Legends of Tomorrow's second season has already dropped a number of big twists, but none bigger or more crucial than the discovery of a secret message left by the Barry Allen of the year 2056.
This older Barry warned Rip Hunter of a coming war, one that will divide the Legends and prove that even heroes can't be trusted. The message was seemingly resolved in the recent "Invasion!" crossover, where future Barry's message forced present day Barry to come clean about Flashpoint changes to the rest of the Arrowverse. But it seems like 2056 Barry Allen is warning of something bigger -- something that has everything to do with the full team of villains who will be revealed in Thursday's Legends of Tomorrow midseason finale, and one in particular who's been popping up throughout this entire season.
The series has been busy positioning Reverse-Flash and Damien Darhk as the new villains of Season 2. Soon, viewers will be introduced to the full-fledged Legion of Doom, a quartet of familiar Arrow-verse villains that will also include Captain Cold and Malcolm Merlyn. Clearly, Reverse-Flash is going to be a big player in the remainder of the season. He's certainly a worthy opponent to the Legends. His speed makes him more than a match for any team member, even powerhouses like Firestorm and Atom. And he alone can manipulate the timestream and travel through past, present and future on a whim. He's exactly the sort of time-mangling enemy the Legends were assembled to stop in the first place.
We suspect that the series is using the general Season 2 status quo to its advantage here. In the aftermath of the Season 1 finale, the Time Masters have been destroyed, and the Legends are literally the only ones left to defend the timestream from "aberrations" and opportunistic villains who would like nothing more than to rewrite history to their advantage. But with only one ship and a modest-sized crew, they're not exactly equipped to replace an entire temporal police force. With the Time Masters gone, Reverse-Flash is free to wreak havoc on the timeline in a way he never was before.
As we saw in the first season of The Flash, he even had a Gideon A.I. unit of his own. We have to wonder if Thawne stole Gideon from the Legends, and if we'll see that encounter play out in this season.
Reverse-Flash, true to his name, is Flash's greatest nemesis, and that's why we think an elderly Barry Allen would go through the trouble of sending a cryptic message to Rip and his team. By 2056, Barry will be all too familiar with the sort of havoc Eobard Thawne can cause. 2056 may actually mark the point where a younger Thawne first manifests his powers and begins his descent into villainy. Barry will need the Legends' help in putting a stop to this out-of-control speedster, but thanks to Thawne's ability to rewrite time, he can't simply suit up and join forces with the Legends. He has to play a more subtle long-game.
That's also where we think Barry's warning about trusting no one comes in. We've already seen Thawne start to manipulate the past as he's joined forces with Darhk, and his actions will probably only intensify as the season moves along. He may start altering the histories of the Legends themselves, seeking either to write them out of existence or manipulate their lives so that they no longer become heroes. Or maybe he doesn't even have to go through that much trouble. So far this year, both The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow have focused a great deal on the dangerous allure of time travel. Barry created the Flashpoint timeline out of an understandable but misguided desire to bring his dead parents back. Sara Lance has tried on multiple occasions to kill Darhk and prevent the death of her sister. The lesson is always the same - manipulating time has unintended and often very dangerous consequences.
But despite those clear lessons, the temptation remains. Already, we're seeing Professor Stein and Jax hide the existence of Stein's daughter, a person who didn't even exist until Stein accidentally changed his own past. Every member of the Legends has tragedies in their past they'd surely like to erase. Ray lost his fiancee. Jax lost his father. Mick lost the only man he ever called "friend." What would they do if Reverse-Flash showed up and offered them the chance to undo those tragedies? Would they stay strong, or could they make the same mistake Barry already did? Perhaps the real reason the older Barry warned Rip that no one can be trusted is that he knows his superhero colleagues might make the same mistake he once did. The Legends might well end up being divided over the temptations Reverse-Flash offers them. We could even be looking at the beginnings of the Arrow-verse equivalent of Marvel's Civil War, with some members siding with Reverse-Flash and others standing against him. Is that the war Barry alluded to?
With the mid-season finale airing this week, hopefully we'll soon have a clearer idea of what the future holds for this team and how Barry Allen's message factors into that conflict. For now, let us know what you think Barry's message means in the comments below.
Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.
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