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"How will we be remembered? Will it be for saving the world twice? Nope, we're the team who broke time. That's right, history has been torn to shreds, which means it's up to us to put it back together again piece by piece, fixing these so-called anachronisms before we get torn to shreds. So please, don't call us heroes. We're Legends."
Sara Lance, Opening Narration for season 3

Legends of Tomorrow (or DC's Legends of Tomorrow) is a 2016 superhero TV series from The CW based on DC Comics, spun-off from Arrow and The Flash and is the third live-action installment of the Arrowverse. It premiered on The CW January 21, 2016.

Time Master Rip Hunter (played by former Doctor Who companion Arthur Darvill, as a Casting Gag) pulled together a seemingly random group of characters from the previous shows to form a specialized team, one that would use the futuristic "time ship" called the Waverider to Time Travel. This takes them to all sorts of different places and time periods, either Set Right What Once Went Wrong or stop others who desire to Make Wrong What Once Went Right, running into many famous figures and includes a number of Historical In Jokes. They come to call themselves Legends, as during their adventures their exploits can be glimpsed through history, although Shrouded in Myth.

Although many of the characters have roots in DC comic books, the team-up itself has no comic book precedent. As a result, the writers have near-complete creative freedom to work the story out as they please. Though the show's first season feels close in tone with the other Arrowverse series, the writers increasingly rely on a bizarre, Denser and Wackier storyline from the second season onward. Unlike other series which did such a transition, the decision meant the show now has a very distinctive tone, something that the first season was criticized for its lack of.

Because of its revolving door cast, many characters have come and gone over the course of the series.

    Characters 
The main cast includes:
  • Captain Sara Lance/White Canary (Caity Lotz; S1 — S7): A former member of the League of Assassins, she joins the Legends as a way to figure out a life outside Star City.
  • Gideon (Amy Pemberton; S1 — S7): An artificial intelligence operating the Waverider's upkeep.
  • Mick Rory/Heat Wave (Dominic Purcell; S1 — S6): A criminal from Central City, he wields a flame-emitting gun.
  • Ray Palmer/The Atom (Brandon Routh; S1 — S5, S7 guest): An inventor and businessman from Star City, he utilizes the A.T.O.M. robot suit in battles.
  • Martin Stein/Firestorm note  (Victor Garber; S1 — S3, S7 guest): A physics professor from Central City and the intellectual half of Firestorm, a pyrokinetic metahuman.
  • Jefferson "Jax" Jackson/Firestorm note  (Franz Drameh; S1 — S3, S7 guest): A former football player from Central City and the physical half of Firestorm.
  • Rip Hunter, Time Master (Arthur Darvill; S1 — S2, S3 recurring, S7 guest): A rogue Time Master who creates the Legends to stop the future from succumbing to the dystopian rule of Vandal Savage.
  • Leonard Snart/Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller; S1, S2 recurring, S7 guest) note : A criminal from Central City, he carries a freezing ray-emitting gun.
  • Kendra Saunders/Hawkgirl (Ciara Renée; S1): A winged woman and an Ancient Egyptian priestess who reincarnates whenever she is killed.
  • Carter Hall/Hawkman (Falk Hentschel; S1, S7 guest): A winged man and an Ancient Egyptian general who reincarnates whenever he is killed.
  • Nate Heywood/Steel (Nick Zano; S2 — S7): A historian from Star City and a metahuman who can turn his body to steel.
  • Amaya Jiwe/Vixen (Maisie Richardson-Sellers; S2 — S3): A woman from 1940s Zambesi, an African village. She wields one of the village's totems, the Spirit Totem, with which she can channel animals' powers.
  • Eobard Thawne/Reverse Flash (Matt Letscher; S2, S7 guest) note : A speedster from the future, he is the leader of the villainous Legion of Doom, that wants to take the Spear of Destiny.
  • Zari Tomaz/Zari Tarazi note  (Tala Ashe; S3 — S7): A hacker from 2042 Seattle, she decides to cast her lot with the Legends and escape the post-dystopian United States where she came from. After the Legends rearrange the future, they encounter a different Zari, who is an influencer instead of a hacker. Both versions of Zari wield the Air Totem of Zambesi, giving her the power over wind.
  • Ava Sharpe (Jes Macallan; S3 recurring, S4 — S7): Rip's second-in-command in the Time Bureau. Initially hostile to the Legends, she becomes their ally and eventually a core member of the team.
  • Gary Green (Adam Tsekhman; S3 — S5 recurring, S6 — S7): A member of the Time Bureau often caught up with the Legends' hijinks.
  • Nora Darhk/Fairy Godmother (Courtney Ford; S3 recurring, S4 — S5, S7 guest): The daughter of Damien Darhk raised into a powerful spellcaster, she time traveled from the future to assist her father in his plans to release Mallus. After she has a change of heart, she allies herself with the Legends to atone for her previous actions.
  • John Constantine (Matt Ryan; S3 recurring, S4 — S6) note : A powerful spellcaster and exorcist. He occasionally helps the Legends before joining them full time in the fourth season.
  • Wally West/Kid Flash (Keiynan Lonsdale; S3): A speedster and member of Team Flash, he left the team in 2017 to protect the rest of the world, and is invited by Rip to join the Legends fight Mallus.
  • Mona Wu/Wolfie (Ramona Young; S4, S5 recurring): A courier in the Time Bureau, she is infected by a curse that transforms her into a monster.
  • Charlie/Clotho (Maisie Richardson-Sellers; S4 — S5): A shapeshifter roped into joining the Legends. Although she can transform to other beings, she mostly takes the form of Amaya Jiwe, albeit with a British accent.
  • Astra Logue (Olivia Swann; S4 guest, S5 — S7): A young girl from Constantine's past, Astra rapidly grew up into a young woman because of her time in Hell. She starts out as a villain hell-bent on hunting Constantine, but later switches sides when a bigger threat comes along.
  • Behrad Tarazi (Shayan Sobhian; S4 guest, S5 recurring, S6 — S7): Zari's younger brother, he joins the Legends after they altered the timeline and prevented United States from descending into a dystopia in the fourth season finale. Like Zari, he wields the Air Totem to control wind.
  • Esperanza "Spooner" Cruz (Lisseth Chavez; S6 — S7): A conspiracy theorist who believes that she was abducted by aliens. She has a connection with the Fountain of Imperium, a wellspring of magic.
  • Gwyn Davies (Matt Ryan; S7) note : A scientist from 1925 who envisages time travel. For some reason, he looks exactly like John Constantine.

The recurring cast includes Casper Crump as Vandal Savage (S1), Neal McDonough as Damien Darhk (S2-3), John Noble as Mallus (S3), Thomas F. Wilson as Hank Heywood (S4), Sarah Strange as Lachesis (S5), and Mina Sundwall as Lita (S5-6)

Before Legends started, both Arrow and The Flash devoted episodes to setting it up — Arrow brought Sara and Ray back in the show's fourth season, The Flash debuted Jax in his own feature episode and Kendra in a few episodes as a girl Cisco dated, and the season's Crisis Crossover of the year 2015, Heroes Join Forces, introduced Hawkman and Vandal Savage and led to Kendra becoming Hawkgirl, revolving around the shared history of the three. Due to their very fluid method of travel and exploring Alternate Timelines, other members of the Arrowverse cameo or guest star with regularity in the series itself, not to mention often visiting their respective City of Adventure without anyone aware they had stopped by. The Legends have participated in three of the Arrowverse's six intra-franchise crossovers: Invasion!, Crisis on Earth-X, and Crisis on Infinite Earths, with the last of these marking the premiere of the show's fifth season.

On April 29, 2022, it was announced the series would not be renewed for an eighth season, becoming the fifth Arrowverse series to end.


Tropes of Tomorrow:

    open/close all folders 

    Tropes A to C 
  • 20 Minutes into the Future:
    • The Final Battle for Season 1 happens in 2021.
    • In Season 2, two of the Big Bad Trio took an amnesiac Rip to 2025.
    • Zari, Nora, and Behrad all come from a short distance into the future; Zari and Behrad both come from 2042, and Nora from 2039.
  • The '40s: The last episode of Season 1 saw Vandal Savage bringing Kendra and Hawkman's future incarnation to this decade during the on-going World War II. There was also a flashback to the Hawks' literal previous life before being reincarnated as Kendra and Carter set in 1941. Much of the first two episodes of Season 2, which focus on the Justice Society of America, takes place in 1942. JSA member Amaya Jiwe later become a Legend for the rest of Season 2 and 3.
  • The '50s: The Team travels to 1958 in Season 1, episode 8 and Ray, Kendra and Sara remain there for some time after. The episode spent more time on social commentary than most other episodes of the show, addressing—at different points—the racism, sexism and homophobia of the era. They briefly returned to this decade in Episode 12 to save Prof. Stein from being Ret-Gone'd by the Time Masters, kidnapping his infant self shortly after his birth in 1950. Mick and Ray returned to the events of episode 8 in the Season 1 finale to kill Vandal Savage.
  • The '60s: Season 1, episode 9 is set at the very beginning of the decade, where Ray and Kendra have been living "normal" lives while waiting for the team to pick them up. The time featured is still socially in the tail-end of The '50s, without the counter-culture the decade is famous for. The ending of Season 2, episode 8 and the rest of the following episode takes place in 1967. We get full 60's overload in the Season 4 premiere, which is set at Woodstock.
  • The '70s: The Team travels to this decade in the first three episodes, specifically 1975, with nostalgia from Stein and snarkiness from the younger members. They briefly returned to this decade in Episode 12 to save Snart from being Ret-Gone'd by the Time Masters. Sara and Firestorm returned to the events of episode 2 in the Season 1 finale to kill Vandal Savage.
  • The '80s: Episodes 4 and 5 were set in 1986, erroneously referred to as the "height" of the Cold War. The team returns to visit 1987 in Season 2, Episode 5 and then 1988 in Season 3, Episode 4.
  • The '90s: The Team travels to this decade twice in Episode 12 on a rescue mission to save both Mick and Jax from being Ret-Gone'd by the Time Masters. Unlike most other eras visited, they did not spend enough time for its unique vibe to be shown on-screen. They make a return visit in Season 4, Episode 4, with some jabs at jokes that people in the 90's still thought were fresh.
  • Aborted Arc:
    • The penultimate episode of Season One established that the Time Masters arranged for Vandal Savage's conquest of the Earth because they believed he was the only one who could save Earth from a Thanagarian invasion. After Season One, the Thanagarians have been all but forgotten.
    • It was implied in The Flash Season One finale that Thawne had met Rip Hunter somewhere in his past, especially since Rip has anti-speedster weapons on the Waverider (that were designed by Thawne apparently), but how they met was never revealed in Season Two.
  • Abusive Parents: A lot of the characters.
    • Snart's father, as was revealed on The Flash. He even attempts to prevent his father from becoming abusive.
    • Mick's father is hinted at to have been abusive in season 1, and it's confirmed in season 3, with Mick saying the only reason his father ever got up out of his chair was to beat Mick.
    • After Stein discovers that he now has a daughter, he reveals that he and his wife never had children because he was afraid of turning out like his abusive father.
    • Nate's father never forgave his own father for disappearing, and was cold and distant towards his own son as a result.
  • Actor Allusion:
    • Arthur Darvill had previously played Rory Pond (nee Williams), who was a companion of the Doctor, a renegade "Time Lord", in Doctor Who. Together, they traveled in time with a stolen time machine and stopped monsters or solved problems. Here, he takes on a role similar to the Doctor, playing a "Time Master" who went renegade from his group and stole a time machine so that he could take companions on journeys through time, stopping monsters and solving problems.
    • Wentworth Miller had previously played in Prison Break with Dominic Purcell. Here, his character Snart comments on breaking into/out-of prison on several occasions, and when the gang breaks into a Soviet prison, Dominic Purcell is present as well.
    • Victor Garber played Thomas Andrews, architect of the titular ship in Titanic (1997). Here, he plays Martin Stein. In "Blood Ties", Ray mentions icebergs and the Titanic to Stein. In Season 3, Stein declares "I refuse to set foot on the Titanic. Whoever built that ship should be shot!"
    • Brandon Routh had previously played Clark/Superman in Superman Returns. In "White Knights" Snart refers to Ray as "Boyscout", a common nickname for Superman. In "Invasion!", Ray notes that Kara/Supergirl kind of looks like his cousin. Eventually, Brandon Routh's Superman (and the universe of his films) is made a Canon Immigrant to the Arrowverse as the Paragon Of Truth, in the Crisis On Infinite Earths.
  • Adaptation Distillation: The show's take on the Justice Society of America incorporates characters and elements from different incarnations/era's of the team's existence. The team's heyday is the 1940's, during WW2 (as in the original stories from The Golden Age of Comic Books) and its roster includes Hourman and Dr. Mid-nite (classic Golden Age members); Commander Steel (who wasn't a JSA member in the comics but was part of the WW2-era All-Star Squadron that was affiliated with the JSA); Stargirl and Obsidian (two Legacy Characters who, in the comics, became members of more contemporary iterations of the JSA); and Vixen (a new Canon Immigrant version of a character who has never been associated with the JSA in the comics).
  • Adaptational Heroism:
    • White Canary is part of the eponymous group of Legends, continuing on her character development in Arrow. In the comics, the character bearing that name is a definite villain.
    • Captain Cold and Heat Wave are straight villains in the comics—albeit with with more redeeming qualities and personalities than some other villains—but are the Token Evil Teammates on the hero team in this series.
  • Adaptational Villainy: Valentina Vostok is a member of the Doom Patrol in the comics. Here, she's a oneshot villain who tried to hijack the Firestorm powers.
  • Advertised Extra: Carter Hall gets hit with this hard. Hawkman was highly promoted along with the other Legends prior to the series' inception and Falk Hentschel was credited as a cast member all season. In the series itself, Carter gets killed off in the second episode and mostly spends the rest of the first season either as a corpse, Brainwashed and Crazy, or in flashbacks. In practice, Hentschel only appeared in seven out of sixteen episodes.
  • Affectionate Nickname: Mick likes to give these to his crew. It's a sign that he's on your side more than anything else.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The A.I.s which run Time Master ships seem to have no discretionary programming at all, and obey the commands of anybody on their ship. This includes, on several occasions, the time pirates and Vandal Savage that have attacked and boarded a Time Master ship.
  • Alien Invasion: It is revealed that the Nth metal meteorites that fell to Earth several times throughout history were sent by Thanagarians to this end, who would have launched a full invasion in the late 22nd century.
  • Anachronism Stew: This is a major plot point in Season 3, wherein people and animals will randomly find themselves displaced in time. They even use the term "anachronism" to describe such occurrences.
  • And Starring: With Dominic Purcell and Wentworth Miller in Season 1. In Season 2, Nick Zano now gets the With while Purcell gets the And.
  • Animal-Themed Superbeing:
    • White Canary, Hawkgirl, and Hawkman are named from birds.
    • Also Vixen, in the second season. Not only is her code name synonymous for a female fox, the mystical totem she wears allows her to channel and manifest the powers and abilities of various animals.
  • Animated Episode: A significant portion of Season 6's episode "The Satanists Apprentice" is animated like a 90's Disney movie, as it's one big Homage to Disney and their numerous animated features. The fact Astra turns the Legends into Animate Inanimate Objects homages Beauty and the Beast, with their animated appearance referencing the original film, while their looks in live action referencing the live-action remake.
  • Artificial Limbs: In the Bad Future of 2046, Oliver Queen has a cool-looking mechanical arm as a replacement for the left arm cut off by Deathstroke II.
  • Artistic License – History: Various cases of history being misrepresented or fictionalised appear in almost all the episodes where the Legends travel to the past. See the recap pages for specific examples in each episode.
  • Artistic License – Nuclear Physics:
  • Artistic License – Space: In one episode, the Waverider is returning from the moon, through gravitational inertia, and it is stated that too shallow of a reentry angle will cause the ship to shoot off into orbit of the Sun. However without a gravity assist or additional thrust, all a shallow reentry would do would be to reduce the size of the orbit due to aerobraking. On a ship like the Waverider with near infinite provisions, this would not be a dire emergency (however as the ship was on reserve power it could be justified that there life support systems wouldn't last for a second orbit).
  • As You Know: Professor Boardman retells the story of Hath-Set (Savage), Chay-Ara (Kendra), and Khufu (Carter) using the flashback scenes from the Arrow/The Flash (2014) crossover. While it's news to most of the characters, Kendra also acts like this is news to her, even though those memories have already been unlocked thanks to Cisco.
  • Ascended Extra:
    • The original cast, sans Rip Hunter, is composed of supporting characters from Arrow and The Flash (2014), and most of them are also B-string or lower characters in the original DC comics. Rip Hunter himself is a relatively obscure DC time travel character, better known for his appearances in Justice Society of America and Booster Gold stories than any solo comics.
    • The most ascended in comparison to their comics self is Jefferson Jackson. In the comics, he is a supporting character who has no powers. He was in fact called "Jefferson" in some comics and "Jackson" in others - different writers had different ideas of his name, that's how unimportant he was. Fans figured one must be his first name and one must be his last name, but it wasn't official until his TV appearances. We're pretty sure his name will be remembered now.
  • Ascended Fanboy: When given temporary command of the Waverider, Ray giddily imagines himself as Captain Kirk. Kendra points out that he's actually more like Picard and comments that she has always found Picard sexier than Kirk. He even makes a fake Captain's Log while sitting in Rip's chair. When manually piloting the ship, he says that he is now more like Sulu, and then ecstatically amends that to Han Solo.
  • Atrocious Alias: In season 2, Sara refuses to call the villains the "Legion of Doom".
  • Badass Longcoat:
    • Rip wears one, which is revealed in the eleventh episode to have been a gift from Jonah Hex.
    • Sara occasionally wears a white leather trench coat with her White Canary costume.
  • Badass Normal: Rip Hunter, Sara Lance, Captain Cold and Heatwave don't have powers (or a super suit), but they were trained and are skilled with hand-to-hand combat and weaponry. Season 3 adds Ava Sharpe, who is as much a badass normal as her enemy-turned-rival-turned-lover Sara.
  • Bad "Bad Acting": Damien Darhk when trying to trick Nora in 'Guest Starring John Noble'.
    • Sara, Nate, and Gary when promoting Hey World and starring in its big show (though Mick didn't give them the best script to work with, either).
  • Bad Future:
    • In Season 1, the team is assembled to prevent a terrible future where Vandal Savage conquers the world in 2166. Even the years leading up to his rise to power were bad, dominated by warlords, overpopulation and widespread poverty.
      Rip Hunter: I have seen men of steel die and dark knights fall! Your entire 21st century world will suffer.
    • In "Star City 2046", they crash-land in the Star City of 2046, which is stated to be a direct result of Sara and Ray not being there to help defend the city against Grant Wilson, the new Deathstroke. The streets are overrun with gangs, and the only one who still fights for Star City is the Green Arrow (who is Connor Hawke, born John Diggle, Jr.). Oliver is still around, but aged, disillusioned, and missing an arm.
    • Zari comes from one in 2042 where ARGUS has become an authoritarian regime that imprisons metahumans just for being metahumans and outlawed religious beliefs of any kind.
    • While taking place in the present, the last two episodes of Season 5 concern the Fates subjugating the entire world and remaking it to a Nineteen Eighty-Four-like dystopia, complete with a historical revision department and shallow entertainment for the proles.
  • Bait-and-Switch Performance: In the episode "Miss Me, Kiss Me, Love Me", Ava gets incredibly drunk and starts singing in a night club as a diversion, and she sounds incredible, but when the scene cuts to the perspective of the audience, she's really terrible, and causes everyone to leave.
  • Bar Brawl: Has become a running gag in the series. Whenever the gang enter a bar or club, viewers know it's only a matter of time before a massive fight breaks out. To name a few:
    • Captain Cold, Heatwave and White Canary get into one during their visit to The '70s after Sara decides to teach a guy and his friends a lesson in No-Means-No.
    • When they go to The Wild West, the entire team winds up in a brawl in a saloon after Stein gets in a fight with an outlaw that he is playing poker with. Unfortunately for Mick, he ends up missing the entire fight, passed out at the bar after failing to drink Sara under the table.
    • It seems to become a trend: when the team visits a Nazi-occupied bar in Paris during World War II, a Nazi soldier tries to force Ray to do the "Heil Hitler" salute. Unable to bring himself to do it, Ray just punches the guy out, starting yet another fight.
    • The team visits The Wild West again while they're after an outlaw named Quentin Turnbull, whom Jonah Hex has a personal grudge with. Trying to get close to him, Hex enters the bar to confront him head on, starting yet another fight (quickly followed by a shootout).
  • Battle Couple:
    • Hawkman and Hawkgirl are often in a relationship in their various incarnations.
    • Nate is in a relationship with Amaya in Season 3 and Zari in Season 4. Both unfortunately don't work out. Meanwhile, Season 4 pairs up Sara and Ava, as well as Ray and Nora. The latter even gets an in-universe wedding in "Mr. Parker's Cul-De-Sac", followed by a departure in "Romeo v. Juliet: Dawn of Justness" so they can live a quiet life together.
  • Bathos: To fight the immortal fire demon Mallus, the team summons an avatar of Beebo.
  • Becoming the Mask:
    • Despite Rip claiming that he recruited the team because they will be "legends" in the future, it turns out that he actually chose them because they made no impact to the timeline and thus could be removed from history without ill effect. However, this quest to stop Savage seems ready to turn them into the very heroes he said they will be remembered as. In the first episode of season 2, he leaves behind a message referring to them as his 'dear Legends.'
    • Nate and Zari initially posed as lovers in front of the former's family in order to investigate Hank's secrets. However, their secret attraction towards one another slowly turned their front into a real relationship.
  • Beleaguered Boss: The titular Legends are a team of B-List outcast superheroes and failed villains. They are initially led by the long suffering Rip Hunter, who is Authority in Name Only, as no one listens to his orders. After his departure, Sara Lance is put in charge, who while has more of a grip on leadership, she also has to deal with a lot of the Legends' antics.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension:
    • Hawkman and Hawkgirl seem to have a volatile relationship. According to Carter, they have always resolved their differences by fighting...with Carter always winning. We see them start a fight over whether they should join Rip, and then we see them show up at the meeting location with Kendra not looking happy.
      Rip: Have you two considered couples counseling?
    • Sara and Agent Sharpe as of Season 3. It seems like only a short time before the Slap-Slap-Kiss comes. They turn from subtext to outright text by Season 4, though.
  • Berserk Button: Do NOT call Zari a bitch.
  • Better the Devil You Know: One of the reasons the Time Masters refuse to go against Savage is because time is always working to restore itself, so who knows what evil being will just replace Savage if he is stopped. This turns out to only be a cover story to explain their apparent inaction, as they are actively helping Savage and have been manipulating Rip and his team from the start to help Savage's rise to power in order to stop a coming Alien Invasion.
  • Big Bad: Each season has its own.
    • Season 1: Vandal Savage is going to conquer the world in 2166, and the Legends are recruited to help prevent his rise to power. Towards the end of the season, it is revealed that he is working hand-in-hand with the Time Masters, though Savage is still The Heavy.
    • Season 2: The Legion of Doom, composed of the Reverse Flash, Damien Darhk, Malcolm Merlyn, and (eventually) Captain Cold, set out to steal the Spear of Destiny so they can rewrite reality to their liking.
    • Season 3: Damien Darhk is resurrected by his daughter Nora, the two collectively serving as The Heavy for the demon Mallus by creating anachronisms in the timeline that will break his prison.
    • Season 4: Neron is a demon manipulating the Time Bureau from behind the scenes, wanting to use the magical creatures they capture to wreak havoc. Once the monsters have caused enough terror in the public, he intends to trick them into selling their souls so he can overthrow the ruling triumvirate of Hell.
    • Season 5: Lachesis and Atropos, two of the Fates, have Astra Logue send history's greatest villains back to Earth as Villains of the Week, seeking to rewrite reality with their Loom.
    • Season 6: Bishop, a man from the future who kidnapped Sara to create a new alien-powered humanity race using the two of them as blueprints. Near the end he forms a Big Bad Duumvirate with John Constantine, who turns to evil thanks to his growing addiction to dark magic.
    • Season 7: J. Edgar Hoover chases the time-stranded Legends across the country and is actually one of several robots. By the midseason finale it's revealed the Man Behind the Man is a copy of Gideon's AI with her memories and personality erased, and therefore only sees the Legends as threats to the timeline and intends on killing them and anyone who helps them.
  • Big Bad Duumvirate:
    • Towards the end of the first season, it is revealed that Vandal Savage is working hand-in-hand with the Time Masters to insure his rise to power.
    • Damien Darhk and Eobard Thawne are set to be this for Season 2, and Malcolm Merlyn and Captain Cold join them to form the Legion of Doom.
    • Bishop is a solo villain for most of season 6, but he joins forces with John Constantine's magic-addicted dark side to enact his endgame.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: In Season 1, while Savage is the intentional enemy, the Time Masters are also established as major antagonists. They send a succession of bounty hunters after the team in order to capture Rip Hunter, who went rogue to stop Savage. Towards the end of the season it is revealed that Savage and the Time Masters are actually working together.
    • Season 5 has both Astra, who's bringing history's greatest villains back to life so she can gain power in Hell, and the Fates, who are looking to put the Loom of Fate back together so they can control reality. It gets complicated as Astra has old friends both among the Fates and among the Legends, and will end up allying with one against the other and then switching sides multiple times.
  • The Big Damn Kiss:
    • Sara and Snart have low-key flirting towards the end of the season, with Sara addressing (and dismissing) their attraction by telling Snart that he would need to be a great thief to "steal" a kiss from her. When she realizes that he is going to perform a Heroic Sacrifice, Sara kisses Snart before going with the rest of the team.
    • In "The One Where We're Trapped on TV", Sara and Ava share an epic, slow-motion, music swelling kiss as their spaceship explodes around them.
  • Blade Enthusiast: Sara prefers knives when dealing with undercover work. When in a big battle scene she breaks out the bo-staff.
    Rip Hunter: I specifically said no weapons!
    [two more knives later]
    Rip Hunter: Exactly how many knives do you have?
  • Bland-Name Product: While the Legends were disbanded, Sara took up a job working at "Sink Shower & Stuff", a knockoff of "Bed Bath & Beyond".
  • Bloodless Carnage: Despite Hawkman's mace, Heat Wave's flamethrower and White Canary's knives, there is little to no blood or disfigurement after almost all fights.
  • Blood Lust: According to Sara, "blood lust" is a charitable way of calling the darkness inside her after her resurrection. Indeed, in the third episode, she absolutely revels in killing Savage's Mooks and loses control until Rip snaps her out of it. She is genuinely disturbed by it, and in the rest of the episode—and the rest of the season—she struggles to control herself and her urges.
  • Bond Villain Stupidity: Being ridiculously prone to this is the only real reason the villains don't win, especially in Season 2 where the villains literally manage to rewrite reality as they see fit and keep the Legends around anyway for no real reason other than hubris/
  • Born in the Wrong Century: Mick would have been happy to live in the Bad Future of Star City in 2046, fitting in much better there than he ever did in his own time period. He ultimately chooses to stay before Snart forcibly returns him to the ship.
  • Bounty Hunter:
    • A temporal bounty hunter named Chronos is tracking the team through space and time. He is ruthless and kills anyone in his path, after first checking if they matter to the timeline. He was hired by the Time Masters to stop Rip, who has absconded with the Waverider against their explicit instructions. It turns out that the identity of Chronos is Mick Rory, A.K.A Heat Wave; he had been stranded in time when he became dangerous to his teammates, and was promptly recruited by the Time Masters.
    • Jonah Hex, the most legendary bounty hunter of the old west, appears in episode 11.
    • After Chronos fails in his task, the Time Masters send out a squad of Hunters with an explicit goal of eliminating Rip Hunter and all members of his team without giving them a chance to surrender.
  • Brainwashed: Chronos turns out to have been a future version of Mick, brainwashed by the Time Masters to be their best Bounty Hunter. After he makes a Heel–Face Turn they try to brainwash him again, but it doesn't take a second time.
  • The Bridge: The Waverider has one, of course. It's got a circular console in the center of the room, like the Tardis on Doctor Who, but it also has a row of seats with the captain's seat in front at the controls, like in an airplane. The former is the focus of most bridge scenes, but the latter is used whenever they expect some rough flying.
  • Britain Is Only England: Henry VIII calls himself the king of the British Empire, despite only being the King of England. The British Empire had not formed yet.
  • Bromance:
    • Snart and Mick are platonic but thick as thieves.
    • Beyond being mentally linked, Stein and Jefferson are close friends, too.
    • Ray and Nate verbally refer to their 'bromance', and are close enough that Ray exiting the team after marrying Nora Dahrk is a significant source of emotional tension, culminating in an homage to an airport-chase sequence that ends in a tearful, hugging goodbye.
  • Bury Your Gays:
    • Averted, multiple times. Sara Lance was resurrected on Arrow in order to be a part of the show, and her unkillable nature is now almost a running gag, with multiple meta references to it, and her surviving such things as a snapped neck, and a run-in with a Greek god that should have killed any mortal.
    • Other examples include multiple queer characters surviving trips to Hell or Purgatory unscathed, and John Constantine drinking a fatal dosage of poison, while afflicted by terminal lung cancer, and getting better, due to a deal with a demon.
  • But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Ray has become a billionaire tech inventor and superhero, but is vexed that Stein can't seem to remember having him as one of his students. Stein eventually admits that he does remember Ray, but did not want to admit it because Ray's brilliance outshone him and he wanted to take Ray's ego down a notch or two. Ray then remembers that he actually had not accomplished what Stein said he had, and that Stein was just making up a story trying to make him feel better. Stein ultimately explains that he had many brilliant students throughout his academic career, so it's not that strange that he can't recall any particular one of them and it does not reflect poorly on Ray.
  • Career Versus Man:
    • Rip's late wife made that decision prior to them getting married, when she quit being a Time Master in order to allow Rip to stay and them to be together (a relationship between two Time Masters is forbidden). Of course, Rip was about to do the same, but she beat him to it, claiming that time travel has always been Rip's dream.
    • Ray is eventually confronted with this after he marries Nora. Like Rip's wife, Nora makes Ray reconsider if he really wants to leave the Legends, whom he knew long before he met her, but he ultimately decides to do it.
  • Catchphrase: Starting in Season 3, the Legends choose as their motto "Sometimes we screw things up for the better."
  • Celebrity Paradox:
  • Chekhov's Time Travel: From the two-part pilot:
    • Rip needs to travel back in time to stop Savage from turning to world into dystopia. It's also as a result of Rip trying to stop him that Savage hunts down Rip's family and kill them when he does take over.
    • Subverted when they're in the Seventies and need to use an alpha particle tracker so they can find a piece of Ray's suit that they accidentally left behind, and the trackers aren't invented until the 21st century. First, they don't think to go back in time a little bit to grab the piece of suit where it fell before someone else did, and second, they didn't hop forward in time to get a tracker, they went to find the pioneer of alpha particle research and try to steal his prototype.
  • Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames:
    • Played straight and justified. Unlike Team Arrow, Team Flash, or Superfriends, Legends rarely use their code names in operations, since they are time travelers and don't have to worry about their identities being outed. Plus, since the series relies less and less on DC properties and more on original concept as time goes on, some of them (such as Ava Sharpe and Nora Darhk) don't even have established code names to begin with.
    • Enforced with Zari Tomaz/Tarazi. Her comic book inspiration, Andrea Thomas, does have a codename, Isis. However, that name is unfortunately associated more with a real-life terrorist organization these days, so the creators opted not to give her a codename, especially since this version of Isis is a Muslim. This apparently also extends to her brother, Behrad (Amon Thomas in the comics), whose less controversial codename, Osiris, has yet to be used.
  • Company Cross References: Verging into Product Placement — Zari is frequently shown playing Mortal Kombat II in season 3. Mortal Kombat became a Warner Bros. property in 2009 following the acquisition of assets from the defunct Midway Games.
  • Composite Character:
    • A very complicated example. The name "White Canary" was used by a completely different character in the comics, and a villain on top of that. Sara Lance is an original character introduced in Arrow who went by the name "Canary", which was initially their version of the Dinah Drake version of the Black Canary. In Arrow season three, Sara is killed and inspires her sister Laurel to take up the mantel and rename the identity "Black Canary," thus at least by name coming closer to the original character. However, Sara's Canary has traits of Laurel's version from the comics as well, specifically her sexuality and being the parental figure to Sin. This makes Sara a combination of three different characters from the comics.
    • Jax has the look of his comic book counterpart, but his role as Ronnie Raymond's successor belongs to Jason Rusch. Since a version of Jason was also on The Flash, this makes for a Decomposite Character as well.
    • Hawkgirl is an interesting case. Technically, she's a composite of three distinct versions of the character from the comics - the original Golden Age Chay-ara Hall version (in terms of her general backstory and status as Carter Hall's lover), the Modern Age Kendra Saunders version (in name) and the rebooted Earth 2 Kendra Munoz-Saunders version (in terms of her race, and the mystical nature of her wings). However, the former two versions are technically the same character reincarnated anyway, and the similarity with the latter version is mostly restricted to a Race Lift.
    • Vandal Savage, in this continuity, has the backstory of Hath-Seth, who in the comics, was the Egyptian priest-cum-murderer of the Hawks in their first incarnation, and serves as a nemesis to them in subsequent incarnations as well. Indeed, Hath-Seth IS stated to be Savage's original name.
    • Chronos turns out to be Mick Rory after he was brainwashed by the Time Masters.
    • A Composite Organisation: The Time Masters are a lot like the comics' Linear Men, whereas the comicbook Time Masters were just Rip Hunter's four person exploration team.
  • The Constant: Vandal Savage himself seems to be one. He's immortal and thus a constant presence in ANY era of human history (after Ancient Egypt), which means that the team will be encountering him in whatever year they travel to.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • Cisco Ramon made the White Canary costume.
    • Rip Hunter's ship is piloted and controlled by a copy of Gideon (although voiced by a British actress; possibly a preference set by Rip, who prefers a British voice).
    • Stein's cute dorkiness when it comes to Time Travel comes up again.
  • Cool Old Guy: Martin Stein, who manages to overpower a time pirate, steal his uniform and finish things off with a Bond One-Liner.
    Stein: Never mess with a nuclear physicist.
  • Couch Gag: Different characters take turns with the Opening Narration, each putting their own personal spin on them, often breaking the Fourth Wall or doing a Lampshade Hanging.
  • Cracks in the Icy Façade: Snart aka Captain cold and his partner Mick aka Heatwave are both introduced as ruthless and cold-hearted master thiefs in the Arrowverse who couldn't care less about anyone else other than themselves and money. Even their interactions with each other seemed distant despite them seemingly having a close relationship. However overtime, Snart is shown to to love and care for his sister, Lisa, and is very protective of her, as well as holding contempt towards his father and has a honor code of never abandoning his teammates/associates, dating back to The Flash season one. Mick, on a similar note, is shown to view Smart as a hero to him and a confidant, grieving him when he sacrificed himself at the end of Legends of Tomorrow season one, is implied to be Obfuscating Stupidity, and is much more aware of others thoughts than he let on.
  • Cross-Referenced Titles: The crossover episodes introducing Vandal Savage and the Hawks were titled "Legends of Today" and "Legends of Yesterday", contrasting each other and this series.
  • Crossover Cosmology: Mystical beings and objects can come from almost any mythological system, no matter how incompatible. The Spear of Destiny really did gain magical power from the blood of Jesus, but Brigid's Journal got its power from an Irish goddess, and Sanjay got his from the ashes of the Hindu god Kamadeva.
    • A more full-fledged crossover happens in Season 5. The gods of Greek Mythology lost most of their power after people stopped worshipping them and the Fates' Loom, which they used to control the world's destiny, was broken. One of the Fates found a new home for herself by relocating to the Hell of Christian Mythology and becoming a power broker among the demons.
  • Crossover Villain-in-Chief: Season 2 has the Legends battling the Legion of Doom, a team up of major villains from its parent shows Arrow and The Flash (2014). The Reverse Flash pretty firmly establishes himself as the leader of this villain pack, much to the others' annoyance, as they don't like being treated as lackeys.
  • Cute Bruiser: Sara is the best overall fighter on the team, trading punches with men twice her size. As Kendra becomes more familiar with her Shayera "Hawkgirl" side she ends up favoring a fighting style with raw power, compared to Sara's highly trained martial arts.
  • Cuteness Proximity: In Season 1, Episode 12 "Last Refuge", Sara and Kendra are reduced to baby-noises when they meet Leonard Snart's infant self.
    Tropes D to F 
  • Denser and Wackier:
    • Compared to Arrow or The Flash, due to the way the writers play fast and loose with time travel per Rule of Funny.
    • Also applies to the series after season 1, taking on more overt comedic overtones and fantastical storylines pulling from the wider Arrowverse.
    • Season 4 in comparison to the rest of the show, was by far the silliest, despite having monsters, demons, and Hell.
  • Deuteragonist / Tritagonist: Given the ensemble nature of the show, the entire team acts as the protagonist, each usually getting their own days in the limelight. However, some characters tend to stand out more throughout certain seasons:
    • Overall, Sara is the closest thing to the show's main character and is usually the poster girl for the show, though this is more apparent after her promotion to captain, making her the deuteragonist.
    • Season 1: Rip acts as the deuteragonist, while Sara and Snart are the tritagonists.
    • Season 2: Mick splits the deuteragonist chair with Sara, and Nate is the tritagonist.
    • Season 3: Stein and Jax get a lot of attention before departing in the middle of the season, and then Amaya comes into her own in the latter half of the season as the totems of Zambezi become more and more plot-relevant. Ava and Rip split duties as the tritagonists throughout the season.
    • Season 4: Constantine is the deuteragonist and Nate is the tritagonist.
    • Season 5: Constantine remains the deuteragonist, with Charlie and Astra rotating as tritagonist depending on where the plot leads.
    • Season 6: Ava steps up as deuteragonist in the first half to help find Sarah, and Spooner's connection to the aliens sets her up as the tritagonist.
    • Season 7: Gideon gains more prominence this season due to both becoming human and the Arc Villain being an evil version of her, and the tritagonist role is fulfilled by Dr. Gwyn Davies due to his time travel research.
  • Dirty Mind-Reading: To her dismay, Sara finds out that Gideon is able to monitor the dreams of the crew. Gideon then starts to describe Sara's latest dream, involving a nurse, and Sara cuts her off, embarrassed.
  • Dismantled MacGuffin: The Spear of Destiny (aka the spear that pierced the side of Jesus Christ at his crucifixion) is this for Season Two. The Legends are racing against the Legion of Doom for each piece, in hopes of preventing the latter from reassembling the Spear and using it to rewrite reality.
    • Happens again in Season 5 with the Loom of Fate, which was split into three pieces and hidden around the world.
  • Documentary Episode: "Meet the Legends", where Ava invites a documentary crew onto the Waverider, hoping the increased transparency will help them get government funding. This leads to the director being kidnapped by Rasputin the Mad Monk, who wants to document his own rise to power, and Hilarity Ensuing.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: This. After Sara gets up and adjusts her trenchcoat, it looks and sounds like they just had sex.
  • Doing In the Wizard: The crossover first implied that Vandal Savage, Kendra and Carter got their powers from a Magic Meteor and that Kendra was was the avatar of an ancient Egyptian Goddess, early in the show it was revealed that the meteor was actually alien technology and the three of them are the first metahumans at which point the show functioned more as a typical sci-fi.
  • Double-Meaning Title: "Phone Home" refers to the main plot being an E.T. homage and the subplot about Stein creating a cross-time communicator.
  • Downer Ending: The series ends with all the Legends getting arrested by Time Police. This was intended to lead into another season, but the show wasn't renewed.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Kendra, Jax, Carter and Vandal Savage first appeared on Arrow and The Flash before this series.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The first season is much different in tone compared to the Denser and Wackier seasons that followed.
  • Elemental Powers: Each of the Zambezi totems grants power over one of the elements. There are totems for earth, air, fire, water, spirit, and death. Amaya bears the spirit totem, letting her channel the abilities of any living animal, and Zari bears the air totem, letting her control the wind.
  • Ensemble Cast: While Arrow and The Flash have dynamic supporting casts, all members of The Team in this show are equally considered as protagonists per Word of God.
  • Episode of the Dead:
    • In the episode "Abomination", a Time Pirate who had been carrying a strain of virus crash lands during the American Civil War and infects the confederates with it which turns them into zombies. The Legends detect the aberration and arrive to investigate, ending up encountering and fighting off several confederate zombies. However history is at stake when Henry Scott, a black man and spy for the Union Army, is killed by a zombie. On another note, zombie confederates are about to swarm the Union Army camp, while Mick Rory gets bitten. So the Legends are split into three teams: helping to complete Henry Scott's mission to steal confederate plans, aiding General Ulysses S. Grant with fighting off mobs of confederate zombies, and trying to devise a cure for the zombie Mick Rory before administering it to him.
    • Done again in "I Am Legends", where the Big Bad unleashes a Zombie Apocalypse on Britain just to take care of the Legends. Due to the Legends being immortal at the time (long story), the authorities see them survive what should be fatal injuries and conclude that they're sentient super zombies, and lock them up.
  • Eskimos Aren't Real: Vixen considers ninjas to be completely fictional, and Sara and Mick vainly try to get her to recognize that they actually exist. The episode implies that Vixen herself is actually a ninja, which is why she pretends to not believe they exist at all.
  • Et Tu, Brute?: in Aruba-Con "Et tu, Sara?" is directed at White Canary by Citizen Steel when she agrees they should return the ship to Rip.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Damien Darhk may be a self-identified bad guy who wants to "burn the world down and remake it in my image", but he also cares deeply for his daughter Nora; the harm he's caused to her is the only part of his life of villainy he regrets. In the end, he gives up his life to protect her (twice).
    • Neron and Tabitha are both wickedly evil and want to unleash Hell on Earth (literally), but by all appearances, the romance between them is genuine.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Snart more than Rory, but both characters do know when to draw the line occasionally. Snart starts moving more into anti-hero territory as the first season progresses, especially when it comes to supporting his teammates.
  • "Everybody Dies" Ending: Played with at the end of Season 2 by combining it with Expendable Clone. We see the Legends all either die or be erased from existence, but they're all future versions of the Legends who have come back in time; their past selves live through the adventure and, because the timeline's changed, won't suffer the same fate.
  • Expy: Rip Hunter in general demeanor, mythology and wardrobe borrows liberally from The Doctor of Doctor Who. His actor Arthur Darvill has a history with that franchise as well.
  • Exty Years from Publication:
    • Vandal Savage's conquest of Earth takes place on the year 2166, exactly 150 years from the first season's present.
    • The Legends pick up Zari in 2042, exactly 25 years from the year the episode aired in.
  • Face–Heel Turn: Mick ends up betraying the team to "time pirates" when taken captive and he bargains for his freedom.
  • Fake Guest Star:
    • Gary Green has been a pretty regular presence in the show since season 3, yet Adam Tsekhman will only get main starring credit in season 6. In season 3, Gary has roughly the same presence as Stein, Jefferson, and Wally. In seasons 4, he only misses out three episodes, on par with Mona and more than Nora. In season 5, Gary appears in more episodes than Astra, Nora, and Ray.
    • Shayan Sobhian is only credited as a guest star in season 5, despite Behrad appearing in same amount of episodes as Astra and more than Nora and Ray. Like Gary, this will be rectified in season 6.
    • Matt Ryan retains his "special appearance by" credit for every episode, even after joining the main cast.
  • Famed In-Story:
    • When he first recruits all of the team members, Rip Hunter explains that they are momentous figures of history in the future. Later turned on its head when it's revealed the whole reason Rip chose the team was because none of them ultimately mattered to history.
      Rip Hunter: In the future, none of you are heroes. You're legends.
    • Played straight later, as Ray becomes a knight of Arthurian myths while Sara turns out to be Lancelot, Mick becomes a hero of the American Revolution and is immortalized with a statue, and Amaya becomes a legendary pirate whose image becomes a brand of rum.
    • After the finale of Season 4, where they were publicly seen saving the world from demonic forces, the Legends become a worldwide sensation, being asked to meet celebrities, star in commercials, and present Academy Awards. Eventually, they decide that the burdens of fame aren't worth the perks, and decide to make the public think they're frauds who faked all their heroics, getting the spotlight off their backs.
  • Failed a Spot Check: Downplayed in Last Refuge. Jax meets his father in the past and is full of emotions when he leaves, so much so that he walks right past The Pilgrim (who they are trying to stop) and doesn't even notice. It's a brief moment, and one the viewer might miss as well. It's not clear if she failed a spot check too or if she deliberately ignored him to focus on her mission.
  • Failure Hero: The Legends fail at nearly every mission they go on. Part of it is how time is always working against them, but mostly it's their headstrong approach to heroics - i.e. fight first, strategize last, and their tendency to grab the Idiot Ball.
    Sara: Sometimes, we screw things up for the better!
  • Fooled by the Sound: Ray fools Nora Darhk into thinking the demon Mallus (who is currently possessing her) is giving her an order by getting a recording that sounds like Mallus, shrinking down to fit in her ear, then playing the recording there so it sounds like it's coming from inside her head. They get the recording from John Noble, the actor who voices Mallus, after realizing that his voice sounds exactly like Mallus.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • Mick's constant frustration at being denied the chance to burn things is a sign that he'll eventually get fed up with the team and betray them to go back at being a criminal.
    • The Easter Egg items in the Waverider end up forshadowing several characters who show up in the series.
  • "Freaky Friday" Flip: Happens to Martin and Jax in the episode "Helen Hunt". It's even described by the trope name.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • Fully Absorbed Finale: Season 3 serves as a Grand Finale for the animated Vixen web series, resolving all of that show's lingering plot threads and bringing back all of its major characters...except Mari McCabe herself.
  • Future Self Reveal: It's revealed in "Left Behind" that Rory, who was seemingly killed off-screen by Snart in in "Marooned" two episodes prior, had been found by the Time Masters and brainwashed into becoming Chronos, the time-traveling bounty hunter who had been pursuing the Legends throughout the season.

    Tropes G to I 
  • Gender-Equal Ensemble: Originally, the Legends were a textbook case of Two Girls to a Team (assuming you don't count Gideon as female and/or a Main Character). However, starting in Season 4, the main cast now usually contains as many women as men (we say "usually" because Revolving Door Casting is in effect, the gender ratio oscillates as new characters are added and old characters are written out, and being a main character doesn't mean someone is a legend or vice versa).
  • Ghostly Animals: When the death totem conjures ghosts, one of them is the ghost of Mick's recently deceased pet rat.
  • Girliness Upgrade: Zari changing her own past has this as an unintended side-effect. The new timeline's Zari became a social media influencer instead of a fugitive, so she wears a lot more dresses, makeup, and high heels, cares a lot more about being popular and fashionable, and even has a higher pitched voice than the old Zari.
  • Going Native: Time travelers who stay too long in a foreign time period are subject to this. This is less a social adaptation than it is a fundamental function of time travel, since time itself is trying to fit them into the time stream.
    • When trapped in the 1950s, Kendra loses her ability to summon her wings, Sara returns to the League of Assassins of the era, and Ray settles down into a perfectly happy job as a college professor.
    • Rip Hunter spent enough time in the Wild West that he struck up a friendship with Jonah Hex—Ray theorizes that Rip might have named his son Jonas for Jonah—and never wanted to leave. Ultimately, Rip realized that he could not stay without changing the time stream drastically, so forced himself to leave.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: Ray plays Giant Jenga with Season One Big Bad Vandal Savage in hell in Season 4.
  • Gorgeous Garment Generation: The advanced tech on the ship includes making clothes, so they group can dress up in the right clothing for the right period, and situation (such as giving Sara fur coats if they are trying to infiltrate high class places).
  • Gotta Catch 'Em All: The show has settled into this kind of pattern since season three, though not every instance is dealt with onscreen and the Legends' pursuit of them often reveals a bigger scheme.
    • Season three had the anachronisms, people or items scattered through history and causing chaos due to the Legends breaking time the season before. The Legends worked with the time bureau in order to rectify them, but ended up creating their own in order to confront Malus directly.
    • Season four had the fugitives: magical creatures and objects released from Hell due to the events of the previous finale. Constantine and the Bureau once again help the Legends recapture them, and the main threat becomes a newly released Neron.
    • Season five had Encores, who were evil souls Astra released from Hell to cause chaos. The ones not dealt with directly by the Legends are eventually summoned back to Hell after her scheme goes awry, since the entire thing was an attempt to get on the Fates' good side.
    • Season six begins with Sarah accidentally launching pods containing various aliens into the timestream. They're actually all dealt with two-thirds through the season, and the final four episodes focus on Constantine's struggles with a magic addiction.
  • Grandfather Paradox: Or, as Zari dubs it, "Ball Kick Paradox". When John tries kicking his father in the balls to prevent his own birth, the logical impossibility of how he could prevent his own birth if he was never born causes him to be instantly teleported a few feet away . . . and flat on his ass.
  • "Groundhog Day" Loop: Happens to Zari in the season 3 episode "Here I Go Again".
  • Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Inverted. The guys sans Carter and Nate (who play the "smash" part straight) are the ones equipped with ranged weapons or powers, while the girls are sans Zari mainly equipped for melee combat.
  • Had to Be Sharp: Astra literally grew up in Hell; becoming a scheming, amoral opportunist was the only way she stayed alive.
  • Hands Looking Wrong: Jax and Stein do this after experiencing a "Freaky Friday" Flip.
    Jax-in-Stein's-Body: My hands ... they're white.
    Stein-in-Jax's-Body: And mine appear to be African-American.
    Jax-in-Stein's-Body: You can just say black, Grey.
  • Hard Light: Ray Palmer uses an A.T.O.M. Exosuit described as having 'hard light' projectors as one of its weapons systems.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door:
    • Mick betrays the team to time pirates when he attempts to bargain for his own life, then becomes Chronos when the Time Masters recruit him. After the team captures him, he returns to their side as an ally, and by the end of the first season has been rehabilitated to better than before...only to betray and rejoin them yet again at the end of Season 2. Sara even says "Mick has betrayed us at least 10 times".
    • Leonard Snart switches around too, though more after he's killed off than before.
    • Astra spends several episodes in season 5 switching between working with the Legends, with the Fates, and for herself.
  • Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: Captain Cold and Heat Wave are all but joined at the hip.
    • Nate and Ray become this over time. When Ray leaves the team, those two saying goodbye is directly compared to Romeo & Frickin' Juliet.
  • Historical Domain Character: This being a show about Time Travel, it's inevitable for the Legends to meet several along the way.
  • Historical Domain Crossover: The "encores" in season 5 are historic villains revived by Astra. Mostly they reappear shortly after their death, and the Legends go to them, but in "Mortal Khanbat" Genghis Khan spent centuries making his way out of his tomb, and emerged in the 1990s, and in "The Great British Fake-Off", Jack the Ripper, Bonnie and Clyde, Brutus, Henry VIII and the pirate Black Caesar are all brought to 1910 by Lachesis.
  • Historical Person Punchline:
    • In "Left Behind", Ray is teaching a physics class to a group of students in 1960. He calls one of the students "Mr. Gates", who then mentions a young son named "William". Surprised, Ray blurts out, "Your son is Bill Gates?" The student thinks for a moment and agrees he likes "Bill" more than "William".
    • In "The Magnificent Eight", the team travels to the Dakota territory in 1871, where Stein meets a British barmaid whose young son is dying of tuberculosis. Unwilling to stand by and do nothing, Stein has Gideon synthesize a cure and injects the boy. The boy starts recovering almost immediately, and Stein then learns that the boy's name is Herbert George Wells. In a manner similar to Ray above, Stein asks if the boy is indeed "H.G. Wells". The boy likes this form of his name.
  • Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act: A variation with another tyrant. In "Progeny", the team travels to 2147 to try to prevent Savage's rise to power by getting rid of his pupil, Per Degaton, the future ruler of the Kasnia Conglomerate, who will enter history as someone even worse than Hitler. The team arrives 5 years before Per Degaton's rise to power in order to kill or kidnap the boy (either way, taking him out of the time stream and removing Savage's stepping stone). Rip is unable to pull the trigger and ends up trading Per to his father for the lives of Rip's team. This ends up accelerating Per's rise to power as he kills his father and makes Savage his legal guardian, making Savage the de facto regent of the Conglomerate 5 years earlier than expected.
  • Hollywood History:
    • Pretty much everything about Albert Einstein and the atomic bomb in Season 2's "Out of Time" is completely fabricated. Einstein's only contribution was writing a letter to FDR in 1939 warning him that Germany might develop atomic bombs. This started the Manhattan Project, which Einstein knew nothing about. By 1942, the Manhattan Project only had general ideas of how to build an atomic bomb and didn't have anywhere near the amount of enriched uranium needed to power it. Einstein was a committed pacifist and later regretted that his letter led to the creation of the atomic bomb. Mileva Marić divorced Albert Einstein in 1919, well before anybody had theorized an atomic bomb, and was living in Zurich in 1942, with no way to learn about the existence or developments of the Manhattan Project. Pretty much the only historically accurate thing about this episode was that Albert Einstein was indeed in America in 1942.
  • House Inspection: In "Tender Is the Nate", Hank makes an inspection on the Waverider due to the high expenditure. Naturally, it's a disaster.
  • "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight: Episode 3x15 Necromancing The Stone. Used word for word by Ava.
  • I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine: Even though Rip Hunter has the freedom to draw from all past and, importantly, future history, he picks all of his legends from fall of 2016. Two come from Arrow, four from The Flash. That way the show doesn't have to introduce us to anyone we don't already know apart from Rip, Gideon, and the concept of the show itself.
  • Iconic Outfit: Aside from the characters with superhero outfits, John has his brown trenchcoat and loosened tie, Ava has her blue pantsuit, and Zari has her flannel shirt from "Here I Go Again".
  • If It's You, It's Okay: At this point this is practically Sara's other superpower, with the sheer number of historical women she's "corrupted".
  • I'm Mr. [Future Pop Culture Reference]:
    • Dr. Stein introduces himself to his younger self as "Professor Elon Musk".
    • Nate claims to be Colonel Sanders during the Civil War in the episode "Abominations".
    • In "The Chicago Way", Nate as Eliot Ness claims his partner Ray is named Bob de Niro. Later, Mick claims he and Sara are Bonnie and Clyde.
    • Ray Palmer introduced himself to his supposed descendant as "Dr. Hannibal Lecter".
    • While hunting a monster in Vietnam, Nate introduces Mick to his own father as "Sergeant Schwarzenegger".
  • Ignored Enemy: This sort of happens in Moonshot between Sara and Rip, with the enemy in question being a meteoroid field the Waverider is currently sitting in front of.
    Rip: Sara, you need to abort! You're going to hit the meteoroids!
    Sara: Better us than the command module!
    Rip: Could you at least try to destroy the meteoroids rather than using my ship as a human shield?!
    Sara: Worked before, back in 1942! You put the ship in front of a nuke and it absorbed the blast!
    Rip: ...at least I had the decency to time-scatter you all first.
    Sara: Decency?! Did you ask any of us if we wanted to be time-scattered?!
    Rip: I was trying to save your lives!!
    Sara: You put me in a time period where they wanted to hang me for being a witch!!
  • Immortality: Vandal Savage has lived for 4,000 years, recharging his immortality by killing the reincarnations of Prince Khufu and Priestess Chay-Ara and absorbing their life force. It's also shown that drinking the blood of one of them can extend a normal person's life by a century or so, which Savage uses to sustain his followers.
    • In Season 5, the Encores are immortal due to being damned souls that Hell has sent back to Earth. As long as Hell refuses to take them back, there's nowhere for them to go when they die, so they just keep on living (and heal from any injuries almost instantly to boot). Only way to stop them for good is with Hell weapons, which completely disintegrate people body and soul.
    • The Legends briefly become immortal after drinking from the Chalice of Dionysus, which can make anyone immortal for a day.
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Enemy mooks are functionally incapable of hitting any of the heroes throughout the series, including the Waverider. There are only two points in the entire first season where one of the main characters is shot, and neither time is it fatal.
  • In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It: The title of the show is DC's Legends of Tomorrow. In case you forgot that the show belongs to DC Comics.
  • The Internet Is for Porn: Gideon describes the year 2016 as a "golden age of gasoline engines, online pornography, and those silly little smartphones."
  • Ironic Hell: When Ava and Sara go to Purgatory, it's custom designed to torture them with all the insecurities Ava has about their relationship (in the form of surreal domestic tasks within an Ikea-esque store).
  • I Want Grandkids: In "Lucha De Apuestas", when Nate and Zari pretend to be dating, his mother Dorothy gives big hints at this.
    Tropes J to N 
  • Juggling Loaded Guns: Ray insists he knows how to control his tech...right before one of his thrusters accidentally goes off.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Done almost constantly throughout the series. Reaches a highpoint in "Meet the Legends", where they need to convince people that the documentary on them was all faked, so they point out how everything they just did makes no logical sense and couldn't possibly be real.
  • Late Spin-Off Transplant: Wally West went from The Flash to this show during Season 3.
  • Lawful Stupid: Ray can't bring himself to do the Nazi salute even when it compromises his cover when confronted by an actual SS officer.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
    • In "Fail-Safe", while preparing to break Prof. Stein, Ray, and Rory out of the Russian gulag, Snart says, "This isn't my first prison break." Snart and Rory are played by Prison Break stars Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell, respectively.
    • The episode "Here We Go Again" leans on the wall a few times as it openly acknowledges that it is rehashing tropes from films such as Groundhog Day.
    • At one point, Ray references the idea that the team fighting magical beings is a surefire way to "up our ratings", because "people love the Supernatural", in a blatant reference to a fellow CW show.
    • One season later, the team stumbled upon the set of...Supernatural.
    • In general, the show is big on the Legends discussing their adventures as though they were a TV show. Meeting other superheroes is a "Crossover", the magic gizmos they're searching for are MacGuffins, gathering everyone onto The Bridge is a "bridge scene"...which they mention not liking, since it means "just standing around all day", a complaint that actors have about filming such scenes.
  • The Legend of X
  • Legion of Doom: Shows in Season 2 made up of previous Big Bads from "Arrow" and "The Flash": Eobard Thawne, Damien Darhk, Malcolm Merlyn, and Captain Cold.
  • Letter Motif: All the AI's so far have had names starting with the letter 'G'.
  • Lighter and Softer: Although not without its occasional serious moment, or dark episode, this series is considered lighter-hearted than the other shows in the DC TV universe, even moreso than Supergirl, with a greater emphasis on character comedy, particularly from the second season onwards. Becomes evident in the crossover episodes where the Legends don't always seem to fit alongside darker characters from Arrow (even though the series features individuals first introduced on that show).
  • Love Triangle:
    • Sort of. Both Jackson and Ray are interested in Kendra after Carter's death, but she's not interested in getting into a relationship at the moment. At least until the next episode, when she and Ray kiss.
    • A straightforward version exists between Kendra, Ray and Carter. Even though the Carter that she knew is dead and she does legitimately love Ray now, Kendra knows that she is going to meet Carter again in the future, so any relationship with Ray feels as though she is cheating on Carter. When she does meet another version of Carter, she breaks up with Ray because she cannot choose to abandon the soulmate she has known for four thousand years.
    • Subverted when the alternate Zari comes into existence, with Prime Zari, who is involved with Nate, having to hold guard inside the air totem. When the "new" Zari gets romantically involved with Constantine, this doesn't bother Nate since he doesn't see her as "his" Zari (although he assures her she's a friend and teammate all the same) and only pines for Prime Zari.
  • Magic A Is Magic A: One of the issues in the first season was that the apparent rules of Time Travel felt arbitrary and in constant flux, using Rip to Hand Wave it as what he was claiming before wasn't iron clad but just a recommendation (one example being how you shouldn't time travel to the same place multiple times and interfere with the same events you were previously involved with). This is also not accounting for The Flash (2014), set in the same continuity, using a different set of time travel rules. By the second season, all these arbitrary rules were quietly discarded and a more streamlined version of time travel was utilized, focusing more on the adventures over the internal rules.
  • Magical Profanity Filter: When the heroes find themselves on the reality show from hell (literally), the censor bleeps out any reference to God or Christianity, as shown when Gwyn attempts to say grace at dinner.
  • Malignant Plot Tumor: Season 6 starts off focusing mainly on the Legends trying to recapture aliens that have been released into the timestream, but episode 5 takes a break to focus on Astra and Constantine's dynamic and ends with Constantine sacrificing his magic in order to stop the Villain of the Week. It doesn't get much plot focus at first, simply causing Constantine's relationship with Zari to hit some ups and downs, but as he feels more and more powerless he becomes willing to give in to his dark side and obtain magic from more sinister sources - directly causing the final confrontation of the season.
  • Mecha-Mooks: Ray is disturbed to find out that, in 2147, the order in the Kasnia Conglomerate is maintained by flying police robots, who look like an evolution of his Atom suit technology. He later discovers that his brother Sydney is at fault for starting this chain of events, by appropriating Ray's technology after his disappearance and using it for unethical purposes. The robots are being run by his brother's descendant Rachel, Turner.
  • Misfit Mobilization Moment: The team acts as one when Chronos attacks the ship.
  • Mr. Fixit: Apparently, being a auto mechanic means that Jax can fix a timeship from the future. As he puts it, an engine is an engine.note 
  • Muppet Cameo:
    • "Beebo the God of War"​ had Leo Snart using a Martin Stein puppet as part of his therapy for the Legends in grieving the late professor.
    • "Legends of To-Meow-Meow" takes it even further with several of the Legends being turned into puppets (Sara, Ray, Nate, and Zari). The puppets (sans Zari) dub themselves the "Puppets of Tomorrow" and engage in Sesame Street style songs along with lessons about values and numbers.
    • Puppet versions of the Legends return when they're transported into a parody of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, including the "Land of Make-'Em-Ups".
  • The Music Meister: Kamadeva, the Hindu god of love. Well, it's actually a guy named Sanjay, who gathered the real Kamadeva's ashes after he was immolated by Shiva. Sanjay can use Kamadeva's ashes to remove people's impulse control. He uses it to start a Bollywood dance number in Regency England. People around him can't help but start singing.
  • My Future Self and Me: Given the Time Travel premise of the show, The Team encounter past or/and future versions of themselves throughout the show.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • Captain Cold scoffs at the idea of him being a hero in the future. In the Flashpoint timeline, he is a hero going by the alias "Citizen Cold". Additionally, his Earth 2 counterpart is the mayor of Central City.
    • Rip Hunter says he's seen "men of steel die and dark knights fall."
    • Rip Hunter's time ship is called The Waverider, named after a time-traveler from Armageddon 2001 and Booster Gold.
    • In the very first episode, Rip Hunter lists Per Degaton as a dictator on par with Caesar and Adolf Hitler. In the comics, Per Degaton is a time-traveling tyrant who has clashed with the JSA numerous times.
    • The future version of Green Arrow is missing his left arm as a nod to Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
    • In "Marooned" Rip secretly initiates protocols over an open comlink to the Waverider with names referencing DCU characters that would normally be off limits. In particular he mentions Imperiex and Kanjar Ro, enemies of Superman and Green Lantern respectively.
    • In "Night of the Hawk", Vandal Savage goes by the name Curtis Knox. This is in reference to the Smallville character of the same name, who was heavily implied to be Savage using an alias.
    • Team Legends is pretty much the Arrowverse's equivalent to the Forgotten Heroes, of which Rip Hunter was a founding member (and was the one who formed them initially to take down Vandal Savage).
    • Eve Baxter in "Marooned" shares her surname with Bonnie Baxter, the female Time Master in the comics.
    • Savage describes his becoming aware of time travel as being like a caveman being shown fire, a nod to his origins in the comics.
    • One of P.T. Barnum's men wears a mask that is reminiscent of B'wana Beast's B'wana Helmet.
    • Zari says her amulet used to belong to her brother. In the comics, Adrianna Tomasz had a brother named Amon who shared her powers.
    • At the end of "Helen Hunt", Zari returns Helen to the Ancient Greek world but not Troy, instead dropping her off somewhere that So Beautiful, It's a Curse won't be a problem because "no boys allowed": Themiscrya.
    • At the start of "Wet Hot American Bummer", when the Monster of the Week is believed to be a Muck Monster, Constantine comments that he knows a Swamp Thing, but it's unlikely to be him.
    • "Freaks & Greeks" is set at Hudson University; Dick Grayson's college in the comics.
  • Never Trust a Trailer:
    • The first trailer seems to be just a "proof of concept" thing due to some inconsistencies introduced in the latest Arrow and Flash seasons.
      • Arrow Season 4 showed Sara being resurrected from the Pit wearing a black corset instead of being naked.
      • Oliver gets a whole new costume while Barry has his logo modified. The trailer shows them wearing their previous outfits.
      • The trailer shows Sara being unaware of Ray Palmer's Sizeshifter powers. In Arrow Season 4, she's part of the rescue team that saves him from Damien Darhk because he can't grow back to his normal size.
      • It shows Oliver and Barry assembling the team, while the series opens with Rip Hunter as the moving force. Oliver appears for two scenes in the pilot, while Barry doesn't appear at all.
      • Sara's White Canary suit doesn't have sleeves, while in this trailer it does.
    • A later trailer features Rip assembling the team, but it's an entirely different scene than the one used on the show and we never see how he got them in the same place to begin with.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
    • Rip accidentally lets Savage know what his wife and son will look like in a few hundred years, as well as giving him their names. Savage specifically hunts them down based on this information.
    • In 1986, Stein baits Valentina Vostok with the knowledge of the Soviet Union's impending collapse in less than a decade. This only drives Vostok to greater determination to do anything to prevent this from happening.
    • After Jackson expresses an interest in Kendra, Stein tries to help him out by subtly influencing Ray into rejecting the idea of getting involved with someone within the team. Unfortunately, this is what starts Ray to thinking of the idea of him and Kendra together in the first place.
    • The Legends are hit with this so often, it's become a running gag, to the point where one episode has the Opening Narration sum up the show as "History's all screwed up, and it's up to us to un-screw it up, but half the time we screw things up even worse."
    • When they start fixing anachronisms, the Legends' choose one that's rated as Level 1 (the lowest level) in severity, figuring it'll be a simple fix. As a result of their bumbling, the anachronism keeps getting worse throughout the episode, until it's become a Level 8.
    • After the first season, each season of the show has the main threat the Legends' fight be the result of their own efforts to stop the previous season's big threat. Destroying the Time Masters in Season 1 allows the Legion of Doom to wreak havoc on history in Season 2. Defeating the Legion by creating a time paradox "breaks time", creating hundreds of anachronisms and allowing Mallus to start tearing down his temporal prison in Season 3. And when they allow Mallus to fully break out of his prison so they can kill him, it lets out a bunch of other magical monsters who become threats in Season 4.
    • The team's attempt to prevent Savage's rise to power in 2152 ends up speeding up the events, and he rises to power in 2147 instead.
  • No Animosity in the Afterlife: When Ray Palmer's soul is temporarily in hell after his body is stolen by the demon Neron, he runs into his team's former archnemesis Vandal Savage, who was sent to torture him. However, it turns out Vandal has mellowed out a lot since his death, and the two of them end up becoming friends and playing multiple games of Giant Jenga together.
  • No Equal-Opportunity Time Travel: Night of the Hawk takes the team to 1958 and addresses the racism, sexism and homophobia of the time. Kendra is assumed to be a live-in maid and waitress, Jax is assaulted for talking to a white woman, and Sara and a nurse are sexually harassed by a doctor. It is included even in the background, as several background characters walking past are shown to stare in disbelief—and anger—at Jax sitting with Stein and Sara at a diner.
    Stein: The '50s were a great time!
    Jax: If you're white.
    Sara: And male. And straight.
  • Non-Indicative Name: These Legends of Tomorrow? They were chosen SPECIFICALLY because they had little effect on the timeline. Though, as Stein points out, that's only true in the history that Rip remembers and could be changed by what they do during their travels with him.
  • Nostalgia Ain't Like It Used to Be: Averted with the episode where they go to the 50's. When Stein expresses his opinion on how great a time it was he is immediately put down by the others, who don't have it as good. Racism towards African-Americans is on full display, and Jackson (who is black) and Sara (who is a woman and bisexual) even say that the 50's were only seemingly idyllic if you were a straight white man. Stein is quickly forced to agree.
  • Not Using the "Z" Word: Notably averted in "Abominations". While Stein doesn't like to use the word "zombie" even when the team is confronted with them, everyone else uses it freely.
    Tropes O to R 
  • Oddball in the Series: Legends of Tomorrow is the only Arrowverse series not based on a pre-existing comic. It is closest to the overall Rip Hunter comics and some elements of the Justice Society of America, but is ultimately its own thing.
  • The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The Time Masters, who seem to accept Vandal Savage's conquest of the Earth as a natural flow of time. Rip Hunter goes AWOL because of this.
  • One Nation Under Copyright: It is stated that by the mid-22nd century Earth is ruled by corporations, the largest and most prosperous of which is the Kasnia Conglomerate. Savage, in his role as the tutor to the heir of Kasnia, explains that running a corporation is nowhere near as easy as running a country. Central City was taken over by S.T.A.R. Labs at some point.
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping:
    • English performers Maisie Richardson-Sellers (Vixen) and Franz Drameh (the Jax half of Firestorm) are both guilty of this sometimes.
    • Inverted somewhat in the episode Moonshot where Jax, Stein and Mick pose as representatives from the British space program, allowing Franz to periodically abandon his Jax voice in order to keep up the ruse.
      Jax: I'm a...booster systems engineer. They call me The Rocketman.
  • Opening Narration: Starts with the second episode, "Pilot, Part II". Starting in Season 2, the narration varies depending on which character is delivering it, with Mick delivering a particularly self-deprecating version. This is phased out starting in Season 4.
  • Order Versus Chaos: Savage seems to believe that humanity only advances through warfare, giving the example of splitting the atom being the direct result of World War II.
  • Outliving One's Offspring: Kendra feels this way about Professor Boardman, as he was the son of her previous incarnation, even though she has no memory of it.
  • Overlord Jr.: In the Bad Future version of Star City (2046), Slade Wilson's son Grant has taken up the mantle of Deathstroke and led an "Uprising" in the city, resulting in a hellish place ruled by criminals. The only one who opposes him is Connor Hawke (born John Diggle, Jr.), the new Green Arrow.
  • Personalized Afterlife: When Ava is sent to Purgatory, it's revealed to be a mini-dimension created out of her subconscious anxieties.
  • Person as Verb: In "Legends Of To-Meow-Meow", when John Constantine has severe headaches of knowing multiple ways the timeline could go, he claims he'll be fine. Zari replies, "What if you can't? What if you die, John? What happens to all the people who need you alive and... Constantine-ing?"
  • Pirate Girl: Nate passes Amaya off as Dread Pirate Jiwe, who impresses even Blackbeard. In the future, a Captain Morgan-like spiced rum suddenly changes to Captain Jiwe spiced rum.
  • Place Beyond Time: The Temporal Zone, the Vanishing Point, and Mallus's prison dimension all exist outside the normal flow of time. The ancestral plane accessed by the Zambezi totems appears to be beyond time as well, though it's not a physical place, as people can only travel there spiritually.
  • Plot Hole: The revelation in season 6 that Gary is an alien whose human disguise is maintained by his glasses. Even though we've seen Gary without glasses before, Gideon's scanned him before and never mentioned it, his sexual relationshp with John and the season-long arc of his nipple being corrupted by Neron. Most fans gave up trying to explain it almost immediately and have just written it off as "Crisis Did It".
  • Pronouncing My Name for You: The Big Bad of Season 3 is a demon whose name is pronounced either MOHL-us or MAWL-us by both the heroes and the villains all throughout the season. In the final episode of the season, the demon itself finally reveals that its name is actually Malice. The season finale then later contains a gag of the Legends arguing among themselves as to the correct pronunciation.
  • Pseudo-Crisis: Season 2 ends on a Cliffhanger with the indication that the Legends may have pushed time too far and broken it...Only for Season 3 to open with Rip and his new Time Bureau showing up and solving the whole issue 2 minutes into the first episode.
  • Purgatory and Limbo: When Neron tries to prepare Ava for Demonic Possession, her soul is sent to Purgatory, which creates a Personalized Afterlife based around her subconscious anxieties (and an IKEA-esque superstore, for some reason), designed to test her before she "goes up" or "goes down". Luckily, Sara's able to travel into Ava's purgatory and bring her out.
  • Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Legends have had a lot of members over their years, from a lot of different walks of life (reformed assassins, unreformed arsonists, government agents, do-gooder superheroes, alcoholic warlocks, future-dystopia freedom fighters), the only constant being they're all just as likely to make things worse as make things better, yet still find a way to Save the World.
  • Reincarnation Romance: Hawkman and Hawkgirl's relationship is defined by this. Thing is, Hawkman has regained all his Past-Life Memories and Hawkgirl hasn't. At least, not yet.
  • Related in the Adaptation:
    • Sara becoming White Canary makes the character related to the Lance/Black Canary family by default. In the comics, White Canary is merely a self-appointed Arch-Enemy of Black Canary (Dinah Laurel Lance).
    • Inverted with Connor Hawke. In the comics, he is Oliver's illegitimate son and successor. The Arrowverse made him a Decomposite Character; Connor is merely his successor here (although he is the son of John Diggle), while his status as Oliver's illegitimate child was given to William Clayton.
  • Resurrected Murderer:
    • "Slay Anything" features Freddy Meyers a convicted Serial Killer, responsible for murdering seven of his former class mates at his prom during the 80's, who is executed by electric chair right on the night of his twenty year high school reunion and sent back from hell as an Encore with telekinetic powers to continue massacring his former classmates. Or so it would seem, in reality its Freddy's mother Kathy who murdered Freddy's classmates and let her son take the fall, having a heart attack at watching him die, its her who's returned from the dead to kill his classmates blaming them for taking her son away from her.
    • In "The Great British Fake Off", to secure the final piece of the Loom of Fate, Lachesis steals a large collection of Astra's soul coins and dispatches several of histories most infamous killers (Jack the Ripper, Brutus, Black Caesar and Bonnie and Clyde) as Encores to retrieve it, promising whoever gives it to her freedom from damnation.
  • Resurrection/Death Loop: The episode "Here We Go Again" has Zari getting put in a "Groundhog Day" Loop, so that each time the ship explodes, time resets itself. Zari uses each of these resets to find the source of the explosion and to investigate each of her teammates to discover who the culprit is. They finally discover that Time Agent Gary used a device to trigger the Time Loop, while the bomb was revealed to be a souvenir planted by Damien Darhk. However Gary's device gets destroyed, leaving no more resets, so Zari performs a Heroic Sacrifice to shield everyone else from the bomb with her powers. It's all revealed to be a Secret Test of Character by the ship's Benevolent A.I. to allow Zari to bond with the Legends.
  • Ret-Gone: Threatened on multiple occasions, especially as the Time Masters started getting more hardline about getting rid of the Legends. Thawne's primary goal in the second season is trying to outrun "his own non-existence," as he is a Time Remnant whose ancestor Eddie Thawne killed himself to prevent his birth (explained that the act of time travelling provides a buffer from such changes to the timeline, the Thawne of Flash Season One was erased immediately but the Thawne of Flashpoint still had to kill Nora Allen to keep the timeline in check) and was being hunted by the Black Flash, a Grim Reaper for speedsters.
    • Due to the events at the end of Season 3, the history of Zambezi was rewritten so that the entire Vixen series never happened, at least not without heavy modifications to the story.
  • Revolvers Are Just Better: Rip's futuristic blaster is made to look like a revolver that glows blue.
  • Revolving Door Casting: Legends can come and go at just about any point in a season. As of Season 7 only Sara (and Gideon if you want to count her) remain from the original lineup.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: At the end of the pilot, Rip reveals that his goals are less altruistic and more personal. The woman and boy killed by Savage at the start of the episode were his wife and son. When the Time Masters refused to act, he stole the Waverider and left to stop Savage himself, choosing a team from among the most capable of the least influential people he could find.
    • At the beginning of Season 2, Sara is very focused on killing Damien Darhk in revenge for killing her sister (and also because killing him before he kills her sister will Set Right What Once Went Wrong).
  • The Roaring '20s: Flashbacks to the Hawks' incarnation as Professor Boardman's parents set in this decade happened near the end of Season 1. Season 2, episode 8 takes place in 1927 Chicago.
    • Gets a lot of focus in "Tender Is the Nate", set in 1920's Paris, with many scenes at a nightclub where Ernest Hemingway, Salvador Dali, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Zelda Fitzgerald all hang out.
  • Running Gag:
    • The Team being prone to starting Bar Brawls.
    • Cuts from a serious scene discussing how dangerous members of the team are to Ray, being anything but dangerous.
    • Various people the team encounters across time, even ones who aren't surprised by the team being time travellers (like Ra's Al-Ghul or Jonah Hex), are taken aback by Firestorm.
    • Sara hitting on various attractive historical figures, especially when she's in a time period where she really shouldn't (like Anne of Austria or seemingly every single adult woman in Salem, Massachusetts).
    • Constantine being continually prevented from lighting his cigarette, usually by Sara.
    • Pretty much anything related to Gary.
    • Mick being more interested in food and beer than life-threatening emergencies.
    • Another Mick gag has him trying to think of a big word and getting it wrong at first, before getting it correct.
    Tropes S to U 
  • Sacrificial Lamb: Carter is killed in the second episode in a failed attempt to kill Savage (believing a particular knife could kill him, it actually required Kendra to use it). The rest of the team rally in revenge, with the mission becoming more personal for them. Although he shows up reincarnated later on.
  • Sacrificial Lion:
    • Snart saves Ray (and by proxy Mick) from dying when the Oculus overloads in season 1's penultimate episode, dying in the process.
    • Martin Stein dies during Crisis on Earth-X
    • Rip Hunter sacrifices himself in the season 3 finale by overloading the Waverider’s time drive to distract Mallus and give the Legends time to escape.
  • Safe Word: Ava's is "core competencies," as we find out on her wedding night.
  • Save the World: Notably the first entry in the Arrowverse to have this as its premise, as typically big bads have tended to operate on only a city-wide level up until now.
  • Self-Made Orphan: After the team's failed attempt to prevent Savage's protege's rise to power in 2152, Savage convinces the young Per Degaton that his father is too weak to lead the Kasnia Conglomerate and gives him a dagger. Per plunges the dagger into his sleeping father's chest and takes over the leadership of the Conglomerate, making Savage his legal guardian and, by extension, regent. This happens 5 years before it was supposed to.
  • Sequel Series: Effectively becomes one to Constantine when John joins the cast.
  • Serial Escalation: Each season becomes Denser and Wackier than the season before it. Try watching the relatively dour first season, then skip ahead to Season 6, where aliens compete in singing competitions, the Earth gets turned into a bowling ball, and the Legends become literal cartoon characters.
  • Series Fauxnale: the penultimate episode of season 7 serves as one as the Legends agree to a truce with Evil Gideon where they all retire to live out the futures they were shown while Gideon, who has been resurrected into a human, becomes Captain of the Waverider with Gary accompanying her. This doesn’t last as Gwyn is killed when he tried to alter a fixed point, forcing the Legends to come together again and save him.
  • Sex Sells: The first two trailers for Season 5 both featured a scene of Mona posing naked while looking seductive/playful and covered with a pile of Beebo dolls. In “Meet the Legends” this turns out to be an in-universe advertising campaign, specifically a parody of PETA's anti-fur coat ads, with text saying "No fur but my own fur" referencing Mona's ability to turn into a werewolf-like creature. Other trailers and commercials throughout the series' lifespan are also not shy about using clips of the beautiful Caity Lotz kissing other beautiful women.
  • Sherlock Scan: Sara in 'Blood Ties.'
  • Shout-Out:
    • Referring to their Time Travel mission, Rip Hunter gives a nod to the Catchphrase of Inspector Spacetime, "the real question isn't where, but when." (Doubles as a zigzagged shoutout to actor Arthur Darvill's previous series, Doctor Who of which Inspector Spacetime was an affectionate parody.)
    • While being attacked by Chronos, Jefferson tells Gideon to blast the villain with "proton torpedoes". Reinforced a few minutes later when Captain Cold calls Chronos "Boba Fett".
    • In "Marooned", Stein says he read "Rick Starr: Space Ranger".
    • In "Night of the Hawk", being set in 1958 there are numerous Back to the Future references.
    • Leonard Snart's last words:
    • Mick's comment on Nazis is very similar to Indiana Jones's.
      Mick: Nazis. I hate Nazis.
    • In "The Justice Society of America", when performing a song from the future ("Edelweiss") Martin Stein tells the band:
    • "The Fellowship of the Spear" has several The Lord of the Rings shout-outs, including the way the Spear of Destiny reveals the text on it after Mick lights it on fire, and how Rip essentially gives Aragorn's "but not this day" speech from the third film when he's speaking over the intercom. And when the Legends first find Tolkien, his commanding officer yells this at him:
      Fool of a Tolkien!
    • Towards the end of the Season 2 CrossOver episode "Invasion!" while the heroes are celebrating their victory over the Dominators, Ray makes a comment about Supergirl saying that "she really kinda looks like [his] cousin." Which makes sense since Ray Palmer's actor once donned the coat of arms of the House of El himself.
    • The show revolves around time travel and their time machine has a hexagonal central console and is run by an intelligent female AI who has developed feelings for her captain.
    • Season 3 has included several references to Marvel Comics characters. In "Crisis on Earth X Part 4," Ray invokes the catchphrase used by Kamala Khan in Ms. Marvel (2014) (while demonstrating one of her powers); in "Beebo The God of War", a character impersonates Odin (although not The Mighty Thor character specifically, this was an episode that aired only a few weeks after the release of Thor: Ragnarok). In addition, one of the other Earth X episodes (airing as part of another CW series) had Stein and Jax talk referring to Spider-Man by name.
    • The plot of Terms of Service is a Shout-Out to a real life event, when Game Station decided to put a prank clause in their online Terms & Conditions.
      "By placing an order via this Web site on the first day of the fourth month of the year 2010 Anno Domini, you agree to grant Us a non transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul. Should We wish to exercise this option, you agree to surrender your immortal soul, and any claim you may have on it, within 5 (five) working days of receiving written notification from gamesation.co.uk or one of its duly authorised minions."
    • While watching a horror B-movie, Sara and Ava look it up on The A.V. Club online and read aloud a blurb of its D+ review. Said blurb was taken from an actual A.V. Club D+ review of Legends during its ill-received season 1 (specifically, "Last Refuge"). The A.V. Club were quite thrilled with this.
      Ava: The A.V. Club gave it a D+, saying, ‘The production design is as lazy as the action staging.’
      Sara: Harsh!
  • Sleeves Are for Wimps: White Canary and Hawkman's costumes are sleeveless.
  • Shapeshifting Heals Wounds:
    • Whenever Nate Heywood uses his Steel powers, any injuries he sustained in human form will have healed when after he 'unsteels'.
    • With her full powers Charlie possessed this ability, after being shot and later having her Neck Snapped she momentarily seemed dead before (seemingly automatically) taking another form without the injury. She outright states her abilities make her immortal, as every time she shifted form her clock got reset, to the point that its presently unclear what it would have taken to kill her (assuming she can actually die). Unfortunately due to John Constantine stripping her of powers (which only gradually come back) this no longer applies.
  • Single-Stroke Battle: In feudal Japan, Sara squares off against the chief Samurai enforcer of the Shogun after all of the lesser Samurai have been killed. They rush at each other and each perform a single Katana strike, but after the Samurai falls the camera reveals that Sara had actually carried a smaller dagger which she used for the killing blow while he was focused on her sword.
  • Sinister Whistling: Big Bad of Season Four, Neron is shown to have a fondness for "Pop Goes The Weasel", leading to one particularly nightmarish scene where he's casually strolling down the street slowly whistling it to himself whilst all around him his influence causes fights to break out, murders to occur and cars to crash. Used as a plot point as after he is seemingly killed it's revealed he possessed Ray Palmer, when Ray starts whistling the same tune.
  • Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer:
    • Jax, confirmed as a series regular, is not in the reveal trailer so as not to spoil the development in The Flash that he's replacing Ronnie Raymond as (half of) Firestorm.
    • Carter Hall/Hawkman was not present on the reveal trailer.
    • Vandal Savage did not appear directly on the same trailers.
    • Cisco, Diggle, Ra's and Darhk are confirmed to appear but all are not present on the aforementioned trailers.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: The mother and child Savage murders in the opener of the pilot turn out to be Rip's wife and son and their deaths is what drives him to create the team to stop Savage and hopefully save his family.
  • Soul Jar: In Hell, special coins are used to represent each damned soul. Holding a person's soul coin gives you ownership over them, and can teleport you to their cell/torture chamber instantly. If a soul coin is made for someone who's still alive (or who has been sent back from Hell}, the coin can be used to accelerate their death, or to postpone it indefinitely, making them effectively immortal.
  • Space Pirates: Well, time pirates in "Marooned", although the episode does take place in deep space in an unspecified time period. In a cool Shout-Out to a fairly obscure DC character from the 1940s, the pirate captain is named Jon Valor. The original Jon Valor was also known as the Black Pirate, a swashbuckling high seas character created by Sheldon Moldoff. Just to connect this to the characters from the show, Moldoff was one of the original artists for Golden Age Hawkman, Carter Hall.
  • Speculative Fiction LGBT:
    • White Canary - Sara, who is taken from sister show Arrow, where she was canonically bisexual, though since joining the time-travelling legends has discussed the fact that she "prefers girls", with a handful of romantic entanglements through history, in earlier seasons, mostly women. Her bisexuality is explicitly stated onscreen by Nate in S2, and in S3 she has a tryst with Constantine, before eventually ending up in a longterm relationship with Ava Sharpe.
    • One episode takes the fantasy setting of Camelot and makes Guinevere queer as she prefers fighting alongside Arthur to being romantic with him and falls for Sara Lance, a lot.
    • Other prominent LGBT characters on the show include lesbian Ava Sharpe, Sara Lance's girlfriend, bisexuals John Constantine and Gary Green (who share a few kisses, and have a brief fling that includes a Dungeons and Dragons date), shapeshifter Charlie, who is strongly implied to be pansexual and telepath Spooner who is asexual.
  • Spin-Off: Rare example of a show being spun off from two series simultaneously, as its initial cast of characters (sans Rip) had all previously been introduced on either Arrow or The Flash (2014).
    • In Season 4, it also pulls a rare reverse spin off, taking John Constantine, who had previously starred in short-lived solo series Constantine, and making him part of the Legends ensemble.
  • Spiritual Successor: With Doctor Who announced to be going AWOL for 2016 on the same day "Pilot Part 1" was broadcast, this show with a similar premise note  is a very suitable replacement for the "quirky time-travel show" hole left in the fans' hearts.
    • Also, there is a six-sided console on the Waverider, albeit without a central time rotor.
    • Can also be considered a spiritual successor to Quantum Leap since a big recurring theme in both shows is to make right what went wrong in history, whether it's to stop Vandal Savage's rise to power or to put an end to the time aberrations created by the Legion of Doom. Both shows also feature very similar themes, whether it's having chance meetings with famous people throughout history or even having some of the Waverider crew fill in the shoes of certain historical figures like Jax having to pose as Henry Scott during the Civil War compared to Sam leaping into famous people like Lee Harvey Oswald. It also helps that both shows also feature intelligent female supercomputers who help out the main heroes(Ziggy for Sam and Gideon for Rip Hunter and the Waverider crew) and guide them along their journey.
  • Spiteful Spit: Jonas spits on Vandal Savage after the latter asks him if he's foolish or brave.
  • Standard Human Spaceship: The Waverider is very angular and boxy looking, painted in shades of grey and blue.
  • Start of Darkness: According to Snart, before his father was arrested he was not a saint, but he also never raised his hand to either Snart or his sister. However, after his first lengthy stint in prison the man changed and became an abusive jerk who beat his kids and tried to use them as tools in his crimes.
  • The Stinger: At the end of the pilot, Savage raids a military convoy in 1975 Norway to steal a Soviet nuclear warhead.
  • The Story That Never Was: In season 2 after the Legends spend most of the season trying to keep the Spear of Destiny out of the hands of the Legion of Doom, ultimately they fail and the Legion uses the Spear to rewrite reality. Even trapped within the Legion's Doomworld reality, the Legends make a final attempt to steal back the spear and undo the damage, only for Eobard Thawne to destroy the spear itself. The Legends then reason that the only way to repair reality is to stop the Legion from getting the Spear to begin with, so they travel back in time across their own personal history to WWI where the Legion had first acquired the completed Spear. In a Final Battle of the Legends teaming up with their past selves to face the Legion, all of the future Legends end up being killed with the exception of Sara. Sara then uses the Spear's reality powers to disable its own reality warping before the Legion would use it, thus preventing the Legion from ever creating the Doomworld to begin with and restoring reality to its correct nature.
  • Superhero Speciation:
    • Averted. The team includes both Firestorm and Heat Wave, two fire-based characters, along with Hawkman and Hawkgirl. From a non-superhero standpoint, there are two scientists on the team: Dr. Martin Stein and Dr. Ray Palmer.
    • Played straight with the Flash, who despite being a time-traveller himself never interacts with the Legends outside of the crossovers.
  • Superman Stays Out of Gotham: In Season Two, the Legends face of the Legion of Doom consisting of Eobard Thawne, Malcolm Merlyn, and Damien Darhk all of whom were/are enemies of Barry and Oliver. Nobody brings up the possibility of bringing in the Scarlet Speedster and Emerald Archer for backup. It's especially egregious since it takes ten episodes for the Legends to figure out Eoboard Thawne is the Reverse-Flash and none of them thinking of asking Barry for advice.
  • Supernaturally Young Parent: Professor Boardman is actually the son of Carter and Kendra's previous incarnations. He instantly recognizes them, despite being 10 years old when Savage killed them. Since then, he has devoted his life to studying Savage.
  • Survival Through Self-Sacrifice: In the episode "Here I Go Again" has Zari stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop, where she has to relive the same hour over and over before the ship gets destroyed by a bomb. In her many attempts to stop the bomb from exploding, she learns about the Legends and gets closer to them and values their presence. Ultimately, she breaks the loop, but at the cost of the bomb exploding being final. Zari deciding to be selfless for once, takes the bomb and seals herself in the forcefield of the Captain's quarters while using her wind powers to form a vortex to contain the explosion. As the timer counts down and the explosion resounds, Zari wakes up and everything is revealed to be a simulation and a Secret Test of Character by Gideon.
  • Synthetic Plague: According to Rip, in 2152 a man named Per Degaton will take over the leadership of the Kasnia Conglomerate from his father and unleash a deadly synthetic virus outside the Conglomerate's borders to "thin the herd". This will leave the planet ripe for Savage's conquest using the Conglomerate's resources.
  • The Team: While other shows such as Arrow and The Flash have theirs, this show will equally revolve around all the members instead of mainly just The Hero.
  • Team Title: Unlike Arrow, The Flash, or Vixen, Legends isn't named for a singular main character, but rather a group (and will feature all of them as protagonists).
  • Temporal Mutability: According to Rip, one of their greatest enemies on this journey will be time itself, which does not condone anyone messing with it.
    • This is demonstrated in the pilot, when Kendra's attempt to save Professor Boardman results in him getting shot.
    • Snart's attempt to save his dad from prison doesn't succeed, since he gets caught selling the Emerald anyway instead of being caught during the heist.
  • Temporal Sickness: Time traveling causes a laundry list of unpleasant side effects, including nausea, vertigo and temporary blindness. The specific effects on each person vary with each jump, and the farther in time one travels the worse the side effects become.
  • Time Traveler's Dinosaur: In Season 2, when the Legends are scattered throughout time by Rip, Ray ends up in the Cretaceous period and is seen running from a T-Rex when he gets rescued. Later when the Legends return back, it's revealed the T-Rex was named Gertrude and the reason why she hates Ray is because he ate some of her eggs.
  • The Guards Must Be Crazy: Laser gun-toting mooks will inevitably drop their guns to fight the White Canary with their bare hands. It's almost like a law of physics in the Legends universe. 20th century gun-toting mooks aren't nearly as dangerous, so they are allowed the dignity of squeezing off a few rounds first before they get punked.
  • The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Nate incorrectly guesses "swordfish" as the password to a 1925 speakeasy.
  • There Are No Therapists: According to Ava the Waverider is no place for therapists or dogs.
  • They Killed Kenny Again: The show is able to reverse the deaths of various crew members quite often, although there have also been occasions when they've been Killed Off for Real.
  • This Is Unforgivable!: Rip going rogue is considered so unforgivable by the Time Masters that Chronos has full authority to kill him and the rest of the Legends rather than send them back to their proper time.
  • Those Wacky Nazis: Serve as the secondary villains of Season 2's first two episodes.
  • Time Police:
    • The Legends themselves are this, once they work things out between themselves.
    • The Time Masters, an organization tasked with protecting history itself. Destroyed at the end of Season 1.
    • The opening of Season 3 has Rip show up with a replacement in the form of the Time Bureau. They have a very low view of how the Legends went about fixing history until they eventually form an (uneasy) alliance. Two of their members, Ava Sharpe and Gary Green, work extensively with the Legends, and after the group are disbanded at the end of Season 4, the two join the Legends permanently.
  • Time Stands Still: The Pilgrim is able to freeze time in a localized area, giving her near-perfect protection from pretty much anything. She is even able to reverse time, throwing deadly blasts back at the shooter.
    • In the Season 3 episode Return Of The Mack, Rip uses a time-freezing grenade that has a largely similar effect. However, the recently resurrected and empowered Damien Darhk is able to break free of the frozen time and stop Rip from stabbing him in the back.
  • Time Travel: The core concept of the show is the Legends traveling through history trying to fix problems (whether that means making changes to the past or preventing changes to the past is something they go back-and-forth on).
  • Timey-Wimey Ball: To be expected in a show about Time Travel, but the rules depicted here are rarely consistent, especially alongside The Flash (2014) which also features time travel and operates differently.
  • Title by Year: A few episodes are titled after the years in which they are (at least partially) set:
    • "Star City 2046"
    • "Camelot/3000" (a Shout-Out to the comic book series
  • Token Evil Teammate: Captain Cold and Heatwave. Sometimes others.
    Cold: I can't imagine any kind of future where I'm a hero.
    Ray: You sure it's a good idea to leave these two unsupervised on a time machine?
  • Trailers Always Spoil: The main trailer features The Team visiting a grave for two people. While it didn't specifically spoil Carter's death, it nonetheless suggested a Character Death.
  • Translation Convention: When the team uses the translation effect of having travelled there in the Waverider to understand people speaking another language, the audience hears it in plain English with an accent.
  • Translator Microbes: The team has Time Master technology in pill-form that can be ingested to give the user the ability to understand and speak in any language they have to converse in. They hear it just as accented English.
  • Transplant: Ray Palmer, Sara Lance, Prof. Martin Stein, Leonard Snart, Mick Rory and Kendra Saunders were all Recurring Characters in Arrow and The Flash.
  • Trapped with the Therapy Session: In "Left Behind", Ray and Kendra, who have lived together for two years after being stranded in the 50's, have a serious talk about their relationship while chained up in a dungeon in Nanda Parbat with the rest of the Legends minus Sara and Snart. Stein decides to play mediator, leading to the page quote:
    Stein: It can't have been so easy for Raymond either, having to give up being the Atom...
    Kendra: I'm sorry, can we have a private moment?
    Jax: I think we all wish you'd had this moment in private!
  • Turn of the Millennium: The Team travels to this decade in Episode 12 on a rescue mission to save Sara from being Ret-Gone'd by the Time Masters, as they sent an assassin to eliminate her younger self before she boards the Queen's Gambit in 2007.
  • Two First Names: As expected for a DC Comics show; Rip Hunter, Sara Lance and Mick Rory.
  • Two Girls to a Team: In place for the first two seasons; out of eight or nine Legends, Sara and Kendra (in Season 1) or Amaya (in Season 2) were the only women on the team (unless you count Gideon as a woman and a teammember). Averted when Zari's added to the cast in Season 3, and by Season 4 the show's become a Gender-Equal Ensemble.
  • Unicorns Prefer Virgins: "The Virgin Gary" sees the team dealing with a murderous unicorn on the loose at Woodstock. Constantine plans to banish the thing to hell before it can massacre the attendants, but requires a virgin to lure it in long enough. Thus, the team gets an unwitting Gary to pose as bait.
  • Uniqueness Decay: In The Flash, Thawne's AI Gideon seemed like a one of kind technology that Thawne stole from Barry. Here it's standard issue on all Time Master ships.
  • The Unreveal: The show never bothered to explain how Merlyn was involved in Savage's resurrection.
  • Unusual Euphemism: Sara Lance is nearly burnt at the stake in Salem, Massachusetts for corrupting the women of the village.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Most of the time, the people of the respective resident time periods are not as weirded out by the weirdly dressed and partially super-powered people in front of them than you'd think.

    Tropes V to Z 
  • Verbed Title: The episode, "Marooned".
  • Villain Team-Up: In Season 2, villains from parent Arrowverse shows The Flash (2014) and Arrow team up, a group the Legends take to calling "the Legion of Doom".
    • In Season 3, Mallus recruits Nora and Damien Darhk from Arrow, Gorilla Grodd from The Flash (2014), and Kuasa from Vixen to be his footsoldiers.
  • Wham Line:
    • From "Left Behind", When Snart asks Chronos why he took him, of all people:
      Chronos: You should have figured it out by now.[removes helmet to reveal Mick's face] After all, I'm supposed to be the dumb one.
    • And another whammy from the Season 3 Sizzle Trailer:
      Damien Darhk: It's good to be back.
    • "The Eggplant, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" ends with a Wham Whistle, which reveals that Neron is possessing Ray.
  • Wham Shot: The Season 3 Sizzle trailer shows Damien Darhk being resurrected.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?:
    • Jax's father. Before he is sent back to his own time, Jax warns him that he will be killed in action in Somalia and Rip, while reminding him that "time wants to happen", says Jax's actions might have saved his father's life. However, when everybody returns to the present, there is no mention of whether or not Jax's father is still alive. In the following season, it's revealed that he died after all.
    • The future invasion of Earth by the Thanagarians after Savage conquered the planet was a big plot point in the end of Season 1, but so far, nothing has been heard of what became, or will become, of it after Savage's death. The closest we get to it is in Season 4, when Sara, Ray and Gary visit Canada in 2213 and Earth seems to be free, suggesting that the invasion was somehow thwarted, but the invasion isn't brought up.
  • What Measure Is a Mook?: The series makes a big deal out of how small changes to the timeline can have big consequences to the present day and future. Except when it comes to villains and their mooks, who the team kill with impunity on a regular basis.
  • Who Writes This Crap?!: The intro to "Turncoat" as Rory asking this of the show's premise.
  • Whole-Plot Reference: "Phone Home" is one big E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial homage, with Young Ray as Eliot and a baby Dominator as E.T. This gets lampshaded with Sara making a joke about Reese's Pieces.
  • The Wild West: Season 1 Episode 11 is set on this decade (1870), with cowboys and everything! They return in Season 2 Episode 6, this time in 1874. They return yet again for the Season 3 finale.
  • Winged Humanoid: Hawkgirl and Hawkman can sprout wings from their backs as needed.
  • The World Is Always Doomed: The Legends have to prevent a villain from either destroying or conquering the world (or both) every season...and whatever they do to stop that villain is usually what allows next season's villain the chance to enact their own end-the-world scheme.
  • Would Hurt a Child:
    • Vandal Savage's very first scene in this series shows him shooting and killing a child that survived the initial blitz on London of 2166.
    • When they go to Kasnia, Rip agonizes over whether or not they can kill Per Degaton as a child, since he will grow up to become a dictator on part with Adolf Hitler and will be instrumental in Savage's rise to dominance. He cannot go through with it.
  • You Can't Fight Fate: A plot point for the series in general. Rip often reminds the team that "time wants to happen", meaning history is to some degree predetermined and even if some differences are made to the timeline, the outcome may well be the same anyway. This allows the team (and writers) more freedom than most time travel stories. Some examples of this being brought up:
    • Snart's attempt to keep his father out of jail in 1975 fails. Instead of being caught trying to steal an emerald, his father is caught trying to sell it to an undercover officer.
    • In "Leviathan", Rip tells Ray about trying to save his family from Vandal Savage before gathering the team. Apparently, he made several attempts to save them in 2166 just before their deaths, over and over without succeeding.
    • When Constantine tries to kick his father in the testicles, in an apparently genuine attempt to neuter him, he ceases to exist during the fraction of a second when his foot would have connected.
    • The team regularly kill people in the past during their missions, including, in one episode, a historically famous Japanese shogun, without any discernible change in the timeline.
  • Young Future Famous People: The Legends meet a number of Historical Domain Characters before they make a name for themselves as they Time Travel.
  • You Look Familiar:
    • Maisie Richardson-Sellers plays two characters in Legends of Tomorrow, Amaya Jiwe, the World War II era’s Vixen, a member of the Justice Society of America and the grandmother to the present day Vixen who joins the Legends in Seasons 2 and 3. She left the team at the end of Season 3 for plot-related reasons and Sellers was recast as Charlie, a shapeshifter and magical fugitive so she can stay on the show for Seasons 4 and 5. Sellers left the show at the end of Season 5.
    • Matt Ryan returned as John Constantine from his cancelled solo series as the main cast from Seasons 4 to 6 after recurring in Season 3. His character was written out after Season 6 for plot-related reasons and Ryan returned as Gwyn Davies, the founder of time travel and a World War One veteran in Season 7 who helped them get home.
    • Done differently with Tala Ashe’s roles. She joined the show in Season 3 as Zari Tomaz, a fugitive wielding her dead brother’s Wind Totem from a bad, totalitarian future where ARGUS has become fascist. She travels with the Legends in Seasons 3 and 4 before the bad future where she came from is erased, changing the timeline where her brother joined the Legends instead of her. Season 5 introduced a different version of Zari called Zari Tarazi, a socialite and social-media influencer who joined the Legends and became the main Zari from Seasons 5 to 7. It turned out that Zari Tomaz existed within the Air Totem after being erased, allowing her to rejoin the Legends on a part time basis by swapping places with her counterpart. She became a recurring character from Seasons 5 to 7 before she was written out of the series at the end of Season 7 for plot-related reasons.

 
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John Constantine

In Season four, the team has to deal with accidentally releasing numerous magical threats that have long since been locked away for being too dangerous. Whilst having dealt with magic users in the past and had (one current, one former) members who derived their power from magic, it quickly becomes clear that they are hopelessly out of their depth. So Sara turns to her old friend John Constantine, a professional warlock and expert in magical problems.

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