The Arrowverse’s Crisis On Infinite Earths had remarkably little effect on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and only a few characters were changed by the epic crossover. Legends anchored Part 5 of Crisis after Oliver Queen AKA The Spectre (Stephen Amell) defeated the Anti-Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) at the dawn of time and rebooted the Multiverse. As part of this rebirth, Supergirl and Black Lightning were fused with The Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow into the same unified world: Earth Prime. Still, the Legends more or less remain blissfully unfazed by the collapse and remaking of the Multiverse.
The time-traveling Legends have always been outliers in the Arrowverse and as their adventures got weirder over the years, they’ve fixed (and, honestly, caused) numerous calamities to the timeline that the rest of the heroes remain unaware of. As Legends of Tomorrow season 5 began, the misfits led by Sara Lance AKA White Canary (Caity Lotz) have become world-famous after they publicly stopped the Demon Neron from stealing billions of souls at Heyworld, a theme park of magical creatures. However, Neron, posing as Ray Palmer AKA The Atom (Brandon Routh), infiltrated the Time Bureau and used the government agency to his own nefarious ends. As a result, Legends season 5 started with the heroes reeling from the Time Bureau being dismantled by Congress, with the Bureau’s ex-director Ava Sharpe (Jes Macallen), who is Sara’s girlfriend, now working aboard the Waverider.
The Legends of Tomorrow season 5 episode “Meet the Legends” picks up immediately after Crisis. After the Waverider’s crew invited a documentary crew to shoot a film about the Legends to prove their transparency to the U.S. Government, the heroes immediately tangled with The Mad Monk Grigori Rasputin (Michael Eklund), one of history’s greatest villains (dubbed Encores), who has been released from Hell back into the timeline. Basically, this means Legends of Tomorrow season 5 is business as usual for the Arrowverse’s oddball time travelers. But Crisis On Infinite Earths still maintains some lingering effects and here’s how the biggest crossover ever changed Legends of Tomorrow.
When Oliver Queen Rebirthed The Multiverse, He Kept The Legends’ Fracturing Time In Season 4
Legends of Tomorrow ended season 4 by altering the timeline when Zari Tomaz (Tala Ashe) changed the future after Nate Heywood (Nick Zano) was killed by Neron. By saving the world from Neron, the Legends ended the dark future of Star City 2046 Zari came from and Zari leaving the Temporal Zone to try to save Nate wiped her from reality. The two years Zari was a Legend “never happened”, she was replaced by her younger brother Behrad (Shayan Sobhian) aboard the Waverider, and all of the Legends’ memories of Zari were erased. However, Nate and Zari were in love and even though the timeline was changed, Nate continued to feel that something was wrong - until Rasputin’s magic partly restored his memories of Zari in “Meet the Legends”.
However, when Oliver Queen rebirthed the Multiverse, his creation of Earth Prime didn’t affect the Legends changing their timeline so Zari was still gone and no one thinks otherwise about Behrad’s membership aboard the Waverider. Perhaps upon achieving cosmic awareness, Oliver simply preserved the Legends’ new status quo or, except for Supergirl’s National City and Black Lightning’s Freeland joining Earth Prime, the Spectre simply kept almost everything as it was in 2020 so that the Legends will have to clean up this latest timey-wimey mess they don’t even know they made.
Most Of The Legends Weren’t Invited To Crisis And Didn’t Know What Happened
Not all of the Legends were invited to fight in Crisis on Infinite Earths: Harbinger (Audrey Anderson) only recruited Sara Lance and Ray Palmer in Crisis Part 1. Later, Harbinger commandeered the Waverider from Earth-74 and the Mick Rory AKA Heatwave (Dominic Purcell) from that Earth came along for the ride. After the Multiverse restarted, in Crisis Part 5, Earth Prime’s Mick Rory joined White Canary and the Atom to fight the giant Beebo that Sargon the Sorcerer (Raul Herrera) sent rampaging in Star City.
“Meet the Legends” takes place not long after Oliver Queen’s funeral, where Sara, Ray, and Mick rejoin their friends aboard the Waverider. However, besides Ava and Nate briefly appearing in Crisis Part 5, the bulk of the Legends’ roster, including Behrad, the shapeshifter Charlie (Maisie Richardson-Sellers), Nora Darhk (Courtney Ford), and Mona Wu (Ramona Young) were left in the dark about what actually happened during the crossover.
But The Legends Seem To Be Aware That The Multiverse Was Restarted
In “Meet the Legends”, Sara gave her teammates who weren’t invited to the crossover a brief rundown of the Crisis: “Countless Earths died, I became a Paragon and traveled back to the Big Bang… We restarted the universe and now no one even remembers what we changed.” However, earlier in the episode, Ava specifically noted that Sara and the other Paragons “saved the Multiverse”, which indicates that the Waverider’s crew knows more than the other heroes of the Arrowverse.
After Crisis on Infinite Earths, the other heroes like Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) and the DEO believe that the Multiverse is gone and there’s just one Earth, Earth Prime. It’s possible the Legends know differently, which wouldn’t be surprising considering the access they have to time travel and Gideon’s A.I. knowledge banks aboard the Waverider. If the Legends do indeed know there is actually a new Multiverse, they’re likely to keep the info to themselves since they rarely interact with the rest of the Arrowverse.
Sara Lance Lost Oliver Queen And Was Hit Hardest By The Crisis
Of the Legends, Sara Lance lost the most during Crisis on Infinite Earths. Oliver’s death essentially killed the last of her “family” after her father Quentin Lance (Paul Blackthorne) and her sister, Earth-1’s Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy), died. As Sara told Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) during Crisis Part 5, Oliver was the last person who knew who Sara was before she got on the Queen’s Gambit, the boat trip that completely altered her life. Sara considered Oliver to be a rock who would always be there and his death means there’s no one left living who remembers Sara before she became an assassin-turned-time traveling superhero.
While Sara will be healing from Oliver’s death for quite some time, being with her found family the Legends and being their beleaguered leader reverted her back to her old form by the end of “Meet the Legends”. Sara heading up the Legends’ new season 5 mission to round up the evil Encores will certainly distract her from the events of the Crisis, but the pain of Oliver’s loss could come back if she reports to the Hall of Justice as part of the Arrowverse’s Justice League and sees the chair left empty to honor Green Arrow.
Ray Palmer Met Superman And Thought He Was Handsome
Ray Palmer excitedly recounted what it was like to save the Multiverse with Supergirl, Flash, and Batwoman, but the Atom was most taken by getting to meet Superman, whom he breathlessly pointed out is “very handsome”. While Ray worked alongside two Supermen during the Crisis, he likely wasn’t referring to the good looks of Earth Prime’s Superman (Tyler Hoechlin). Instead, Ray must have been talking about Earth-96’s Superman (Brandon Routh), who was Ray’s exact doppelganger (and Supergirl even mistook him for a “jacked” Ray). However, for the affable Dr. Palmer, the Crisis seems to have no lasting effects and Ray was more excited to get back to the Waverider, work on a new catchphrase, take on Rasputin, and proudly discuss his girlfriend Nora with the documentary crew.
Mick Rory Returned To His Career As A Thief
Heatwave was part of the final battle against the Anti-Monitor in Crisis Part 5, but other than needing alcohol when he returned to the Waverider, Crisis on Infinite Earths didn’t seem to change him outwardly - or so it would seem. Over the last two seasons, Mick Rory revealed his talent as a sci-fi/romance novelist and he became a best-selling author under the pseudonym, Rebecca Silver. However, the Crisis seems to have shuffled Mick’s priorities; he decided to retire from writing and passed the Rebecca Silver brand to Mona, his literary agent, so that he could resume his other talent: “I steal stuff”. Heatwave was formerly one of Central City’s premiere bank robbers alongside Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller), but his Crisis On Infinite Earths experience made him re-embrace his destiny as a thief, although Mick applies his thievery to benefit the Legends of Tomorrow.
Next: Legends of Tomorrow Reveals John Constantine’s Phone Number: What Happens When You Call It
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow airs Tuesdays @ 9pm on The CW.
