“I got it from an old Hanna-Barbera cartoon.”
That’s how historian/superhero Nate Heywood (Nick Zano) explained why he called the Legends’ enemies “The Legion of Doom” on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. Never mind the rabbit hole that it causes, that maybe the Challenge of the Super-Friends exists in the Arrowverse, just without The Flash, Green Arrow, or Firestorm. Also never mind that originally, in the comics, they were called the [amazon text=Secret Society of Super-Villains&asin=1401242898].
Clearly someone among Eobard Thawne, Damien Darhk, and Malcolm Merlyn also watched the cartoon; probably Merlyn, since he’s the only one who could possibly have been a kid in the 1970s. DC’s Legends of Tomorrow executive producer Marc Guggenheim tweeted out the establishing shot of next week’s episode, and the gathering place of the Legion of Doom looks awfully familiar…
In case you hadn’t ever watched that old Hanna-Barbera series — which, by the way, went a long way to popularizing both Firestorm and Cyborg — here’s the original swamp headquarters for the Legion of Doom, led by Lex Luthor, who doesn’t exist in the Arrowverse, though he does exist on the Earth of Supergirl. Except he’s never been seen, because he’s currently in prison, put there by Superman, who also doesn’t exist in the Arrowverse. Got that?
Though the villains rarely called themselves the Legion of Doom in the later animated series Justice League Unlimited, I can remember a crowd at Comic-Con gasping at a preview of the episode that introduced their headquarters:
Believe it or not, the best live-action incarnation of the Legion of Doom appeared on the CW years ago — though we only got a glimpse of them as a part of Clark Kent’s future in Smallville. We didn’t see the outside of the Hall of Doom; we only got to see them gathered around their table. Tell me you wouldn’t want to see these villains take on The Flash and Green Arrow? And couldn’t Wentworth Miller wear that Captain Cold outfit just once?
