The CW’s latest comic book show falls short of legendary
The series begins in 2066 as Rip Hunter’s (Arthur Darvill) wife and young son are savagely murdered by supervillain Vandal Savage (Casper Crump), who is out to destroy the entire world and its most precious commodity, time, which is carefully overseen by a kind of dystopian United Nations called the Time Masters.
The team includes Professor Martin Stein (Victor Garber), who, when joined with Jefferson Jackson (Franz Drameh), forms the incendiary superhero Firestorm; Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh), who can shrink himself down to sub-nuclear size to become the Atom; the formerly dead Sara Lance (Caity Lotz), whose alter ego is the battling White Canary; Kendra Saunders (Ciara Renée) and Carter Hall (Falk Hentschel), who have been repeatedly killed and reborn for centuries and take on the airborne personae of Hawkgirl and Hawkman; and a couple of talented criminals, Leonard Snart (Wentworth Miller), who has a special gun that can turn anyone into a Popsicle, and Mick Rory (Dominic Purcell), who has a similar weapon that can burn through anything.
“Legends” does occupy a new slot in the ever-expanding universe of CW comic book shows.
“Arrow” is the dark, somewhat sophisticated series, “The Flash” is lighter and targets a slightly younger audience, and now “Legends” becomes the silliest of the trio.
Comic book TV shows are proliferating like crazy these days — “Agent Carter” and “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” on ABC, “Supergirl” on CBS, “Gotham” on Fox and “Lucifer” about to premiere, “iZombie” on the CW, “Daredevil” and others on Netflix, and “Preacher” due on AMC, to name just a few.
Content providers may think the audience for comic book shows is insatiable, but they are also smart and discriminating.
David Wiegand is an assistant managing editor and the TV critic of The San Francisco Chronicle.