Posted in: Movies, TV | Tagged: atom, Citizen Steel, cw, dc, entertainment, Legends of Tomorrow, television, vixen.

The Legends Gain Heroes But Lose Something Important

This article contains spoilers for the DC's Legends of Tomorrow episode Shogun.

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This was a pretty straight forward, one-and-done episode that made some big character changes almost across the board.

The story itself involves the group ending up in Feudal Japan and taking on a particularly brutal Shogun and everything Ray Palmer and Nate Heywood do just makes things worse. Everybody but Firestorm gets their hero moment and there is a nice tie into the modern age as we realize at the end that the sword that is used in the episode ends up being the blade carried by Katana.

That is a really simplified recap, where things get interesting is when you look at the effect on the different characters. Staring off with the 1940's version of Vixen stowing away on the ship, certain that Heatwave killed Hourman. We know he didn't and she is able to make short work of the team until Nate takes her out. But she ends up working with the team and has joined up in an effort to catch the time traveler that killed Rex Tyler.

That's the second thing, Nate taps into his powers to save Mick Rory. He does it again in training with the Atom, which leads to a hull breach and them going to Feudal Japan because he doesn't know his strength when he's Citizen Steel. Then he spends the rest of the episode trying to figure out how to turn it on again. He seems to have it by the end and saves the day… but at a big cost.

The cost is to Palmer as to stop the Shogun, Steel has to destroy the Atom suit. Which now leads to the question, what is he going to do next? Or rather what will the writers do to him? Most everyone knows that the Atom in the comics doesn't rely on a suit of armor… so they could have him focus on the ability to shrink, they could have him build a new and improved armor or they could have something in the new secret compartment that might help… what I don't think they'll do is take him off the show.

Mick Rory and Sara Lance both drifted into their more natural roles of hero and leader, and both got some major kick-ass moments. It wasn't their episode but they still have a brief spotlight. And Mick is getting all the good lines. When talking about how the Shogun could used the Atom suit – Ray: "I designed it so an idiot could use it." Mick: "An idiot does."  And of course, Mick got his proof that ninja's exist.

Left out of everything above are Jefferson Jackson and Martin Stein, and that's because they never leave the ship. What they do is start fixing the Waverider and discover a secret compartment where Rip Hunter stored weapons and there was a message from The Flash / Barry Allen from 2056 that was not supposed to be heard by other Legends… and that message seems to have freaked two halves of Firestorm out a bit.

This was a good episode. It had a nice self-contained story that set up Citizen Steel as a hero, brought Vixen into the team, moved other storylines along, had some consequences and a few Easter Eggs. And there was never any mention of Vandal Savage… man I got tired of Savage.

Next the team is headed to the Civil War… and there are zombies.

https://youtu.be/dyM8Toh_754

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