off adventuring, it could be Arrow. It could even be Supergirl now, and she could replace one of the CBS regulars in the event they don’t move over to the new network with the show…
Either way, it’ll be interesting to see how it pans out.
My guess is Snart got thrown to some random point in time via the Oculus. The real world reason he’ll have limited appearances is because Fox wanted Prison Break back for a new season.
I see. I didn’t realize Prison Break was still going lol.
Yeah Fox ordered a new season out of the blue. My guess is they got jelly over Miller’s popularity on the CW.
I honestly don’t think it’s because of Prison Break. If it were, Dominic Purcell would be off as a regular too. Also, they’re already filming the new (limited) season for Prison Break right now, while Legends is on hiatus, and it doesn’t even air until 2017.
That said, I don’t have any alternative suggestions as to why they’d exit Snart and not Rory. I saw someone theorize it was because Snart was overshadowing Rip as a favorite/breakout character, but I’m not sure I buy into that.
I think it was Wentworth Miller who just didn’t want to be tied to being a series regular on a show, which is a shame bc his character was the best. I’m guessing if he was game to be in every episode they gladly would’ve kept him.
I believe the actor who plays Golden Glider got a new show as well, so I don’t think she will be around much. I would love to see more Vixen! And is agree, Sarah is the real leader of this team.
I didn’t realize she was on a different show. Good for her, sad for meeeee.
I hope Firestorm doesn’t try human transmutation anytime soon. It’ll cost them an arm and a leg. And a sibling, probably.
ACTUALLLLLLLLLYYYYYY:
Firestorm can’t affect organic matter. TMYK. :D
Not without losing an arm and a leg and a sibling, no.
Tell that to his girlfriend from Blackest Night. She’s still kinda salty about it.
Pssh, that was Deathstorm, totally different. The rules don’t apply to villains; see Eobard Thawn being able to change history to kill Barry’s mom but Barry not being allowed to change history to save her, or the Time Masters being able to change history to kill Rip’s family, but Rip not being able to change history to save them.
I cheered so hard when the Hawk couple decided to not return. They were the MOST boring. I hope they bring in another female character for next season, though.
I am still in mourning about Snart, even though I know they say he’ll be back across all the shows next year as needed. I’m glad the hawk-people decided to leave because they were THE WORST. I’m tentatively excited about all the new stuff, but I don’t know the comic versions of the characters that well, so I don’t have anything to compare them to. I really just care about how well they can pull off a massive 4-show universe without screwing up all the timelines or making it seem weird when the characters on different shows don’t call each other for help every time it seems like WORLD-ENDING-CHAOS. I am VERY excited about a 4-show crossover event though, because I’m a sucker for crossovers.
Yeah, I love Ciara Renee but the Hawks did not work for me at all. I know it was the focus of the season but I wish they would have let her be a character alone first and bring him in Season 2 or something. Having basically the entirety of her time as Hawkgirl be entwined in a love story was kind of annoying.
I didn’t necessarily have a problem with the presence of a love story, it just wasn’t a very good one. Kendra and Connor had the collective personality and charisma of a paperclip…
I don’t mind a love story (as you said, if it’s good) but it was really ALL she was.
And it led to some really headscratching moments.
“We have to save Carter from 2166!”
Me, at home: “umm.. why? he’s more wooden than a bedpost and that’s NOT *your* Carter. That’s 2166 Carter. You covered this in the Jonah Hex episode.”
I went OFF on this on Twitter when she decided to save Carter instead of killing Savage. The Hawk-couple will be reincarnated FOREVER. They literally get lifetime after lifetime to find each other. Yes, if they fail to kill Savage in a lifetime, they have to go through it all again, etc, but most people only get ONE lifetime and one chance to have an epic romance. It just always seemed so selfish to me the way they were constantly trying to stay alive or keep different versions of themselves from different time periods alive because it’s like, dude, just die and reincarnate. That’s not your version of Carter. Why keep him alive? He’s the very definition of expendable. He’ll reincarnate and you’ll find each other again! Give some other people a chance to live and find their soulmates in the one lifetime they have.
There was no good reason to keep him around. His actor’s the worst of the main cast, he’s added nothing but another body to the stories, and it would’ve been a little more powerful for her to say something like, “He’ll get better when he finds me again” and just offed Savage right there. He was RIGHT. THERE. Just kill him. He’s not that great a villain as portrayed anyway.
Extremely selfish really!
They were just really annoying and she had like, zero agency. She would talk about having agency and making her own choices and then in the next episode be like “maybe destiny?” “is fate a thing?” they never really answered one way or another if soulmates are real or if she could make her own choice or if she would be cursed or whatever. There were so many more interesting things they could have done with her, but instead she was a love interest and a damsel like, 75% of the time. It bummed me out.
To be fair, it turns out that until almost the end of the season, none of them had agency.
Or he could have stayed dead? I was pretty happy when Carter died, because it finally gave Kendra a chance to be interesting (though they decided to give her more romance plot straight away, it was still a more interesting relationship – and she was clearly a separate person from Ray, which is always nice). But then… Nope.
Can we talk about how much I dislike Arthur Darvill on this show? What a crap actor. He really ruins the show for me with his hamminess.
Meanwhile- I’m all for Hourman, but even as a white dude, I’m tired of more bland white dude heroes….
Also- REAL FIRESTORM!! Finally, we’re getting that transmutation power which is the best part of him. Fire blasts were weak.
Ugh, yeah. Too many blandsauce white guys on these shows. And I say that as a fellow white guy.
Seriously… sci-fi is all about living outside one’s own skin and experience, right?
I was waiting for the transmutation, for so long! They could’ve included that so much earlier.
I don’t think he’s a crap actor (he was good on Doctor Who), but the role is quite one-note.
Well Curtis Holt is going to be a regular on Arrow next season. I know there were some casting call sheets a little while back for S2, but I forget the specifics and no character names were mentioned.