A Guide to Recognizing Your Legends

A handy introduction to the eight members of Rip Hunter’s team, chosen to save the world from the tyranny of Vandal Savage.

Sara Lance: The White Canary (Arrow)
Sara Lance is the younger sister of Laurel Lance, and the former paramour of both Oliver Queen and Nyssa al Ghul. She’s an expert level martial artist and assassin trained by The League of Assassins under the former Head of the Demon, Ra’s al Ghul. She has very recently been resurrected from the dead by the rejuvenating waters of the Lazarus Pit, but with that resurrection has brought along a hunger from the grave that hasn’t been fully explored, but is sure to cause some friction in coming episodes of the Legends of Tomorrow. Along with all that though, Sara is brash and reckless at times, relying more on her ideals and martial training to see her through conflict, over planning and diplomacy. Despite her willingness to throw herself into the most dangerous situations, she’s less inclined to put innocents or bystanders at risk: especially women and girls.

Jefferson Jackson and Professor Martin Stein: Firestorm 2.0 (Flash)
Both victims of the same particle accelerator explosion that gave Barry Allen the powers that turned him into the Flash. Due to the alterations of their DNA caused by the explosion, along with the experimental Firestorm matrix, both Jefferson Jackson and Martin Stein share a symbiotic relationship that links them both mentally and physically. Separately, Martin Stein is a genius physics expert, and Jefferson Jackson is a willful but intelligent former athlete. When the two come together as one, the Firestorm matrix that links them is activated granting them the incredible powers of the superhero Firestorm, including flight and energy absorption and expulsion. However, due to their very different backgrounds, sensibilities, and priorities, Stein and Jackson are often bickering or knock-down drag-out shouting at each other. On the other hand, the immense power they control as Firestorm make them easily the most physically powerful members of the team. In addition to that minor advantage, since Martin has an intellectual and expertise background and Jefferson has a physical and practical background, Firestorm could be considered in many ways to be the total package.

Leonard Snart and Mick Rory: Captain Cold and Heatwave: (Flash)
Thieves, Killers, Partners, and just the kind of guys you’d rather be on your side of the line than the other. Captain Cold and Heatwave both started as career criminals who were totally normal if not super-humanly willful. However, thanks to the ingenuity of one Cisco Ramon and a dangerously lax Star Labs employment policy, both men have been given an external channel for their internal aggression, and a shaky truce with Central City’s number one superhero, the Flash. Like their names suggest, both men bring a different expertise to the team. Both are accomplished thieves and killers, but whereas Captain Cold is a brilliant strategist who can keep a cool head under the greatest of pressure, Heatwave is a physically imposing fighter with an explosive personality. The two men have a history of betrayal though, and at times let their differences overwhelm their partnership. They can end up being fiercely independent. Snart tends to rely on his wits more than he probably should, sometimes overestimating his own intelligence and getting in situations that are well over his head, with Rory putting himself thoughtlessly in the most dangerous scraps and attempting to punch or shoot his way out despite the odds against him. But like Firestorm, both men can cancel out each others’ weaknesses and bolster each others strengths. Rory accepts Snart’s expertise as a strategist and without reaching actual trust, recognizes the parts that he carves out for him in his schemes. Likewise, Snart recognizes the value of Rory’s hotheaded nature when it comes to brute strength and destruction, and how useful that the disorienting and distracting application of noise and fire can be in plotting an exit or entrance. With all that in mind, Captain Cold and Heatwave can always be depended on to look out for themselves first and foremost, but when it’s down to the wire and there’s no way out, a hammer and a chisel can end up being your very best friends.

Kendra Saunders and Carter Hall: Hawkgirl and Hawkman (Flash)
Living proof that true love is forever, Kendra and Carter are the 200th incarnations of Prince Khufu and Priestess Chay-ara, forbidden lovers who lived in ancient Egypt sometime during the age of the Middle Kingdom. They were the first victims of the man who would one day become Vandal Savage, a vizier and mystic known as Hath-set. He struck the lovers down in a jealous rage and cursed them to forever face his hatred. However, in her last moments of life, over the bloodied form of her former lover, Priestess Chay-ara prayed to the god Horus to grant them protection as they passed from their lives. Though Priestess Chay-ara and Prince Khufu died that day, they were shortly reincarnated with different lives. But Hath-set and their lives had been inexplicably tied together, and their life force was required to sustain his immortality. And so it is: for 4,000 years the man known as Vandal Savage has tracked down and killed every reincarnation of Priestess Chay-ara and Prince Khufu to sustain his immortality. With each decade passing, he refined his skills of destruction, subjugation, and conquest. Now those reincarnations have come around to Kendra Saunders and Carter Hall, two young strangers who have been thrown together by a past they have only a mystical connection with. Each struggles with their identity in their own way. Carter, who has embraced his past and possesses the memories of hundreds of lives before their current and a hundred different relationships with his one true love and Kendra, who only knows vaguely of the first life and the pressure and expectancy from her self-proclaimed soul-mate, Carter, has held her back from fully coming to terms with her past. Despite this reticence, she and Carter have gained extraordinary abilities from their pact with Horus, including the power to fly thanks to hawklike wings that emerge whenever their warrior spirits are awakened, and a special kind of macelike weapon and unique armor that they have had since their first lives and are thus tied to them by the same mystical power. Both Carter and Kendra and kind are generous souls, but they are also incredibly headstrong and stubborn. Due to Kendra’s past as a holy woman, she constantly strives to protect the weak and defenseless, sometimes to the detriment of her teammates; and due to the intensity of Carter’s memories of his past lives with Kendra, he is willing to pay any price to ensure her safety, even going so far as to jeopardize others. Considering that the time they have spent together amounts to hundreds of relationships, they argue exactly like they are an old couple; and due to their warrior nature, these arguments can sometimes turn into physical violence. Despite their convictions, Kendra and Carter are formidable foes on the battlefield. Their aerial aptitude gives them a distinct advantage over their foes, and their deep connection makes them work together almost effortlessly when it becomes crunch time. Both have a history of conflict and hundreds of lives’ memories making them well versed in thousands of years of vocation and training. Their connection has surpassed more than two-hundred deaths, and that leads to a bond that goes beyond words, and that coordination without direct communication means that their teamwork is second to none. This is one couple that knows their way around a fight, both on the ground and in the air.

Ray Palmer: Atom (Arrow)
Billionaire CEO of one of the biggest tech giants in the world, Ray Palmer has made it his business to protect the innocent after that fateful night that Slade Wilson’s army laid siege to Starling City. His fiancee Anna was murdered by a member of Slade’s Mirakuru army with Ray powerless to stop it. With that motivation as well as grief to drive him, Ray began using his considerable resources and intelligence as a scientist to develop a suit capable of supplementing his physical weaknesses in a way that would allow him to deal out justice to the criminals of Starling City. With Felicity Smoak’s help, his suit was eventually completed and Ray Palmer set out to bring justice to his city, while defending the weak and defenseless. During the day however, Ray was the architect of many civil programs designed to help the poor and disenfranchised members of Starling City; which he was able to enact after he purchased Queen consolidated after Oliver signed over control of the company to Isabel Rochev, an agent of Slade Wilson’s. Part of his revitalizing Starling City program was to change the name to Star City. After an accident in his lab left many to assume he was dead, the city name was changed to Star City in honor of Ray’s philanthropic efforts. Despite being presumed dead for a over a year, it was discovered that Ray was actually a prisoner of Damien Darhk, and his lab accident had unfortunately shrunk him and his suit down to just over an inch tall. After being rescued by team Arrow, Ray was unable to reconcile the lack of impact his death had on the world, and started searching for other ways to leave his mark to make the world a better place to live in for all. Ray is a very optimistic and trusting person with a strong sense of justice. He also acts like a bit of a ham and doesn’t take every situation seriously. As a tech genius, he can degrade into being a science nerd, and is easily awestruck by incredible workings of advanced technology. Since he is so kind and trusting by nature, he is often easy to trick or take advantage of, and he has a very low opinion of people who choose to live selfishly. His suit is very complex and has many moving parts, and so if one part becomes compromised, it can bring down the whole system. The suit is very powerful though, and gives Ray the ability to fly, shoot energy blasts, perform uncanny feats of strength and endurance, and shrink to incredibly small stature, while still giving him access to his full range of abilities. Ray is smart, witty, and charismatic, giving him a strong comedic element, but his abilities make him an asset on the battlefield. He tends to be very straightforward and unwilling to make moves outside of the realm of goodness or law. His sense of justice also means that he fits the hero archetype better than any one of the Legends, sometimes to a fault. When it comes down to it though, Ray wants to save anyone and everyone, and that conviction is what makes him so easy to depend on to make the right choice.

CW’s official description is as follows

DC’S LEGENDS OF TOMORROW stars Victor Garber (“The Flash,” “Alias”), Brandon Routh (“Arrow,” “Superman Returns”), Arthur Darvill (“Doctor Who”), Caity Lotz (“Arrow”), Ciara Renee (“Pippin”), and Franz Drameh (“Edge of Tomorrow”), with Dominic Purcell (“The Flash,” “Prison Break”) and Wentworth Miller (“The Flash,” “Prison Break”). Based on the characters from DC Comics, DC’S LEGENDS OF TOMORROW is from Bonanza Productions Inc. in association with Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television, with executive producers Greg Berlanti (“Arrow,” “The Flash,” “Supergirl”), Marc Guggenheim (“Arrow,” “Eli Stone,” “Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters”), Andrew Kreisberg (“Arrow,” “The Flash,” “Eli Stone,” “Warehouse 13”), Phil Klemmer (“The Tomorrow People,” “Chuck”), Chris Fedak (“Forever,” “Chuck”), and Sarah Schechter (“Arrow,” “The Flash”).

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow premieres on Thursday, January 21 @ 8/9 PM ET/PT only on the CW.  

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