DC's Legends of Tomorrow: Easter Eggs and DC Comics References in "Pilot, Part 2"

DAMIEN DARHK

This DC Comics villain is a fairly minor character in the comics, but per Ra's al Ghul's monologue this week, he's not only the head of H.I.V.E. but is behind a number of other mysteries in the show's history.

In the comics, Darhk was a mysterious figure who claimed to be a major player in America's underworld and had some connection to the criminal organization H.I.V.E.

On Arrow, of course, H.I.V.E. have ties to Deadshot and were responsible for putting out the hit on Andy Diggle, John Diggle's brother. He's been the big bad for the whole fourth season.

THE EGYPTIAN DAGGER

While the concept of an Egyptian dagger being a good MacGuffin for a story like this isn't exactly new, it's worth mentioning that Rip Hunter has been involved with a protracted hunt for one in the not-too-distant past.

When? Well, check out the trade paperback Booster Gold: Reality Lost by Rick Remender, Chuck Dixon, Dan Jurgens and company. In that book, Booster and his son Rip Hunter squared off against Chronos (remember him from last week's episode of Legends?) while chasing such a dagger through time, trying to get their hands on it before Wiley Dalbert, a minor villain from Gotham City, did.

DWARF STAR

Yes, they said the Alpha Particles were emitted while simulating the effect of Dwarf Star Alloy in the A.T.O.M. armor.

Of course, in the comics, it was a fragment of White Dwarf Star that allowed The Atom to grow and shrink at will.

IVY UNIVERSITY

In the comics, employees at Ivy have historically included, among others, Ray Palmer.

It's been name-dropped on Arrow before, as well as in the premiere of Constantine, where John said that he knew somebody who worked there.

...which, I guess, could retroactively be Ray, now that Constantine has appeared on Arrow and exists in the world of Legends of Tomorrow.

"BE COOL"

Given the very deliberate way Stein told his colleagues to "be cool," it was hard not to think of the Barry Sonnenfeld Get Shorty follow-up.

In that film's marketing campaign, the title was used as a catchphrase to comedic effect.

Of course, that movie starred Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who will soon appear as Black Adam in DC's Shazam.

It's unlikely this was an intentional name drop, but the line read made it seem like it and the general '70s aesthetic of Get Shorty and Be Cool (they were set in then-modern times, but the fashions and color palettes felt very disco) make it feel intentional.

ELON MUSK

Per his Wikipedia entry (becuase who feels like rewriting this stuff?), Elon Reeve Musk is a South African-born Canadian-American business magnate, engineer, inventor and investor. He is the CEO and CTO of SpaceX, CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors, chairman of SolarCity, and co-chairman of OpenAI.

He was also four years old in 1975, which would explain why he'd be somebody who appeals to Stein, but wouldn't be recognizable to "Marty."

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Does the name "Marty" and the idea of the diseappearing/reappearing ring indicating time travel anomalies feel familiar at all to you?

Yeah, it's a little Back to the Future to me, too.

And we confirmed that was intentional, because during a set visit to Legends in October, I talked with showrunner Phil Klemmer on the day Marty McFly arrived in 2015.

THE CARLIN AWARD

Apparently, young Marty is a five-time winner of the Carlin Award.

That's pretty prestigious, of course, and you can tell because it was likely named for longtime DC Comics editor Mike Carlin, during whose tenure as head editor of the Superman titles, Rip Hunter, the Linear Men and Waverider were regular recurring characters.