After the death of his wife and son at the hands of the immortal villain Vandal Savage, Rip Hunter, a recently excommunicated Time Master, is on a revenge mission that spans the course of history. What he finds is that killing an immortal isn’t easy, and he’s going to need more than a little help if he’s going to accomplish his mission. He’s going to need a team.
Enter the would-be legends.
Sara Lance, the recently brought back to life (AGAIN), learning to control her bloodlust, White Canary.
Ray Palmer, the man behind the Atom, a super suit that reduces him to microscopic size while still packing a nuclear punch.
Professor Martin Stein, the conscience side of Firestorm, with his recently selected other half, Jefferson Jackson. The two are still trying to figure out how to share one body and mind when the opportunity to help Rip is presented.
Kendra Saunders and Carter Hall, Hawkgirl and Hawkman, the couple reincarnated since the days of Ancient Egypt with only two goals: find each other and kill Savage.
Of course, it’s not all heroes. Because bringing a team of heroes together isn’t the best way to ensure you can enact your revenge at any cost. Heroes have morals and rules. But villains get things done. Which is why Captain Cold, Leonard Snart, and Heatwave, Mick Rory, have been brought in. And they live up to their purpose, even when they aren’t being asked to do so.
With the team in position, and mostly ready to enact Rip’s plan, they begin their journey through time to keep Savage from destroying their future.
Their first mission takes them back to 1975 and proves that while they are all from different backgrounds, they each have a strength the team needs, IF they can learn to trust each other. The two-part opener concludes with the team learning that Kendra is the only person who can wield the sole weapon created to end Savage’s life. It also brings about Carter’s demise. Which as we know, the death of a team member always brings the team together. Common enemy equates to common goal.
After being foiled in their plans more than once, the team switches their focus to target Savage’s assets instead of going after him directly, hoping they can stop him from getting the access he needs to gain power. This eventually leads the team to the 1980s and a scientist in Russia working to recreate the Firestorm experiment, a sign the team is not only changing the past for the better, but is also leaving a trail of bread crumbs for Savage to follow to his dark future. The butterfly effect, super style.
We also learn that Rip hasn’t been honest with the team about his past when his former leader shows up to offer him a pardon for crimes committed against the Time Masters. When the offer isn’t quite what it’s sold as, the team refuses and is attacked by the mysterious Time Bounty Hunter, Chronos, who seems to have a personal vendetta against the team. His attacks cause the Waverider to crash land in the future, where the team is forced to face not just the physical idea of what lies ahead, but come to terms with who they want to be.
The trail goes cold for the legends, and thus begins the inevitable breakdown of the team. We see the implosion of a brotherhood in Captain Cold and Heatwave, concluding with Mick getting left behind, and the team believing Snart has killed his former partner. Ray, Kendra, and Sara get left in the 1950s, where Ray begins to believe in the alternate life that Kendra and he have built as a happy suburban couple, and Sara returns to the only life she’s ever been comfortable in, The League of Assassins. And Jefferson and Stein continue to struggle to find that place where cohesion is more than just a chemical bond for them.
With Snart kidnapped by Chronos and the Waverider in almost as bad of condition as the team, hope looks lost for the future and Rip’s family. But these aren’t ordinary heroes.
As the team reassembles, the identity of Chronos is revealed to be a quite alive Mick acting on his own mission of revenge. Though Snart tries to get through to his former partner, it may be too late for any of them as the Hunters, the Time Master’s elite task force, is hunting them down.
But the Time Masters aren’t taking any chances, and they send the Pilgrim after the team’s younger selves with one goal…extinction.
After saving their younger selves, the team has a renewed sense of purpose, and their sights are once again set on Vandal Savage. If they can’t stop him in the past, they have to meet him head on. So they travel to the future. Rip is forced to realize that some moments are fixed in time as his family is once again killed by Savage. But this time we learn that it wasn’t just Savage behind their death, or behind the events that lead to the downfall of Earth. The Time Masters themselves are working with Savage. And the only way to stop them is to destroy the Oculus, an act that will result in the death of at least one team member and the chance for a villain to become the hero he is meant to be.
With the Oculus and the Time Masters out of the way the only thing left to do is take down Savage. The team splits up into three different points in time, after Stein deduces Savage’s plan, and that anyone can kill him if they attack during the meteor’s arrival that Savage has been plotting to use as a part of his own rise to power. With Savage dead and the meteors destroyed, the team reconvenes in 2016. Just as they decide they must be the ones to correct all the damages done to the timeline, a future version of the Waverider appears and Rex Tyler, a member of the Justice Society of America, warns the team of their impending doom.
Where does that leave us? Our heroes have a new quest. Kendra has already decided she is staying behind in 2016, but will this change now that there is a new threat to the team’s future? With the entry of Rex and the Justice Society of America, we know that we will see new heroes joining the team, but will we see old faces again? If we can travel through time, does that mean that no one is truly dead? Is any threat ever really vanquished? Is any ally ever really gone?
We’ve already seen Snart on the trailer for this season, which leads us to believe that heroes get remembered, but maybe Legends never die.
Written by Shannon Brewer, LEGENDS OF TOMORROW Beat Writer
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