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chuckroTime travel is real, and all of history is vulnerable to attack. Which is why we must travel through time to stop the spread of these so-called "time aberrations" and to erase their damage to history. We are a team of outcasts and misfits, so please don't call us heroes. We're Legends.
Clearly, the writers took complaints about the first season to heart. The Hawks are gone and Savage is dead following the end of Season 1. They write out Rip Hunter in the first episode, and then introduce this season’s villains shortly thereafter: Damien Darhk working with Eobard Thawne. (And later adding Malcolm Merlyn and a time-stolen Captain Cold to form the Legion of Doom.)
They introduce a very interesting version of the JSA in 1942: Commander Steel, Hourman, Obsidian, Dr. Mid-Nite, Stargirl and Vixen. Curious choices all, but then, they obviously couldn’t use Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman or Alan Scott/Green Lantern, because they don’t seem to exist in the Arrowverse; and Jay Garrick was established by The Flash to be on an alternate Earth. Vixen, it later became clear, was added so they could make her the new member of the Legends, replacing Hawkgirl with another black woman in the cast.
While the diversity in the cast isn't perfect (nothing is)m they're clearly trying. They had a number of plotlines that amounted to, “Man, racism and sexism sucked. Didn’t we fix that in the future?” “Yeah...still working on that.”
The Invasion! Crossover episode was actually the last part of the crossover, so I saw the ending before seeing the beginning, but given that I've been a comics fan for almost 30 years, I'm used to that sort of thing. And I'm really looking forward to the other pieces, if just for more Barry/Kara interaction.
They embrace the comic-book nature of the show and run with it, and it works so much better than trying to be serious. They have to stop zombie confederates from disrupting the civil war. Professor Stein distracts Nazis by singing “Edelweiss.” They have to steal Al Capone's tax ledger on behalf of Elliot Ness and convince George Lucas not to leave film school (because without Star Wars, Ray Palmer becomes a heart surgeon instead of The Atom). They go to Camelot! They fight a dinosaur!
They also manage to go half a season not being incredibly stupid about how they treat villains in tense situations, but then Rip comes back and Jax manages to forget—despite watching Sarah get saved from a gunshot wound mere minutes earlier—that you can fire a gun at someone and not instantly kill them, and therefore refuse to shoot at a villain at all. I think the takeaway here is that Rip generates some sort of Anti-Simple-Solution field. This also explains why the villains manage to not kill the heroes despite numerous opportunities: They're holding Rip captive for most of those, and clearly his ASS-field affects them as well! (Rip leaving at the end of the season likely bodes well for Season 3.)
Overall: Apparently the creators felt the biggest problem with the series was that it wasn’t quite crazy enough—and I think they were right! While one could argue that the show is overall still pretty dumb, it's all the fun you would want from a time-traveling, dysfunctional superhero team.
Clearly, the writers took complaints about the first season to heart. The Hawks are gone and Savage is dead following the end of Season 1. They write out Rip Hunter in the first episode, and then introduce this season’s villains shortly thereafter: Damien Darhk working with Eobard Thawne. (And later adding Malcolm Merlyn and a time-stolen Captain Cold to form the Legion of Doom.)
They introduce a very interesting version of the JSA in 1942: Commander Steel, Hourman, Obsidian, Dr. Mid-Nite, Stargirl and Vixen. Curious choices all, but then, they obviously couldn’t use Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman or Alan Scott/Green Lantern, because they don’t seem to exist in the Arrowverse; and Jay Garrick was established by The Flash to be on an alternate Earth. Vixen, it later became clear, was added so they could make her the new member of the Legends, replacing Hawkgirl with another black woman in the cast.
While the diversity in the cast isn't perfect (nothing is)m they're clearly trying. They had a number of plotlines that amounted to, “Man, racism and sexism sucked. Didn’t we fix that in the future?” “Yeah...still working on that.”
The Invasion! Crossover episode was actually the last part of the crossover, so I saw the ending before seeing the beginning, but given that I've been a comics fan for almost 30 years, I'm used to that sort of thing. And I'm really looking forward to the other pieces, if just for more Barry/Kara interaction.
They embrace the comic-book nature of the show and run with it, and it works so much better than trying to be serious. They have to stop zombie confederates from disrupting the civil war. Professor Stein distracts Nazis by singing “Edelweiss.” They have to steal Al Capone's tax ledger on behalf of Elliot Ness and convince George Lucas not to leave film school (because without Star Wars, Ray Palmer becomes a heart surgeon instead of The Atom). They go to Camelot! They fight a dinosaur!
They also manage to go half a season not being incredibly stupid about how they treat villains in tense situations, but then Rip comes back and Jax manages to forget—despite watching Sarah get saved from a gunshot wound mere minutes earlier—that you can fire a gun at someone and not instantly kill them, and therefore refuse to shoot at a villain at all. I think the takeaway here is that Rip generates some sort of Anti-Simple-Solution field. This also explains why the villains manage to not kill the heroes despite numerous opportunities: They're holding Rip captive for most of those, and clearly his ASS-field affects them as well! (Rip leaving at the end of the season likely bodes well for Season 3.)
Overall: Apparently the creators felt the biggest problem with the series was that it wasn’t quite crazy enough—and I think they were right! While one could argue that the show is overall still pretty dumb, it's all the fun you would want from a time-traveling, dysfunctional superhero team.
