While tonight’s DC’s Legends of Tomorrow wasn’t as over-the-top and overt with its Easter eggs as was The Flash earlier this week, there was still plenty to look for.
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From the first on-camera appearance of Gideon’s “face” to some fun name-drops that fans might or might not have recognized, Legends brought the fun along with a tense, spy-flavored episode set in the ’80s.
So…what did we see? What did we miss?
Read on, and comment below.
GIDEON
This isn’t the first appearance of Gideon, of course — we’ve heard her voice in every episode of the series so far. What it is, is the first appearance of the face of Gideon, as seen in Season One of The Flash.
As an aside, we finally did some digging and figure out that the voice of Gideon in this particular iteration isn’t Gotham‘s Morena Baccarin, as it was on The Flash, but Amy Pemberton, best known to our audience for doing video game voice work.
Pemberton was Elaena Glenmore in Telltale Games’s Game of Thrones series, and had uncredited roles as both Lady Loki and Sif in Marvel Heroes.
CORRECTION: This is NOT the first time we’ve seen Gideon’s face. She appeared briefly in the pilot episode, and then went into audio mode after that.
“I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A SPY.”
That’s funny coming from Brandon Routh, who played superspy Daniel Shaw on Chuck.
WINGED AVENGER
“Winged Avenger” is a less common nickname for Hawkgirl, since after all Marvel has the market kind of cornered on superheroes who call themselves “Avengers.”
Still, it’s worth noting that they made the name-drop.
…Also: “demigoddess?” Maybe somebody with better Hawk-fu than I have can help me out here, but while she’s usually got her powers from a hawk god, I don’t remember she herself being even half goddess.
BIG BIRD AND BOBA FETT
We should start keeping track of all the fun things that people on this show get called.
Sara calls Kendra “Big Bird,” and Jax calls Chronos “Boba Fett,” which is a callback to the pilot.
TOP GUN
“No one’s ever been this close to one before,” says Ray Palmer of those Russian jets that nearly take down Chronos’s timeship.
The reference was so overt, that Cold had to call him out on it immediately.
SVAROG
As pointed out in the episode itself, Svarog is a Slavic deity generally thought to be god of fire and blacksmithing. His more popular/well-known corollary is Hephaestus, a Greek god with similar powers and areas of importance.
He’s also the father of Dažbog, a Slavic solar deity.
Worth noting, Svarog’s Square or Star of Rus, pictured above, looks a lot like a kind of ancient version of the atomic logo often worn by Firestorm in the comics.
VALENTINA VOSTOK
Valentina Vostok, once a member of the Doom Patrol as Negative Woman, would go on to play a role in international peacekeeping as the White Queen of Checkmate — a role that seems closer to what she’s doing here, unless there’s some kind of major accident that gives her powers next episode.
Ironically, in her role at Checkmate, she replaced Amanda Waller, who just died on Arrow.
In the comics, she was Russian, yes, but she defected to the US and stole a bomber jet to do it.
WHITE KNIGHTS
This seems like as good a time as any to point out that “White Knights” in the context of the DC Universe could easily start to feel like a Checkmate reference — an organization in which Vostok was at one point the White Queen.
BABELFISH
The ingestible translator technology feels a lot like the Babelfish from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The big difference, of course, is that it attaches itself to your vocal chords instead of your ear, so it’s apparently your outgoing speech rather than incoming that’s translated…but otherwise, same concept. It essentially reads brianwave activity and spits out audio.
MORE COLD JOKES!
“Damn, that was cold” and “I love the cold. That’s a pretty cold calculation, Rip.”
It’s been a while, Captain. Glad to see you still have the cold jokes and puns in you. We missed them from literally every time you appeared on The Flash.
“TWO MONTHS AGO…”
“Two months ago, I was a barista,” says Kendra.
Again.
This would definitely be part of my DC’s Legends of Tomorrow drinking game.
TEMPORAL ANOMALY
Temporal anomalies causing damage or threatening to cause damage to the integrity of the timestream is something the Time Masters and Linear Men have traditionally taken quite seriously.
The phrase popped up over and over again in Zero Hour: A Crisis in Time, in which Hal Jordan had a psychotic break and tried to reboot the DC Universe, using temporal anomalies leftover from the Crisis on Infinite Earths as his starting point.
We’ve talked about how Rip’s behavior feels a little…Zero Hour-y to us…!
VANISHING POINT
“Return with me to the Vanishing Point,” says Zaman Druce to Rip.
In the comics, Vanishing Point is home to the Linear Men — and later the Time Masters. It’s a point outside of time and immune to any damage that might be done to the timestream, where they and their agents can plan their moves and repair damage unmolested.
It’s also where Rip Hunter grew up, as eventually it essentially becomes property of Booster Gold, and since Rip is his son, that’s where Booster elected to raise him for the most part.
TIMECOP & ROCKY IV
Two iconic cheesy action movies — Timecop and Rocky IV — get situation-appropriate name-drops in this episode.
Rocky IV, which would have been in theaters for a while before Mick Rory told a Russian soldier that he was going to “go Rocky IV on your ass,” featured Sylvester Stallone’s iconic boxer squaring off against Ivan Drago, a ‘roided-up Russian superboxer who killed Apollo Creed in the ring.
Timecop, which Rory called Zaman Druce, was a 1994 film featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme as somebody who polices the timesteam.
CANARY’S OUTFIT
That blue-and-black number feels a little bit like a wink and a nod to the one Canary wore in Justice League International in the ’90s.
On the one hand, they aren’t that similar but on the other hand, considering how dated the costume itself is and how loosely most such costumes are adapted to the screen, I feel like just the matching color scheme and placement of the stripes is enough to call it a likelihood.
REBIRTH
“Surely you know a thing or two about rebirth,” Rip says to Hawkgirl.
“Rebirth” is about as common as “52” when it comes to DC Comics Easter eggs and catchphrases these days…!
POZHAR
That Soviet officer talking to Stein? According to the credits, that’s Mikhail Arkadin, better known as the Fire Elemental Pozhar.
Pozhar was a Russian superhero who at one point was inadvertently merged with Firestorm as the result of a nuclear explosion.
Seems more likely now that, in some way or another, Vostok might actually succeed in making a Russian Firestorm!
