Fan Theories – Legendary Picks

 

Cape fever doesn’t seem to have an expire date, it won’t slow down even when some shows just aren’t at their previous peak (*cough* Arrow *cough*). We’re on the fourth season of Arrow, the second for Flash and there’s been some stumbling with Constantine but hey, he showed up on Arrow for nice cameo. The boldest idea, at least in terms of the current DC led shows as seen on teen drama central CW, is the concept of a scaled back Avengers deal in term of team unit but with roster of characters that appeared either on Arrow or Flash.

This would be Legends of Tomorrow which features a ragtag group of heroes/rogues led by Rory Willi- Wait… Rip Hunter as he assembles your FAVOURITE CW SHOW characters to fight against that guy from the last Arrow/Flash crossover, Vandal Savage. It’s kinda of a big deal that a show has this many leading actors/actresses despite the fact that such non-franchise scifi shows like the excellent BBC series Misfits or Being Human has managed to juggle teen drama, power tropes and shuffles through their cast to rotate out old cast members when their character arcs finish up (or in some cases, when actresses act like shit and are forced to leave the show) to transition in some new faces to replace the dearly departed fan favourites or not so fav in some cases.

From magic wielding to techie gadget characters, there’s so many characters that DC could lend out to the CW to use even if some of them might be under embargo status or the budget wouldn’t allow them to shine in their full comic book glory, we can still dream.

From a character perspective, each member kinda brings their own thing to the table – there’s some tech guys like Atom/Palmer, some magic people in a loose sense with the Hawk twins and the rest of the budget goes to Firestorm being on fire (while also being a diverse sandwich of youthful black guy and old white guy when it’s just Jax with fire for hair) but when the bell tolls, someone has to step up to plate for someone to bite it for big dramatic moment as there’s already been one person that Vandal Savage managed to take out to look more like a serious threat.

Here’s a list of some notable characters that could fit in with the rest and some reasons as to also why they could probably get rejected – it’s pros vs cons as I decide who will be Legendary enough to be on a fan list by some guy in Canada (ME) – Let’s begin, shall we?

Zatanna

This seems like a really obvious win for CW. A late teenager that does some magic stuff by saying things backwards, just give her the Nu52 style and she already looks like she belongs on any other CW show – Hell, White Canary has her look as it is (minus the classy touch of colour with light purple tones and some tight black pants).

The only downside to this would depend on how they visual her powers. In terms of other characters with similar powers, Scarlet Witch is the closet but we didn’t really get to see how her powers worked as they do in the comics with bolts of energy and other flashy methods – Zatanna is a bit more subtle and good luck to the actress having to recite a long spell backwards, they’d most likely just redub the lines to play backwards in post production.

It’s hard to tell when CW has managed to pull off Gorilla Grodd and Killer Shark so I imagine that Zatanna doing magic every so often won’t be that crippling to the budget

 

Adam Strange

Another fairly easy character to pull off but there’s some lore shuffling that needs to take place. While I let my nerd cred take a hit, I’m really only familiar with this character in terms of pre-Flash Point but most notably from 52/Countdown to Adventure where he was hanging out with Animal Man and Starfire while they were stranded on some alien planet.

To sum up his comic origin would be that he’s a guy that got accidentally sent to an alien planet with by an energy beam named Zeta Beam and became an ambassador with guns for the scifi humans called the Rann, he’s a lot like Flash Gordon in theory but they’d make him feel more like Peter Quill/Starlord for his personality.

There’s some details in the comics that conflict with the show canon such as the Thanagarian which is the race that Hawkman/Hawkgirl are in comics which doesn’t exactly match up with the current pair being Rom/Jul of Egypt (with Vandal being poison or whatever plot device they use to kill themselves in the name of love).

One of Adam’s major plot lines involved a war between the Rann and the Thanagarians, it’d actually be an interesting way to redo Hawkman’s origin relating back to Katar Hol rather than Prince Khufu/Carter Hall, it’d even allow them to cast someone else to play Hawkman to step up a conflict arc with Adam Strange to work with.

Booster Gold

The most obvious choice – He’s had plenty of time travel adventures with Rip Hunter, his whole origin story is all about time travel being used for personal gain (which could be interesting foil against Rip’s crusader mentality of using time travel for noble revenge murder) and I’m pretty sure the guy that voiced Fry in Futurama is easily available to voice Skeets (check out Batman: Brave & Bold cartoon for his skillful line delivery).

After all, we already had him and Green Arrow on Smallville – CW could easily use him again although most likely with a new heart throb teenage actor (sorry to the guy that use to play him, it’s been like what? eight years? I don’t know, whatever).

Stargirl

Lately, it’s all about that girl power. While over on CBS, when old people aren’t watching one of those shows about military people solving murders (cute goth lab girl laying the ground work), Supergirl has managed to muster up a decent amount of attention – Hell, they already have Martian Manhunter so thanks for taking a name from my list but anyway, the important factor is that being a superhero that looks like a traditional superhero is ok now.

Let’s consider the other fact that much like Booster Gold, she’s been on tv before in Smallville but with a weird looking face mask so this time around, ditch the full mask and use smaller set of eye cover (Laurel’s take on Canary but blue), the rest of the outfit is pretty decent. In addition, she’d probably be the only outwardly happy character with no baggage until she stuck around for few seasons, quickly going from best girl character to why is she getting half of an episode devoted to her? Oh, right – SHIPPING

Etrigan

If you took what Stein’s character represents but throw in a bit of a wild side to match up with Snart/Mick’s criminal element, he even manages to represent a magical element that is underwhelming in the current team dynamic.

I’d assume that he’d spend most of his time as a human, maybe acting a bit more aggressive (like when Sara and Thea go into murder fits to show off the savage after effects the Lazarus Pit has on people) to allude to his demonic nature.

At the core of the character, Jason Blood is the human side that we’d end up seeing most of the time as part of the character’s arc would be the conflicting nature of Etrigan tormenting him from within, making him distant or olaf with others in a similar fashion to Sara/White Canary at times but he also has the weariness of having lived for so long due to his demonic pact, he’s the embittered future that Rip could have if he becomes blinded to only seeking revenge.

It’d be a nice set of practical effects to bring Etrigan to life in all his glory and getting him to talk only in rhymes? Don’t screw that part up, CW!

Dr Fate

I keep on picking all the magic people but trust me, there’ll be some tech guys on the list. I bring up Dr Fate for a few reasons as like some other picks, he’s been established in the past (guess the show – it starts with S) but more importantly, who wields the helm of Fate could actually work out in DC’s favour in a big way.

Side track to the comic side as DC You was this big plan from DC to be more like Marvel in terms of “let’s make our own Ms Marvel/Kamala and get all that cash money” push that DC gambled on – It kinda flopped as some titles had lots of hype like Omega Men but the sales were completely terrible like Doomed (DC wishing they made money for ironic titles).

The new take on Dr Fate felt like it struggled to be like Kamala on surface level, sharing some character tropes but more mature as a character.It starts off with a bunch of plague like events causing a ruckus while  a med student with a Egyptian-American background named Khalid Nassour suddenly finds himself in the possession of the Helm of Fate, reluctantly learning to become Dr Fate. While the comic is fairly slow with lacking a proper antagonist to fight against, the connections between ancient Egyptian past and how it feels like an inheritance to Khalid, it’s a pretty well respective take on the character and if DC didn’t exist in some kind of vacuum that leaves it to get mocked at by internet blogs for the slightest mishandling (twixgate if you want to face palm), it’d make the most sense to make him show up in another form of media since Wally has recently made his way to the Flash is redone version of the former speedster that got an overhaul when New 52 launched.

He’d also be the only other character that is the same age as Jax, providing kind of shared experience of missing out on opportunities as how the storm effected Jax while helm’s responsibilities get in the way of a normal life for Khalid.

Blue Beetle (DUBS!)

In this case, this character alone has so much that can be brought to the table. If they start off with Ted (side note – name dropping for Kord is a thing in Arrow), he could easily take over for Palmer minus the gadget suit but still being the tech guy for the group. If Booster was already part of the cast, they could easily get comic fans on board with their bromance kind of friendship (back before shipping was a thing) and if they somehow managed to nab rights to Maxwell Lord (cause thanks to unknown reasons, Lex wasn’t available for that in arching role in Supergirl) from that CBS show, some real drama could go down – a tragic fate that leads into one of the main themes of the show – legacies.

Stepping up to the plate, Jaime Reyes takes over as the new Blue Beetle and we get into some sci-fi space adventures as a mere trinket that Ted kept around is the mantle passed on to the newer generation. The biggest challenge would be how could they factor in the mix of practical and CGI effects to make Blue Beetle look cool for a tv show.

If we went by CGI alone, Martian Manhunter is pretty impressive for a tv show budget but even CW doesn’t have that much as the most impressive work they’ve shown so far has been a few seconds of Killer Shark. It’d be tough to pull off in that aspect plus Carlos Valdes is already playing Cisco, they’d need someone with his personality to pull off Jamie’s character.

The Question

Just throwing this one out there as he’s Robert’s favourite character and he’d be the only streetwise detective character that would work unless they managed to get casual tv fans to accept Detective Chimp as a serious character (I mean, people love Rocket Raccoon, right?).

He had a stealth introduction as he teamed up with the Huntress back in JLA cartoon which gave him cult following among some devoted fans but honestly, it was 52 that made him shine as he passed on the mantle to Renee before everything got rebooted and we don’t like to talk about that period of time cause it just makes Robert angry (cue Hulk rumours) but it could be way to redeem the mishandling that happened with his reintroduction into the new 52 timeline. It’d be nice back to basics apporach that would give a respective nod back to DC’s former glory which is pretty good for an otherwise discarded character from DC’s past (Wasn’t he a Charlton character like Ted? There goes my nerd credit again).

Liv Moore (I,Zombie)

I’m just goofing about with this one but I’m a big fan of CW take on I,Zombie and when Liv had a flair for the heroics, it was incredible – Maybe if they have no one else at all in mind, just for a single episode, a slight nod even? Ah well, worth a shot.