Superhero crossover sets up 'Legends' spinoff

Brian Truitt | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Exclusive clip: Heroes team up again in 'Flash'/'Arrow' crossover Green Arrow (Stephen Amell) and the Flash (Grant Gustin) deal with Hawkman (Falk Hentschel) in an exclusive clip from Tuesday's episode of The CW's "The Flash," the first of a two-part crossover with "Arrow."

CW’s superheroes of today are giving rise to the next crop of Legends.

This week The Flash (8 p.m. ET/PT Tuesday) and Arrow (8 ET/PT Wednesday) share casts for their second annual two-part crossover, but its actually a three-way dance this time that introduces key members of the new spinoff DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, premiering Jan. 21.

In the upcoming show, time traveler Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) rounds up a group comprised of Arrow and Flash favorites, from good guys Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) and Sara Lance (Caity Lotz) to rogues Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller) and Heat Wave (Dominic Purcell), to visit various times in history in order to stop immortal villain Vandal Savage (Casper Crump) from ruling the world.

Before that, however, Vandal makes a big move in the crossover, attacking Central City barista Kendra Saunders (Ciara Renée) and Cisco (Carlos Valdes), a member of the S.T.A.R. Labs crew with the super-fast Flash, Barry Allen (Grant Gustin). To keep Kendra safe, Barry and his team take her to see their friends on Team Arrow in Star City — including Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), aka Green Arrow — and she’s suddenly taken away by the mysterious winged Hawkman named Carter Hall (Falk Hentschel).

He drops a big bomb on Kendra, telling her that they are soulmates who’ve been reincarnated over and over again for the past 4,000 years, even though Kendra doesn’t remember any of it and Carter does.

“She’s always been someone who’s felt something wasn’t quite right in her life,” says Flash and Legends executive producer Andrew Kreisberg, adding there’s a certain Jason Bourne quality to Kendra. “She’s starting to suspect that maybe this disconnect is because she does have this great destiny.”

Flash fans saw a future glimpse — through Cisco’s “vibe” powers — of Kendra in the Hawkgirl suit she’ll wear on Legends. But she’s not there yet, and it’s up to Carter to get her up to speed, even if it means tossing her off a building to make her take flight.

“She is a pretty lost human,” Renee says. “She didn’t really have a plan about what she was doing, and now she’s been thrown into this.” Yet getting involved with Carter and her new hero friends “ignites a fire in Kendra.”

It creates a love triangle of sorts since Kendra is starting to like Cisco romantically, she dislikes Carter and thinks he’s an oaf, and Carter is set in getting her up to speed since “he remembers being in love with her 206 times already,” Kreisberg says.

“Kendra doesn’t obviously reciprocate those feelings, and he’s trying to be patient just as he has through many lifetimes. But now that Vandal is here and threatening to kill them, the clock is ticking and he doesn’t really have time to be an encyclopedia.”

Savage has killed Kendra and Carter repeatedly through their many lives to maintain his immortality, and even though his dark aristocratic look doesn’t quite scream modern fashion, Vandal adapts to whatever period he’s in, even calling Cisco “dude.”

“Sometimes you see villains portrayed where they want a nuclear bomb or money or power,” Crump explains. “Vandal wants that but it’s just to teach humanity a lesson. If there are periods in time he just doesn’t find interesting, he just kicks back and relaxes and you don’t see him for 30 years.

“He doesn’t need gadgets and cool suits and spaceships. All he needs is a coat, some knives and time. That’s the coolest badass you can get, in my opinion.”

Vandal’s an ancient guy but “he’s not trying to attack our heroes from his rocking chair,” adds Marc Guggenheim, executive producer of Arrow and Legends. “He has 4,000 years of experience dealing with all the great evils. He’s learned from really the best and quite frankly the worst history has to offer.”

Hawkgirl and Vandal will play significant roles throughout the first season of Legends, which offers a combo of Arrow’s moral ambiguity and Flash’s hope and inspiration. But it has a comedic side, too, and Guggenheim promises it’s different from every other superhero show on TV.

“It’s very, very ambitious,” Renee says. “We’ve got relationships, we’ve got action, we’ve got drama — we’ve got all the things.”