Team Arrow largely gets distracted from their war with Damian Darhk in “A.W.O.L” Lyla and Diggle go out for a well-deserved night on the town, with some actual normal concerns like getting back in time for the sitter. Of course, that can’t last, and they get interrupted by the sudden appearance of Alan Chang, ARGUS agent. Chang then gets attacked and carried off by unknown assailants who are not Darhk’s Ghosts for once.
In the second part of the pilot, Legends of Tomorrow finishes setting up the status quo for the show. They are still in 1975, now trying to get a better fix on where Vandal Savage is, after getting the information from Professor Boardman. They are already developing some quirks- apparently flying on the Waverider, whether through time or just normal space, doesn’t agree with Mick Rory, Heat Wave.
As if Barry doesn’t have enough problems to deal with, a foe he thought was gone forever pops up in “The Reverse-Flash Returns.” Flash speeds through the city, to a voice-over about reasons to run, especially ironic from a speedster. He checks in with Cisco, who tells him he’s handled everything in Central City already. Barry ignores Cisco’s suggestion to take a break. Wells and Cisco, meanwhile, get into a humorous bickering match over coffee.
They are having fun with bits of the Superman mythos on Supergirl. This week’s title, Strange Visitor From Another Planet, is one of the descriptions of Superman from the radio and tv show days. It’s nice to see the nods to the decades-long history of the various characters.
After a lot of preview material, and a slow build across both Arrow and Flash, Legends of Tomorrow finally debuts, the newest addition to the CW-verse, or Arrow-verse, depending on which name you like better. Rip Hunter gathers a group of heroes and villains both to fight the immortal evil of Vandal Savage. Except for Rip himself, all of the other characters have appeared on Flash and/or Arrow. It really was one of the longest builds to a new series I can remember seeing. The CW shows are showing the same attention to continuity and building a cohesive world that Marvel Studios is using on their shows, and the DC movies so far have utterly failed to.
Khalid continues his journey as the new Dr. Fate. So far, he’s mostly stayed in Brooklyn, aside from a few detours to another plane. Now, he takes a substantial road trip to Mont Saint-Michel, France. It’s actually a nicely balanced story about a servant of one sect of gods helping out people in general. I like how Levitz did this.
The sort-of reintroduction of the original Teen Titans moves ahead in “Masks.” I’m a bit torn about this whole project. When DC did their big reboot, the group that got screwed over the most was the Teen Titans. As you can see in the original versions of several books in the first few months, even the company itself didn’t have a coherent position on Titans history. This feels like a book that’s trying to compromise. The Titans history is still missing, but there was some weird sorta team that briefly existed that everyone forgot. That’s a great metaphor for the Teen Titans being treated so shabbily by the reboot.
The Secret Six continue their quest to deal with the white pillars and save Black Alice. They’ve been running into various opposition, since the destruction of the pillars supposedly will let horrific Elder Gods into our world. This time, they have more serious problems, as suggested by the title, “Watch A Yellow Sun Fade.” If that’s not enough of a clue, they end up in Metropolis.
Arrow has been doing flashbacks almost every episode. Now, they do things a bit differently. The episode opens with a flash-forward, four months from now. Oliver stands over a fresh grave, looking very upset. Barry, also looking sad, turns up. Oliver vows “to kill him,” the “him” in question presumably being whoever is responsible for the grave. They carefully don’t show us the name on the marker.
The Flash comes back from the hiatus with “Potential Energy,” a show that mixes some great special effects with a mild overdose of soap opera. It opens with Barry having nightmares about a date with Patty. They get an uninvited party crasher and things go downhill quickly.
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