Are you sick of super heroes yet? What about the super hero hype or the criticism and its fallout we seem to be all wrapped up in? It seems every movie Marvel has released lately has addressed some form of criticism. “Black Panther” addressed black rights and culture. The new Marvel movies are rumored to feature women and more and more we are trying to find way to slip in non-heterosexual characters without nominalizing them. Well, this is not about heroes. The legends are criminals, killers, unjust, immoral and quite frankly bad at life. That’s not a spoiler, but there are definitely a few in here.
Butterfly effect times ten thousand: Seasons 1 & 2
So in season one, time master Rip Hunter recruited an elite hodge-podge team of people who were unimportant to the timeline. Basically they are secondary characters who wouldn’t be missed if they died. Once Rip had assembled his team — consisting of an assassin, a genius, a theoretical physicist, a mechanic (that one makes sense!), some ancient reincarnated warriors and a couple of thieves (and not small time thieves) — they set off to stop an immortal tyrant set on ruling, but really destroying, the world. This went about as well as one might expect.
In season two a speedster (who technically doesn’t exist), a magician and a different assassin, trained by the same people, gather to change the future and not die. The legends are now joined by Amaya who is really the only heroic character in the series at all. She is also super cool and stops a T-rex in its tracks. They once again try to stop this legion of doom and sort of succeed, but also mostly destroy time and the timeline and suddenly Julius Caesar is trying to conquer New York City in 2016 and Attila is once again fathering a ridiculous number of babies in the modern age.
To Binge or Not to Binge?
Um, definitely binge this. Not only are the scripts pretty solid and the setting exactly what you would expect a time ship to look like, this is just a really fun show. They meet characters like Barack Obama and there is a D&D episode. The whole time travel aspect is actually grounded partially in history, so you might even learn something. However, the real draw of this show is the characters. Funnily enough while Marvel is trying to figure out equality and feminism, the underrated DC came out with this novel concept in 2016. Acceptance: these characters don’t judge each other. They aren’t perfect and they screw up literally every episode. They might be allergic to doing things right, and even while external organizations judge and tear them down they find a kind of unity in each other’s shortcomings. The most respected character on the ship is Sara Lance. She is 100 percent human and an excellent assassin. She trains every day and makes tough choices and she is loved for it. She is also bisexual. Wait, a bisexual strong woman who is strong on her own merit and not through some kind of godly intervention who is not oversexualized, but is still respected? You heard that right, armageddon is here.
Best Episode: “The Good, the Bad and the Cuddly”
This is the final episode of season three and it has everything. Helen of Troy has retaken her identity and become a warrior instead of an object for men to kill themselves over. It is set in the old west. There are vikings, pirates, a time demon, a father daughter reunion, some cool sci-fi time people and a sexy clone. Plus, the legends save the day with cuddles and a body slam and it’s just generally awesome.
Similar Shows: DC has an entire cannon of shows. These include “The Flash,” “Arrow” and “Supergirl” which are all pretty similar to the legends. “Supergirl” was my favorite of the three.
Trigger Warnings: This show doesn’t really have a lot of triggers. It is violent for sure, but it isn’t super gory. They don’t swear, but be careful which characters you fall in love with.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
“DC’s Legends of Tomorrow”
Available to stream on Netflix
51 episodes, approximately 38 hours