Things We Want to see in Legends of Tomorrow Season 3

It’s been quite a while since the season finale of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow knocked us all off our feet, and with the first bit of casting news for season 3 coming out this week, it seems like now is as good a time as any to sit back, take stock, and think about what we’re hoping to see from the coming season.

It’s arguably harder to do with Legends of Tomorrow than with any of the other Arrowverse shows, because we don’t really know what we’re getting into. Much like Arrow, the season-ending cliffhanger was such a giant “WTF” that it potentially changes the show completely going forward.

Unlike Arrow, though, the time-travel nature of Legends means that fans can’t even really expect that the things they know to be true in the past have happened the way they remember.

“Time is broken,” as Rip Hunter would say if this was the Rip Hunter from 52 instead of the one we got on TV. And that makes reasonable guesses about just what is going on difficult to make.

That’s never stopped us before, though! Buckle in as we set the Flux Capacitor for this fall and hit 88 miles an hour to see what we think, and hope, might be coming up in the next few months.

A COOL USE OF MAGIC

The world of magic has been somewhat hit-or-miss in the Arrowverse.

Hawkman and Hawkwoman showed promise, but never really “got there,” while both Damien Darhk and Vandal Savage suffered from way, way too much screen time, leaving basically no mystery to the villains.

And, of course, there’s John Constantine, who has appeared very little since his NBC series was cancelled.

So what to make of the fact that a new character, announced this week, will have powers that are “mystical in nature?”

We’re hoping to see something really cool spin out of that. The odds of getting what fans are hoping for when they hear her name — an actual Marvel Family nod — is pretty slim. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t tie her to some other cool aspect of DC history to make up for it, or even attach her to some of the mystical artifacts and events depicted in Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, or Constantine.

LESS TIME TRAVEL

This one might seem counterintuitive, but the season finale set up a cool, strange new locale…and we hope they use it a little bit, and don’t just occasionally make their way back ot it as they sprint from time period to time period.

The weekly time jaunts are a staple of the series, and will have to remain at least mostly intact…but given the fact that the Legends have created a situation where time is very, very broken and they’re at the center of it, one would hope that their reaciton to that might be to reappraise some of how they do things.

Especially becuase if they travel back or forward in this new, altered timeline, it’s difficult to imagine what they might stumble across.

No, we aren’t saying that DC’s time-travel show should stop traveling through time altogether…but we’re hoping that this cool new environment introduced at the end of season 2 will become a place where they can kind of hang their hats and spend at least a little bit of time.

Spending a significant amount of time in a damaged timeline rather than trying to immediately fix it all at once would also help to differentiate Legends of Tomorrow from other time-travel shows — a genre that’s become increasingly common on TV right now.

STABILITY, BUT CHANGE

In the second season of Legends of Tomorrow, the series got rid of Rip Hunter, the man who brought the team together, for a lengthy period of time — and at the end of the season, he felt that he wasn’t actually necessary to the ship running well and excused himself to go do…other stuff.

Then time broke, and we know he’ll be back next season.

They also introduced numerous characters, some of whom will be back as series regulars again (we’re looking at you, Vixen and Citizen Steel), and some of whom will not (like the rest of the JSA, for instance).

That said, the broken timeline allows for some changes to the lineup, to their personal history…whatever. What if this was finally the opportunity TV has always been waiting for to adapt the Hex series in which Jonah was transported to the future and fought badguys with a ray gun? Johnathan Schaech has been a gem in his two guest appearances; adding him as recurring or even a regular in the third season could be a ton of fun.

And, yes, this is a huge cast and yes, adding anyone or anything significant would probably require getting rid of or dialing back on somebody who’s already there. But after season 2, we’re confident that the writers are going to create something entertaining, however they put it all together.

SOME LESSER-KNOWN DC CONCEPTS

We’ve already speculated that the upcoming season might feature Kamandi — and just a moment ago we talked about the possibility of Hex showing up.

We’re hoping that there are some cool, unexpected DC properties who ordinarily might not fit into the Arrowverse, except that time is broken, and it’s the perfect opportunity to give us I, Vampire or Cave Carson or Anthro the Cave-Boy.

That last one could be particularly fun becuase of his connection to the Doctor 13: Architecture and Morality miniseries, which feels like the kind of rag-tag group of forgotten heroes that could be really at home on a show like Legends.

MORE LEGENDS OF TOMORROW

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow returns in the fall, airing on Tuesday nights at 9/8c following The Flash.

After the defeat of Eobard Thawne and his equally nefarious Legion of Doom, the Legends face a new threat created by their actions at the end of last season. In revisiting a moment in time that they had already participated in, they have essentially fractured the timeline and created anachronisms – a scattering of people, animals, and objects all across time! Our team must find a way to return all the anachronisms to their original timelines before the time stream falls apart. But before our Legends can jump back into action, Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) and his newly established Time Bureau call their methods into question. With the Time Bureau effectively the new sheriffs in town, the Legends disband – until Mick Rory (Dominic Purcell) discovers one of them in the middle of his well-deserved vacation in Aruba. Seeing this as an opportunity to continue their time travelling heroics, Sara (Caity Lotz) wastes no time in getting the Legends back together.

We reunite with billionaire inventor Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh), the unconventional historian-turned-superhero Nick Heywood (Nick Zano), and Professor Martin Stein (Victor Garber) and Jefferson “Jax” Jackson (Franz Drameh), who together form the meta-human Firestorm. Once reunited, the Legends will challenge the Time Bureau’s authority over the timeline and insist that however messy their methods may be, some problems are beyond the Bureau’s capabilities. Some problems can only be fixed by Legends.

More DC’s Legends of Tomorrow news:

• Legends of Tomorrow Casts Tala Ashe as A Member of the Shazam! Family
• Reverse Flash ArtFX+ Statue Revealed By Kotobukiya
• Legends of Tomorrow Season 3 Poster Revealed
• Arrow: Did [SPOILER] Really Die?