In the coming weeks and months, we will likely hear more about what mystical and legendary creatures are being rounded up and brought into the fold on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, taking up with (or against) the heroes on board the Waverider.
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And here at ComicBook.com, we have been putting a lot of thought into just what that might look like.
What creatures or characters might pop up? What Easter eggs to established DC lore might there be?
And we, of course, have some suggestions, which Legends will by and large ignore and do their own thing, but what the hell? It’s fun to dream.
For the sake of argument, we are omitting Robin Hood because if it isn’t Stephen Amell, what’s the point?
One minor point: we are trying here to find some established characters from the comics, or at least concepts that have a basis in the comics, even if there is not one specific known character for it. There will be notable omissions here, of course, and we’re looking to you, fans, to tell us what we’re missingin the comments or on Twitter @ComicBook.
So without further ado, here we go…!
Thor
Mostly just because the Marvel jokes write themselves.
But seriously, there is nothing stopping them from using pagan gods and the like to fill out their “mythical” roster, and even without Marvel, Thor is the best-known one of the Asgardian pantheon.
And, yes, he exists in the DC Universe.
During World War II, Thor was summoned by Adolf Hitler and mind-controlled with the Spear of Destiny (remember that little trinket?) into abducting US President Franklin Roosevelt and UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill, but was stopped by Doctor Fate and Green Lantern Alan Scott.
Decades later, he (along with Loki and Odin) would seek to take over the vacant throne of Hell, abandoned while Lucifer Morningstar spent time on Earth.
The 7 Deadly Sins
Statues of the 7 Deadly Sins adorn the Rock of Eternity, from where the Wizard Shazam and his champions, including Isis and Osiris, draw their powers.
The Sins — also known as the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man — have been captured, encased in stone, for generations, but between time travel and the propensity for things in captivity to break out for the purposes of comics stories, it seems like these are beings that might be ready for prime time (9 p.m./8 Central), giving Zari a wink-and-a-nod tie to her roots as part of the Marvel Family.
They have traditionally appeared in Shazam/Captain Marvel comics, but a verison of the Sins played a major role in Geoff Johns’s backstory for the character of Pandora, playing through issues of Trinity of Sin: Pandora, Trinity of Sin: The Phantom Stranger, and Constantine during the Forever Evil storyline.
Heck, Pandora herself might be a worthy cameo, especially since Pandora’s Box appeared on the pilot for Constantine.
I, Vampire
Created by J.M. DeMatteis and Tom Sutton in the ’80s and then reinvented in 2011 in a critically-acclaimed series by Joshua Hale Fialkov, Andrew Bennett is a 16th Century vampire who hunts other vampires.
Despite having supernatural strengths and weaknesses, he is able to resist the bloodlust to feed on humans. His immortal life is dedicated to hunting down his former lover Mary, Queen of Blood.
Obvious parallels to Blade aside, the character and his supporting world could be a fun place to play for an episode or two, and it would give a solid point of view character to the generic concept of “vampires,” which seems to be a direction they are headed in with things like werewolves and unicorns showing up in the show.
Lori Lemaris
If they want to do another ’80s riff, let’s see how DC’s Legends of Tomorrow can deal with homaging Splash!
Sure, there are plenty of mer-people in the DC Universe, but with most of those being busy hanging out with Aquaman on the big screen, Lori Lemaris seems like a pretty reasonable figure to show up. She has ties to Superman, but let’s be honest, there will not be a live-action Superman anytime soon that features mermaids, so she is probably up for grabs.
And, yeah, the temptation to do some kind of comedy bit with it and turn it into a Little Mermaid/Splash homage would be kind of amazing.
Leprechauns
According to Ganthet’s Tale by Larry Niven and John Byrne, what humans call leprechauns are actually offshoots of the Guardians of the Universe.
What better way to play with two ideas at once, especially since Green Lanterns proper are likely too expensive to do in live-action TV, but to have a vague tie to one that also doesn’t mess with the upcoming movie?
We would be 100% down for the arrival of a mischievous leprechaun who turns out to be named Appa Ali Apsa or something.
Yeti
Straight from China (by way of 52) comes a Yeti who’s a member of the Great Ten.
It is unlikely that Legends would introduce the Great Ten themselves, but as they did with the Amazons last year, one need not get into all of the particulars of a group of DC characters in order to briefly introduce them for the sake of a story. Just having a Chinese yeti would likely be enough to do it.
Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE
If you’re going with public-domain characters, who can be either heroic or villainous, you could do a lot worse with Frankenstein’s Monster.
The fact that DC has turned him not just into a hero, but into an agent of SHADE, a mysterious and often trippy government operation, just goes to show how well he could fit in with the strange and sometimes trippy Legends crew.
The Dreaming
This one feels like a longshot, especially with Lucifer on Netflix and an ever-present desire to see Sandman made into a movie…but it kind of feels like if you’re going in the direction of a breakdown between fantasy and reality, DC lore doesn’t get much closer to that borderline than The Dreaming.
As in Dark Nights: Metal, one has to wonder whether it might be something where we can get a cameo, or maybe just a name-drop, of one or more members of the Dreaming, while maintaining the same kind of plausible deniability that “no, that’s not what we did” that Arrow managed with Harley Quinn and Legends with the Amazons.
Captain Carrot and the Amazing Zoo Crew
It would be difficult to imagine a mainstream show that takes itself relatively serious and has life-and-death stakes doing an episode in which superheroes crossover with Captain Carrot and the Amazing Zoo Crew.
Still, with a massively-successful Legends of Tomorrow/Scooby-Doo crossover in the rear view mirror and a premise that lends itself to it, is it really that difficult to imagine that somehow the Legends might find themselves, in animated form, teaming with Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew, say…to rescue Beebo or something?
We would watch the HELL out of that episode.
Santa Claus
…You know it’s going to happen, right?
And, yes, Santa has shown up in the DC Universe. It isn’t like Marvel where he is classified as an incredibly powerful mutant, but he has been killed in the Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special, a live-action version of which from director Scott Leberecht can be seen above, and also appeared in Grant Morrison’s JLA run, just to name a couple.
Our candidate for the role is actually Victor Garber. Not only would it be a fun wink to the show’s history and a knowing wink at the idea of breaking down the walls between fiction and the show’s reality…but you can’t tell us that if you put him in a fat suit, he wouldn’t be a great Santa.
