A new superhero joined the Legends of Tomorrow team for real on Thursday, and it looks like he gained some nifty new superpowers thanks to some repurposed Nazi technology.
After losing their leader, Rip Hunter, in the season premiere, the Legends headed to 1942, where they met up with the Justice Society of America. Together, they need to fight Nazis in World War II. It’s especially dangerous because the baddies have a super soldier serum, only instead of it making soldiers look like a buff Chris Evans, they look more like Mr. Hyde from the upper half of the Scorpion King.
It’s thanks to this serum that the new kid, Nathan Heywood, becomes a full-fledged superhero, one we know will go on to take on the moniker Citizen Steel.
Citizen Steel’s origin was kind of accurate to the character’s comics backstory. Comic’s Nathaniel Heywood is still the grandson of Commander Steel, though he gains his abilities when a superpowered Nazi übermensch attempts to extinguish the Heywood bloodline in the present day. He survives the assassination attempt, but some of the Nazi villain’s serum-enhanced spit ends up on him, turning his body into living steel. (And, uh regrowing his leg that he’d lost years before in a football injury. Like I said — kind of accurate).
Metal detectors must be a real pain.
In Legends, it’s Nate who has come back in time, and he’s a hemophiliac rather than an amputee. After severely injuring himself while saving his grandfather, it looks like he might be the second Legend to die in as many episodes. However, the Atom swiped the Nazi super-formula and altered it so that the user wouldn’t turn into a towering mass of CGI flesh. He injected Nate to save his life, and it worked.
The preview for next week’s episode, however, suggest that he’ll look a little bit more … chrome when we see him again.
The preview for next week also hinted that Vixen who already got more character development than any other member of the JSA, will join the Legends full-time, and past promotional material seems to confirm this.
So, sure, the Legends may have lost their fearless leader, but they’re up two superheroes who have powers. Now, all they need to do is not fight amongst themselves for 15 gosh darn minutes.
