MEDUSA – A Five Part Discussion on the CW Superheroes Crossover, Part 4: Legends of Tomorrow

Well folks, here we are with our wall to wall coverage of “Invasion,” the ‘Aliens Vs. Superheroes’ crossover on the CW. Aside from the tagline being silly (because, you know, Supergirl is an alien), this is a genuinely exciting event. Alice and Brian, our usual CW reviewers, will be discussing the crossover, show by show, and then wrapping up by talking about the crossover as a whole. Keep reading for MEDUSA – Multiversity’s Extended Discussion Unto Superhero Action!

Part 4: Legends of Tomorrow’s‘s “Invasion”

Brian: I’ll just come out and say it: that was an epic finale. Not perfect by a longshot, but it certainly felt appropriately huge. Do you agree?

Alice: Now, that is how you end a crossover.

We’re going to have a lot to dig in here because this episode was pretty packed, but that was a hell of a fun ride and I feel like so many of our quibbles from the last couple of days were not only fixed, but rectified.

That was thoroughly enjoyable.

Brian: Where to begin? I guess it is best to begin with the time travel shenanigans which, due to the CW wisely mixing up its stars, found Cisco and Felicity going back in time with Heatwave, Steel, and Vixen to grab a Dominator. This was definitely a weird sequence (especially them saving the Dominator and sort of humanizing it?), but it showed that the hour wasn’t going to be trapped by the pacing issues that hurt the other shows – this was going to be action, action, action.

So, since this was your first full experience with Nate Heywood, aka Steel, aside from his shitty, shitty mask, what did you make of the newest Legend?

Alice: Oh my god, I wish I had some warning about that mask. Honestly, why does CW refuse to put any money into designing masks and helmets for actors that aren’t god awful to look at? Seriously, cosplayers do better than this.

But, that being said, I really enjoyed this sequence. It showed off a number of characters that didn’t get the spotlight before (wisely, I think, keeping Sara in the present to give Vixen, Steel and Heatwave some limelight) and, as we said, actually used the time travel aspect to explore the origins of the Dominators. Somewhat. The Dominators being Space Jews still feels like it came out of nowhere and I feel like them not mentioning it here feels like they weren’t too proud of that.

I will say that as much as it frustrated me at first because of how blind he was to it, but Cisco’s realisation about using time travel to fix the past and finally come to terms with Barry was something I enjoyed. But, boy, did it annoy me in the beginning to see how excited he was to time travel after putting Barry through the ringer for exactly that.

Brian: He and Felicity are often the cheesiest characters of their respective shows (or, at least the most unabashedly geeky and enthusiastic), and they ramped the cheese up to new, previously uncharted levels with their entry to the Waverider.

Also, I love Emily Bett Rickards, and I hope she’ll still take me in when my wife tosses my ass to the curb, but she really needs a vomit coach.

Alice: The thing is, as cheesy as they were, it still felt really natural for them? I think they pulled it off much better here than in Arrow. I’m especially thinking of Cisco’s introductory explanation of vibing to the Arrow Team? That felt like a really stilted attempt at explaining his powers to people not watching The Flash (though, why you’d watch Arrow and not The Flash is beyond me) while communicating that, hey, he’s nerdy too!

This felt much more naturally in-character for Cisco and Felicity to freak out over experiencing actual time travel and I think they brought a pretty good balance of cheesiness and heartfelt emotion with their scene together when Felicity confronts Cisco about running away from Barry.

Brian: I don’t disagree with any of that. This episode, of all of the crossover episodes, did the best job of both sticking to its natural tone, but also incorporating the other show’s elements into it. The Ollie/Kara chat felt like it was ripped from Arrow, but didn’t feel jammed in here, either. This episode really was the culmination of all of the various plot points, but still felt authentic to itself. That’s not easy to do.

What did you think of Ollie’s “back da fuck up” speech to Kara? To me, it was a really nice distillation of his past five years into one mini-monologue and, while cold, had a sort of internal logic that these shows sometimes lack.

Alice: I feel like it made sense for Ollie’s character, especially in the sense that he’s clearly freaking out over being completely in over his head and refusing to actually admit or show it. I do remember remarking, though, from a writing point of view “Why the fuck is she here, then?” Which was, then, admirably paid off not just with her saving him, but helping disrupt the Dominator invasion in the end.

I think that’s really what impressed me with this episode; they nailed the landing. There were a lot of balls to juggle with this crossover and while the setup was a little rocky at time, the dismount was perfect. That metaphor makes no sense, but I hope you can see what I’m getting at. Pretty much all the threads that were introduced in this crossover were tied up nicely by the end in a way that furthered all of the shows in their own ways.

Brian: Mixed metaphor or not, I know what you mean.

I’m especially impressed with how this episode resolved the Barry/Cisco beef that was really weighing down The Flash. Sure, it was clunky in spots, but it gave the tension some actual resolution, and will allow the show to (hopefully) move on from this.

I’m glad you mentioned in yesterday’s article the need to establish why Kara was there, besides just because they could bring her over. I think this episode answered that in spades. Aside from her part of the endgame and saving Ollie, both of which are very important, don’t get me wrong, her presence also contextualized Ollie and Barry’s roles as the leaders of Earth-1’s superhero community, as silly as that sounds. Ollie has been the natural leader of the makeshift Justice League since Barry was introduced, but this felt different. Even though Kara was by far the most powerful person, she understood Ollie’s role, and embraced it. He will be a better leader through his interaction with Kara, and that’s not what I expected to get from this crossover.

Alice: Yeah, I was actually surprised at how okay I was with her not just automatically taking charge because she was an alien. Not only would that have been a bit presumptive, but this is a huge group of people to work with and, honestly, Kara’s used to working alone or in a partnership with a similarly powered hero. I don’t think it would have made sense for her to step up and magically know how to tactically organise a group of people like this with such wildly varying power levels and specialities. Ollie clearly knows how to do that.

Alright, I think, with that, it’s time to talk about the main event. Our huge heroes vs. aliens showdown. Our blatant ripoff of the airport battle from Civil War. What did you think?

Brian: I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who thought it was so clearly Civil War inspired.

If I may get to my one complaint before I gush: aside from Firestorm, did it feel to you like the Legends were sort of non-entities in this battle? I know they like making Ray into Iron Man Lite, but let the dude shrink down and punch an alien from the inside out. Let Vixen do something other than always just picking the strongest animal and letting their strength do the heavy lifting. I would’ve loved to see her channel something like a beaver, and weaken the ground around them. Yes, that’s corny, but it would give her something to do that no one else can do on the team. Even just having Nate stand there and take punch after punch to his metallic face, just letting them get worn out. Do something! Don’t just punch!

Ok, now that I’m done with that? I thought it worked about as well as this scene could work on the CW. The CGI looked decent, and the scope of it was sufficiently large. I loved seeing Kara save Ollie, as we’ve mentioned, and she and Barry racing throughout the world was something so incredibly out of a Silver Age comic.

Alice: Yeah, I do feel like the scene was somewhat limited in concept. We got a lot of characters doing on one thing they were good at (punching and/or shooting, like, really good) while ignoring the nuances of what they can do. Like you said, Atom and Vixen got the shortest end of the stick here in terms of them pretty much just using their physical strength over thinking tactically with their powers. Especially, going back to the Civil War resemblance, how well utilised Ant-Man was in that fight.

Can we talk about how hilarious it was, though, to see John Diggle try to take on an alien invasion with a handgun? You do you, Dig. You do you.

But yeah, I’m definitely with you. Despite how limited it was in scope, there were so many great moments that we can’t take a way from. I especially loved Firestorm’s struggle to transmutate the bomb and how Stein had to use his daughter to bolster Jax to push through his limitations.

Brian: The Stein/Jax relationship has really grown this season, first from them discovering Barry’s message from the future, through Jax getting woke during the Civil War (not making that up), to this moment of their shared secret of Lily’s timeline-created birth. I like seeing the two of them do more than just bicker; that’s a played out Firestorm trope.

Anything else from the battle stand out to you?

Alice: Not so much, I think that about covers it for me. I think it was really well done for what budget it had to work with and worked well as an endcap to this conflict while taking this large cast of characters and giving most of them their own moment to shine. Like we said, there are some that could have benefitted from a bit more of the spotlight, but what we got was thoroughly enjoyable for me.

I also wanna clarify that when I mention it feeling like Civil War, that wasn’t a diss. That pulled back wide shot of the two sides running at each other before cascading into a series of tight mid shots that put us right in the fray of the melee may have been pulled directly from Civil War, but it definitely worked in making the action feel hyped up and over the top.

And showing the fight in all it’s glory in a really open setting in broad daylight is something I’m so glad for. Nothing ruins the tension of an fight scene for me like clutter.

Brian: That scene in Civil War was also a live action version of a million double page spreads, and even the opening sequence to Challenge of the Superfriends. It was a classic comics scene, finally put to film. Legends just had the bad luck of coming six month later.

I want to talk a little bit about the end of the episode, the party sequence. First of all, I know it was corny as hell, but I loved Ray’s joke about Kara looking just like his cousin. But I think it is interesting (if not a little bit of a cheat) to give Kara a way on and off Earth-1 whenever she wants. The real question is, how often do you think it will get used?

Alice: I don’t know, about once a year, just before the holidays? Nah, I think it’s a pretty cool idea and even if it’s not used super often, I think it’s a cool way of explaining away any future crossovers. It took a lot to get Barry to Kara’s Earth in the first place and introducing Kara here took a fair bit of explanation. If we can get to the point where crossovers are so familiar that a cut to National City in The Flash isn’t completely baffling to the viewer, that’s really cool for me. It’s obviously not going to be every other episode, but it greases the wheels for the next time Kara joins the rest of the CW Superfriends.

Speaking of the end of the episode, how cool was it to see these heroes lined up inside the (albeit somewhat rundown) Hall Of Justice being honoured for saving the world by the President? With the precedent of the JSA set in the universe, what are the chances of these characters becoming a formally superhero team with the Hall as their headquarters by next year’s crossover?

Brian: I have a thought about that exact idea, but let’s save that for our wrap up later on.

I want to end by talking about the Barry/Ollie scene at the bar. I love their relationship, and that scene was quiet and understated, and said everything it need to about who those men are. I thought it was the perfect capper on the episode, and the crossover in general.

Alice: Maybe this is just my gay ass and the fact that I’ve read too much fanfiction in my time, but after Ollie’s pause after asking what else he and Barry would do if they weren’t saving the world, I was expecting it to cut to them in bed together.

But, in all seriousness, I agree. It was definitely the perfect, understated not to end on, reaffirming both of these characters’ drives to go out and suit up and kick ass after the start of this year really threw some wrenches in the works of why they do what they do. I really hate superhero stories that are about heroes who want to give up, so I appreciated this story throwing an entire alien invasion at these guys and having it bolster their confidence in moving forward.

Brian: Ollie: “Well, there’s one thing about you that isn’t that quick, eh Barry?”

I agree – it was a wonderful note to end on, and one that was a legitimate ray of hope in a genre that can often forget the fun in superheroes.

Come back tomorrow for our overall thoughts on the crossover and the CW shows in general.