‘Legends of Tomorrow’ 2nd pilot spoilers: Hawkman signs off

“Legends of Tomorrow” began with a nuclear explosion and ended with one of the heroes dead as it continued the second part of its pilot episode on Thursday in the US. The heroes went back to the year 1975 in a bid to stop Vandal Savage (Casper Crump), but instead have unwittingly gave him a weapon when part of Atom’s (Brandon Routh) suit fell off.

Spoilers for the pilot episode’s second part below

Ignoring Rip Hunter’s (Arthur Darvill) authority, the group tried to infiltrate a weapons bidding in the past, thinking Vandal was one of the buyers. Vandal, who was actually the seller, immediately sensed Hawkgirl and Hawkman’s (Ciara Renée and Falk Hentschel) presence and alerted his men of the seemingly out-of-place group in the area. This led to a fight.

The superheroes – Ray Palmer as Atom, Kendra Saunders and Carter Hall as the Hawk couple, Professor Martin Stein and Jax Jackson (Victor Garbel and Franz Drameh) collectively as Firestorm, Sara Lance (Caity Lotz) as White Canary, Mick Rory (Dominic Purcell) as Heat Wave, and Leonard Snart (Wentworth Miller) as Captain Cold – were able to stop Vandal’s nuclear weapon from creating mass destruction. However, their interference in the past was not without consequences.

As Rip exasperatedly told them, they not only exposed their powers to the people from the past, they also gave Vandal a futuristic technology. He was referring to a part of Atom’s suit, which Vandal’s engineers were studying to develop a more destructive weapon to use in the future.

The group now had to stop Vandal’s team from creating a new technology before the new timeline erased the future. Otherwise, Rip not only wouldn’t have a future to go back to, but the group’s present time would also be changed.

They realised that their best chance in retrieving the part of Atom’s suit was to contact Martin’s younger self.

Martin, Jax and Sara

The 1975 “Marty,” who boasted that he was “the leading expert” in subatomic particles, was suspicious but oblivious about his older self’s identity when the present Martin, Sara and Jax approached him on campus. The cannabis-smoking young genius wasn’t willing to lend them his alpha particle tracker invention, though, and had to be rendered unconscious by Sara. Again, it was Sara who retrieved Atom’s suit part from Vandal’s engineers later on.

Their mission, which was to take Marty’s invention and retrieve part of Atom’s suit, was easily done, if not for Marty following them to Rip’s ship. That created a problem for Martin as his younger self was supposed to meet his future wife at that time. But with Marty in the ship instead of at a party and therefore missing their meeting, Martin’s love life was erased. After arguing with his younger self and realising how arrogant he has been for years, Martin was able to convince Marty to leave the ship with his invention.

Rip later convinced Marty to attend the faculty party, and therefore ensuring Marty met his future wife.

Ray, Rory and Snart

The boys’ mission was to steal an antique knife that killed the Kendra and Carter on their first lives. The knife, as Kendra believed, would be able to kill the immortal Vandal. But with such distrust between them, Ray and Rory got themselves imprisoned with the artefact in a mansion, which happened to be owned by Vandal. Snart, meanwhile, was held at knifepoint by Vandal himself. They were rescued by the others, though, and were able to hand the knife to the hawk couple.

Carter and Kendra

A big of the episode was devoted to Carter pressuring Kendra to remember her past. As the reincarnation of an Egyptian high priestess, Kendra possessed knowledge how to kill Vandal, who was also a priest in the ancient times. Carter, a reincarnation of an Egyptian prince and Kendra’s soulmate, didn’t have any trouble remembering his past lives but couldn’t read an ancient text on the knife as only the clergy knew how back then. With a little more coaxing from Carter, Kendra was able to remember what the text said. The text was a love poem which said Kendra and Carter were destined to be together.

Unfortunately, Carter had to die during a fight with Vandal when the immortal turned the knife on him. And it was only after he died that Kendra remembered she loved him.

“Come back to me,” Carter’s last words to Kendra before dying.

With Carter reincarnating repeatedly for four thousand years and the group having a ship that can travel through time, it’s almost certain that they would meet one of Carter’s reincarnations in some time or another.

His death also propelled the group to continue with their mission. As they reasoned out, they could go back to 2016 and live their lives as losers, or they could try another shot at becoming legends.

“Legends of Tomorrow” airs Friday on Fox8 in Australia at 7:30 p.m. AEDT. “Arrow” star Stephen Amell will guest star as an older version of Oliver Queen/Green Arrow in the sixth episode of the show when the disparate heroes travel to the future.