This Forgotten 7-Part Superhero Series Is Better Than You Remember

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Published May 17, 2026, 8:20 PM EDT

Lloyd 'Happy Trails' Farley: the man, the myth, the legend. What can be said about this amazing - and humble - man that hasn't been said before? Or, more accurately, what can be said in public? Born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Lloyd is a master of puns and a humorist, who has authored one pun book to date - Pun and Grimeish Mint - and is working on a second. His time with Collider has allowed Lloyd's passion for writing to explode, with nearly 1,000 articles to his name that have been published on the site, with his favorite articles being the ones that allow for his sense of humor to shine. Lloyd also holds fast to the belief that all of life's problems can be answered by The Simpsons, Star Wars, and/or The Lion King. You can read more about Lloyd on his website, or follow his Facebook page and join the Llama Llegion. Happy trails!

In 2016, the MCU may have dominated theaters, but thanks to the Arrowverse on The CW network, DC’s presence on television was markedly more pronounced. So named after the initial series, Arrow, which centered around Stephen Amell's Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, the shared universe gave life to DC heroes outside the blessed trinity of Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman. It did so with a reverence for the source material, decent special effects, and much-better-than-expected performances, most notably Grant Gustin's Flash, the definitive depiction of the speedster. The first three series — Arrow, The Flash, and Supergirl (which moved from CBS to The CW in 2016) — all utilized that second tier of heroes. The Arrowverse's fourth series, DC's Legends of Tomorrow did not. But after a spectacular 7-season run, Legends of Tomorrow stands as the best of the Arrowverse lot, and it deserves a second chance.

The series kicks off in the future, where Time Master Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) vows to prevent the immortal tyrant Vandal Savage (Casper Crump) from conquering Earth, killing his wife and son in the process. To that end, the rogue Time Master returns to the present, where he recruits heroes Ray Palmer/The Atom (Brandon Routh), Sara Lance/White Canary (Caity Lotz), Martin Stein (Victor Garber) and "Jax" Jackson (Franz Drameh), who together create Firestorm, Kendra Saunders/Hawkgirl (Ciara Renée), and Carter Hall/Hawkman (Falk Hentschel). He also brought on villains Leonard Snart/Captain Cold and Mick Rory/Heat Wave (played by Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell respectively, reuniting the actors from Prison Break).

Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars

Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you'd actually make it out of alive.

💊The Matrix

🔥Mad Max

🌧️Blade Runner

🏜️Dune

🚀Star Wars

TEST YOUR SURVIVAL →

You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one.

APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it. BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don't keep you alive. CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who's pulling the strings. DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it. EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can't fix a broken galaxy alone.

NEXT QUESTION →

In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.

AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don't need resources — you can generate them. BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it. CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity. DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on. EShips and credits. The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely.

NEXT QUESTION →

What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you're honest about what you're actually afraid of.

AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant. BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left. CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you're a problem, you're already out of time. DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn't even know I was playing. EThe Empire tightening its grip until there's nowhere left to run.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you deal with authority you don't trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.

ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it. BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better. CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy. DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can't beat a system you refuse to understand. EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen.

NEXT QUESTION →

Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn't just tactical — it's physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.

AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters. BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is honest. CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions. DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand. EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire's attention rarely reaches.

NEXT QUESTION →

Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.

AA tight crew of believers who've seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose. BOne or two people I'd trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks. CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice. DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last. EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts.

NEXT QUESTION →

Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they're actually made of.

AI won't harm the innocent — even the ones who'd report me without hesitation. BI do what I have to to protect the people I've chosen. Everything else is negotiable. CThe line shifts depending on who's asking and what's at stake. DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people's future, even if it'd help now. ESome lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed. I know which ones they are.

NEXT QUESTION →

What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.

AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it. BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving. CAnswers. Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out. DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations. EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else's boot.

REVEAL MY WORLD →

Your Fate Has Been Calculated You'd Survive In…

Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.

The Matrix

You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You're a systems thinker who can't help but notice the seams in things.

You're drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
You'd find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines' worst nightmare.
You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
The Matrix built an airtight prison. You'd be the one probing the walls for the door.

Mad Max

The wasteland doesn't reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That's you.

You don't need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you're good at all three.
You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.

Blade Runner

You'd survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.

You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
You're not a hero. But you're not lost, either.
In Blade Runner's world, that distinction is everything.

Dune

Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.

Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they're survival tools.
You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You'd learn its logic and earn its respect.
In time, you wouldn't just survive Arrakis — you'd begin to reshape it.

Star Wars

The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn't have it any other way.

You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
You'd gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire's grip can be broken.
You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn't something you're capable of.
In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

Not exactly renowned names (told you), but there's a reason for it: Hunter specifically selected them because they were insignificant to the timeline, misfits who, if they failed, would cause minimal disruption to history. Of course, he doesn't tell them they're nothing more than pawns, but instead tells them that if they're successful, they'll become "legends." They join him aboard the Waverider, a time ship that Hunter has "borrowed" from the Time Masters. They hop from time period to time period in pursuit of Savage, dealing with bumps in the timeline along the way, and ultimately succeed, but at the price of one of their own.

Legends of Tomorrow was a curious choice for an Arrowverse series, clearly banking on the success of the first three series to carry it. Arguably, the only hero known by the public-at-large was Hawkman, and the use of obscure characters like Rip Hunter, who debuted in 1959, and Vandal Savage, who debuted in Green Lantern #10 in 1943, didn't help. Legends of Tomorrow was the worst of The CW's stable of DC shows, but it had potential.

Better yet, it had four characters that stood out. Routh brought a charming, optimistic innocence to genius scientist Palmer, ultimately justifying his selection as Superman in Superman Returns. Lotz brought strength and a hint of the leadership that would define her in later seasons to Lance. Purcell and Wentworth stole the show, with the former a surly antisocial who prefers to act first and think eventually, and the latter a sarcastic and ruthless evildoer, as cold with his quips as he is with his freeze gun. The series earned a second season, where it began to separate itself from its kin... in a good way.

'Legends of Tomorrow' Loses Its Self-Seriousness and Finds Its Groove

Arguably, the two factors that contributed to Legends of Tomorrow's lackluster first season were its self-seriousness, inherited from its parent series, and Rip Hunter. Season 2 remedies that right off the bat, with Rip going missing, and with the addition of goofy historian Nate Heywood/Citizen Steel (Nick Zano). With Rip no longer around to captain the ship, it falls to Sara Lance to become the leader, a move that pays off in spades, while Heywood brings a much-needed dose of fun. They are also up against a far better antagonist in Reverse-Flash (Matt Letscher) and his Legion of Doom.

The series starts to really find its groove with Episode 9, "Raiders of the Lost Art," where they inadvertently scare a young George Lucas away from making films altogether, altering the backstories of fanboys Palmer and Heywood in the process. The season continues on the trajectory well into Season 3's ninth episode, "Beebo the God of War," and any semblance of taking itself seriously is all but abandoned. It leans on the time-travel trope of something in the future being sent to the past, i.e., the Sports Almanac from Back to the Future: Part III, that alters the timeline. Only the object is a Beebo, a toy in the Tickle-Me-Elmo vein that gets sent to 1000 AD, where Leif Erikson (Thor Knai) and his crew of Vikings mistake it for a god, and his "I luh-luh-love you!" is a call for them to conquer the world. It's utterly ridiculous, but in the context of the show, it works.

That episode would also bring Matt Ryan's Constantine into the fold, a brilliant move that brings a supernatural element to the series, not only providing fodder for broad, imaginative storylines, but also redeeming the actor and his character after the (undeservedly) short-lived Constantine series on NBC. While the show did still have poignant, serious moments – the death of Professor Stein, for one – but with plotlines like Mick writing romance novels under a pseudonym, an episode where the Legends are trapped on TV, and the return of Beebo as a giant, power-bombing a large winged demon into oblivion, Legends of Tomorrow had found its niche. Over seven seasons, Legends of Tomorrow balanced comedy, action, and heart spectacularly, making the series the best of the Arrowverse and well worth watching time and time again.

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