A Time Master named Rip Hunter (Doctor Who’s Arthur Darvill) is determined to put an end to the conquering might of Vandal Savage (Casper Crump). The tyrant has all-but laid waste to the future with his armies. In order to stop Savage once and for all, Hunter requests that he be allowed to travel back in time and recruit some very powerful allies, but the Time Masters are convinced that Hunter will cause more damage than good traversing through history. Rip Hunter steals a time ship, the “Waverider”, anyway and gathers his forces.


Moving quickly and simultaneously Hunter systematically “kidnaps” Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) The Atom, the Nuclear Man Firestorm (Victor Garber and Franz Drameh), the resurrected White Canary (Caity Lotz) and the long-lived winged warriors Hawkgirl and Hawkman (Ciara Renée and Falk Hentschel). Hunter also employs the dangerously unpredictable rogues Captain Cold and his partner in crime Heatwave (Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell). Hunter warns them of his mission and shows them a hopeless future where Savage rules.


Having only recently faced off against Savage, the Hawks are confused to learn that Vandal Savage still exists. After their last battle they teamed up with Green Arrow and the Flash and it appeared they had indeed destroyed Savage, but apparently the ancient evil has survived. Hunter hopes to convince the eight that he heroes (and villains) are needed, and that in the future history will come to know them as “legends”. That they have a legacy to live up to is attractive to them but most of all to Palmer and Prof. Stein.




The rest of the team will require a little convincing and so travel with Hunter back to the 1970’s to uncover a piece of the puzzle to help alter the grim future from coming to past. There they enlist the help of a historian Dr. Aldus Boardman (Peter Francis James) who reveals himself to be the son of both Hawkgirl and Hawkman, but a time-traveling mercenary named Chronus has followed Hunter and his intrepid team of heroes on their journey!


The group are able to outrace the mercenary’s attack but inadvertently get Boardman killed and learn the truth of why they were chosen by Rip Hunter for this mission. Hunter is himself a determined renegade out to prevent Savage from destroying anymore lives the way he destroyed his own family’s, but as for the heroes Hunter has collected...though he’s seen men of steel fall and dark knights shaken, these “legends” he’s assembled are lost to the ages.


In effect these “legends of tomorrow” are far from that; they are inconsequential and their lives -- their heroics -- won’t matter at all. Hunter brings them together in an effort to give them all a fighting chance to be remembered as more than just “secondary characters” in a plot line. In effect, these legends will themselves be endeavor to be the templates for all those to come! Convinced that unless the stop Vandal Savage the future will be lost!


From the moment that the group is assembled on the bridge of the time ship, their chemistry is almost immediate. In the DC Comics mythology Ray Palmer and Carter Hall are very good friends and team-up often to fight crime, so it’ll be interesting to see if that dynamic will also developed among the series’ characters. Victor Garber as the elder statesman and one-half of the powerhouse Firestorm is also wonderful invigorating, though fans may wish that Robbie Amell had been recruited instead of Jefferson “Jax” Jackson who is still developing.


The anti-heroes of Captain Cold, Heatwave and White Canary make for an interestingly dynamic mix that is both volatile and sexy, and give off some kick-ass sparks. Though charmingly entertaining Heatwave and Cold just don’t have the gravitas that audiences might prefer to see take on the Scarlet Speedster from time to time, but perhaps when these two have exhausted their appeal it will open the door for two more proper heroes to take their place...maybe Blue Beetle and Booster Gold.


One thing for certain, after proving that Arrow had great dramatic potential in serialized television and that The Flash can make superpowers interesting, DC’s Legend of Tomorrow is set to plead the case for ensemble casts that work in team shows. Feeling a little bit like Firefly and throwing in plenty of Quantum Leap and Doctor Who -- DC’s Legends of Tomorrow are the primetime heroes we’ve been hoping for today!




Bonus Features: The iTunes bonus feature when you purchase a Season Pass includes the nearly half-hour documentary “The Time is Now” which sets up the world of the Legends from their origins and into primetime.

 
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Their time is now! This make-shift band of heroes and rogues are gathered together to save the present from an immortal conqueror, DC Comic’s most notorious dictator - the warmongering Vandal Savage.
Although introduced at 2015’s San Diego Comic-Con, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow hadn’t yet shot a proper pilot episode so a “sizzle spot” was put together that included the heroes of the established television franchises including Arrow and The Flash fighting alongside allies The Atom and the newly introduced White Canary. 

Fans marveled when Rogue’s Gallery favorites Captain Cold and Heatwave were also included as part of the cast.
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Episode Facts: 
“Pilot: Pt. 1”
Season 1/Episode 1

(Original Airdate: Jan. 21, 2016)

Directed by: Glen Winter
Written by: Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, Andrew Kreisberg & Phil Klemmer

Rogue’s Gallery: The Legends pilot serves to establish the menace of the immortal known as Vandal Savage. The villain has been a danger to the major players in the DC Universe for as long as any comic reader can fair to remember.

The enigmatic evil pooled together a team of villains to take on the “Golden Age” Justice Society and plotted from the shadows with his version of the Legion of Doom to destroy the contemporary members of the Justice League.

Vandal Savage has been brewing his tyrannical ways since ore-history when he came in contact with an extraterrestrial element that increased his intellect as well as his strength, but cursed the villain with immortality.

First Legacy Appearance: Green Lantern #10 (Dec, 1944)

LEGENDS: WHO’S WHO

RIP HUNTER

Introduced as a member of the Time Masters on Legends, the character known as Rip Hunter has had a very colorful history in the DC Comics Universe and has always existed on the fringes of science-fiction as an ally of the Challengers of the Unknown.

Most recently and after the events of Infinite Crisis, Hunter decides to map alongside Booster Gold the newly re-introduced multiverse, and along the way discover just how fragile the make-up of it all is. Hunter takes on Vandal Savage and Chronus and discovers his connection to Booster Gold.

Rip Hunter survives the events of FlashPoint, the most recent reboot of the DC Multiverse, but his true intentions or purpose have not been revealed -- whether he is friend or foe have yet to be determined.
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