#the waverider

[acernusaurus]

One thing I had to do for Back to the Finale: Part III was figure out the state of the Waverider in-story and the biggest part of that was tracking how the rooms changed owners over the years.

It got so confusing that I physically had to map it out and I wanted to share for anyone else who might need it.

The basics: The Waverider has 8 presumably identical rooms that were then modified by Jax and Rip before season 2.

The boxes around the names are for where it's not clear who took which room, e.g. Nate could have taken either Snart or Kendra's room.

To sum up:

Mick and Sara were the only ones to stay in their rooms the whole time (unless one of them swiped Rip's at the beginning of season 3)

Astra got Ray's room.

Amaya and Nate took Snart and Kendra's rooms. Then Amaya's went to either Charlie or Mona.

Martin's room went to Leo for a short time and then either Wally or Rip while the other person got Jax's empty room.

After Wally, Rip, and Amaya left one of their rooms went to Charlie, one to Mona, and one was left empty while John chose to sleep in the library. Gary took over the empty room eventually.

Zari 2.0 got Mona's room and Spooner got Charlie's.

[ao3statistics]

Can you do top tags for Legends of Tomorrow? (As in, not characters or ships)

This is self-made. Date of creation: 24.03.2024

Here you go! This fandom apparently has lots of events? I was kinda surprised by those tags.

The "/" between two tags means that they were made synonyms on Ao3 and therefore both will get you the same amount of hits.

I assume no guarantee or liability for the completeness, correctness and accuracy of this chart despite my best efforts.

Includes fanfictions in all languages available on Ao3, NOT English only.

Shiptags and character tags were NOT included.

More charts will follow. :)

Want to have a chart for different pairings, headcanons etc. in your favourite fandom? Send me an ask!

Click here for the most popular tags of "The Flash (TV 20214)" and a comparison of both charts!

[gingersnooze]

Revisited the graphic novel I loved in elementary school bc I found out the last book came out in February and I actually did not like book 9 so I’m fixing it myself

[missjamiekaye]

catching up on Boostle has been a trip

[talas-first-lady]

Poll idea: Why does John sleep in the library when there is a perfectly fine room available?

Thank you, @seven-rats-in-trenchcoat

* Haunted by your choice of Leonard Snart, Martin Stein, or Rip Hunter.

[eghostsofdeadchildren]

Brb crying at this Rio concept art.

[roninreverie]

[caniaska-question]

Arcane au where Zaun was built on what used to be an old Vastaya (magic animal hybrid) settlement, and the combination of the background magic and toxic waste means that, over the ~500 year lifespan of Zaun, most of its citizens become some kind of animal hybrid.

The kind is usually genetic, but Vastaya magic also means that the people around your parents can also affect it (so, Vander and Silco can affect Powder and Vi just as much as their parents can), which often leads to a lot of communities of different kinds of hybrids.

Piltover, which doesn’t have this, leans hard on the ‘animalistic’ view of Zaunites. Except, of course, Jayce, who is fascinated by how the arcane interacts with Zaun’s environment. The bigger difference in appearance means very few Zaunites actually make it to Piltover. Including Viktor.

Viktor, who’s parents were not from Zaun, who is actually a hybrid of animal not native to Zaun. A Waverider, with strange blood properties that a certain Doctor is very interested in.

[superman86to99]

Zero Hour: Crisis in Time #4 (September 1994)

It's... CRISIS TIME! Listen, we're not in the habit of covering every issue of every crossover event Superman appears in, but we're making an exception for this one because: 1) Superman plays a prominent role (as do the characters in my other blog), 2) it's by two of the most iconic creators from this era, Dan Jurgens and Jerry Ordway, and 3) we just like this comic a whole lot. Still, we'll do our best to keep these posts shorter than usual so we don't spend forever in September 1994.

Fittingly for a series that begins at #4 and counts backwards, this issue starts at very end -- as in the literal end of time, when all that exists is the entropy crushing the universe (and Doomsday, but looks like he was too busy being crushed by entropy to appear in this comic). We see The Time Trapper, a hugely powerful villain with a control over time, being easily taken down by a mystery character who says he's going to "make things right."

(That's what you get for being an old villain in a comic where a new one needs to be established as a badass, TTT.)

Next, we see weird time-related things happening all over the DCU: Batgirl shows up in Gotham City with her spine intact, Dick Grayson is back to wearing green undies, Hawkman is now multiple Hawkmen, Flash is suddenly in the far future (historically, not a very good time for a Flash to be during a crisis), etc.

Superman's frenemies the Linear Men, the time police, notice that something is erasing time, starting at the end and moving backwards, as if God had said "screw it, let's start over" and was holding the backspace key on the universe. Linear Men Waverider and Hunter are sent to the 64th century to find out what's going on and, once there, they run into Flash -- and also a big wave of entropy eating the universe. Flash attempts to stop the wave of mutilation by just running really fast at it (which is how he solves most of his problems in his own comic), but the wave just eats him too.

A Flash died? Oh, now it's a real crisis.

The Linear Men's next stop is 58th century Star City, whose hero is a time-displaced younger version of Green Lantern Hal Jordan (we know he's younger because he doesn't have greying hair, and also he isn't homicidally insane). Before he and Young Hal are eaten up by the entropy wave, Hunter yells at Waverider to look up the word "crisis" in their archives. Back at Vanishing Point, the Linear Men's HQ outside of time, Waverider basically reads the Wikipedia article for Crisis on Infinite Earths and becomes one of the few people in the current DCU to learn the forbidden knowledge that there used to be a multiverse that got wiped out, leaving a single existing universe. The "existing" part might not last much longer, though...

While all this Linear Men stuff happens, we see a repeat of the scene from Man of Steel #37 when Metron of the New Gods comes to see Superman about the time crisis. Together they go off into Green Lantern #55 to ask for new Green Lantern Kyle Rayner's help in producing a hologram of Superman that Metron can forward to the DCU's other heroes. Green Hologram Superman gives everyone a little speech and asks them to come together to figure out what to do about the whole "time is literally ending" issue.

Metron personally visits The Spectre to ask for his help, since he's one of the most powerful beings in the DCU (and did come in pretty handy during the previous crisis), but Speccy is only interested in fighting evil, not "natural disasters" -- even universe-ending ones.

Meanwhile, Waverider learns that time is also being erased from the beginning, not just the end, and goes to warn the geezers at the Justice Society about it, I guess since they're so old and at risk of being erased any moment. Plus, they have a Flash in their team, so he's probably the most endangered being in the DCU right now.

As Waverider shows the old Flash what happened to his young namesake (he doesn't take it well), we see that someone has invaded Vanishing Point: this comic's villain, Hal... I mean, Hall, Hank! That is, Hank Hall, formerly Hawk of Hawk & Dove and Monarch of Armageddon 2001, and currently known as Extant.

And he's totally working alone, with no more dramatic revelations about heroes-turned-villains to come, nope. TO BE CONTINUED!

Poll-Watch:

The results for our Zero Hour Batmen art poll are just in (okay, they were in a few weeks ago, but we hadn't made a post since then), and the winner by a pretty decisive margin is: Neal Adams Batman! Don Sparrow will get working on that artwork -- which reminds me we have a winner for Don's original Maxima art giveaway, too: our old pal Chris "Ace" Hendrix! Congrats to Chris and whichever wall in his home is about to be blessed with a Maxima! To take part in future giveaways (including the Neal Adams bat-art), you can become a SUPporter via Patreon or our newsletter's "pay what you want" mode.

And speaking of Don, obviously he wasn't gonna miss the chance to gush about the art in this issue, so keep reading for that:

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

A short personal anecdote: With a September 1994 street date, the first issue came out on September 10th, and while I was reading the Superman books at this time, it was also summer, so I lost track a little bit of what was going on in comics.  I knew from the in-house ads that Zero Hour would be big, and with the pedigree of Dan Jurgens and Jerry Ordway—1/2 of my personal Mount Rushmore of comics greats—it was a series I wanted to pick up.  So imagine my shock, after a busy summer, when I stopped in a comic shop (a new one that had just opened up, called Amazing Stories) to see Zero Hour #4 on the shelf!  Sure, it was a busy summer, but how could I have missed three whole issues already?!  I asked the store clerk if he had any copies of issues 1-3, and he said he didn’t, and I certainly didn’t want to pick up the fourth issue without the other three.  So I went to the other comic shop in my town, 8th Street Books, which in those days was much more my regular store (I would later work at Amazing Stories, but that’s a tale for another time) and they set me straight—I hadn’t missed ANY issues, this series was numbered counting down, from 4 to zero, on a weekly basis.  I wonder if any other kids were as thrown with the unique numbering system!

We start now with the cover, and it’s perhaps a strange one.  Sure, the presence of some of DCs biggest heroes, namely Superman and Batman let the reader know it’s a big issue, but having an empty mask as the focal point for a first issue is not the most intuitive choice, even if it’s an arresting image. 

Shining a spotlight on the art in this series is a difficult task, because honestly, top to bottom, it’s gorgeous.  I could easily fill up pages admiring this team, which to me is about as good as superhero comics get.  Jerry Ordway, as regular readers know, is my favourite comic artist of all time, but his observed, photorealistic finishes over Dan Jurgens’ tight and dynamic layouts is just such a treat—every page looks like a poster.  So in the interest of space, I’ll just focus on the absolute best images of all these amazing images. The first such amazing image is of the MIA Barbara Gordon Batgirl lassoing the Joker, in stunning rim lighting from the lightning in the skies.  This version of Batgirl hadn’t been seen in costume since March 1988’s Batgirl Special, which was hailed at the time as the last Batgirl story, being released one week ahead of the tragic events in the Killing Joke one shot where the Joker’s actions left Barbara Gordon paraplegic. In the hands of this art team, the reader can really see what a great design this character is.

Ordway’s texture rendering is stunning throughout but the Wally West Flash’s shimmering costume (and determined expression) on page 10 are certainly worth singling out.  The various echoes of Hawkman is a nice bit of showing off, as Jurgens gets to draw several eras of the character as well as alternates unfamiliar to me.

The “getting the band back together” sequence of heroes reacting to Superman’s holographic message has lots of great details, like the little glimpses and backgrounds (like Superboy being in Hawaii) and I love the subtle Justice League shield that makes up those panels.

The faces in this series are all so well drawn, they consistently look like real people, few more prominently than the world weary Green Arrow, who, with his pompadour and prominent forehead wrinkles, looks like Luke Perry in a van dyke.  Just a page later, Jurgens and Ordway do a terrific job of keeping their own style, while blending the swirly, liney loose inks of Tom Mandrake, which defined the Spectre at this time.  I love how throughout this series they draw the Spectre as though all his lines are hissed through clenched, angry teeth.

Lastly, the Pieta-like callback to Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 with Jay Garrick Flash holding the empty costume of Wally West is a great image, made all the more arresting by the minimalist colouring. 

SPEEDING BULLETS:

It’s only natural that this storyline be compared to the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, which had only taken place nine years previously, though that’s a lifetime in comics time.  But honestly, from the jump, it improves on some of the mistakes Crisis made, classic though it was. The original Crisis focused on new characters it introduced.  So readers had to deal with familiar beloved characters play second fiddle to relatively new (and to me, far less interesting) characters like Lady Quark, Harbinger and the loathsome Pariah.  Yes, eventually household names like Flash, Supergirl and Superman took to the fore, but in those early issues, there was a looooooot of world building, from people in whom we had no investment, and little interest.  Zero Hour wisely jumps in with some of their most recognizable characters—Darkseid, Batman & Robin, Joker etc—right off the bat.  Even Waverider had already been established in the line-wide Armageddon 2001 storyline 3 years ago, so he was at least somewhat familiar to readers, and also had a much cooler name than The Monitor. 

I dig the Joker revealing that he knew that Azrael Batman wasn’t the real Batman.

However, there is something downright hilarious about the World’s Greatest Detective™ deducing “helicopter!” when he sees a helicopter. 

The bewildered Flash on page 10 to my eye resembled another beloved redhead, a young Ron Howard!

But, why is the Flash running around in the 64th century?  Was that something happening in the Flash books at the time? [Max: Yeah, Flash #94 is about Wally fighting Abra Kadabra, and it ends with both of them being transported to Kadabra's original time due to Zero Hour's time shenanigans. Kadabra is also suddenly wearing his old costume -- he did NOT look like this in the Flash comics at this time. He was even uglier, believe it or not. Anyway, off you go to read Mark Waid's Flash, Don!]

I know we already saw it in Man of Steel #37, but there’s something satisfying about Batman and Superman acknowledging the "Knightfall" and "Doomsday" storylines.

I didn’t get this whole scene with Green Lantern Hal Jordan until years later when I read some early Broome/Kane GL comics.  For some reason, the people of Star City in the 58th century would periodically abduct and mindwipe Hal Jordan to serve as their superhero—named Pol Manning—when crises would arise.  When I first read it, I thought that the old guy was Pol Manning, being addressed by one of his council members.  But no, he was referring to the title of Pol Manning, like James Bond or something. [Max: Whoa, I did not know that until know! I always assumed some future people randomly brought in Young Hal to fight the entropy wave. Side note: I like how Not-Pol Manning's facial hair continues the idea that the van dyke is a common look in Star City and that's why Green Arrow's secret identity isn't immediately obvious.]

There’s something a little amusing about all the different heroes speaking back to Superman’s projection, when we’re given no indication he can hear them back. 

Not exactly a GODWATCH segment, but it’s interesting that God’s instrument of wrath, the Spectre appears to be hiding out in a Church.  There’s also a part of me that likes that a ‘New God’ like Metron can be so summarily dismissed by someone as legitimately godlike as the Spectre.

It’s a clever bit of writing that we don’t see what Waverider sees as he plays back images from the Crisis on Infinite Earths, since it’s still a bit vague just what all happened in the present continuity, and what is remembered.  By seeing only Waverider’s reaction, they aren’t nailed down with any details that might be contradicted by present-day continuity.

Some good misdirection by showing Extant at the end of the book, which makes the reader believe that was him at the beginning of the issue, dispatching the Time Trapper. [Max: What do you mean, "misdirection"? He's the villain of the book, right?]

Missed an issue? Looking for an old storyline? Check out our new chronological issue index!

[cimmerian1275]

Sagara in all of her lovable blue noodle glory; I DEATH GRIP HER WITH LOVE SHE IS MY PRECIOUS EVERYTHING GRRRRR

Also bonus cartoon/animation friendly vers because i went thro an animated tv show obsession and loved the style those artists used (based closely on the Ben 10 Omniverse artstyle)

Am i obsessed? yes, will i stop drawing her? Neverrrrrr

[sebeth]

Zero Hour For Earth?

[joleneghoul]

Now Waverider too, companion piece to Macromia.

[shatteredstarsart]

Got a package from Amazon today

[lavataart]

My delulu won’t stop me from shipping these two bruh 😀

Anyway, have this practice character sketch since I haven’t drawn these idiots in a minute, ALSO, I bought a copy of Waverider… I got SO much to say about that book, SO MUCH let me know if y’all are willing to hear my rant ?)

Will do more amulet art and even writings to try and comfort my inner child from whatever that book was 😭 I’m glad I finally got the full collection tho, so slay

[sing-me-under]

I have unintentionally developed this whole post-Vol 2/pre-flashpoint timeline for Booster Gold and his little time travel family. There are three major components:

Rip Hunter is not around anymore. He’s not dead, obviously, but it’s reached a point in their personal timelines where they’re meant to separate. Rip can’t mentor the younger version of his dad forever nor should he. Booster has learned everything he needs to know from Rip, and now it’s time to part ways and make their own choices without the future influencing them. While Booster does occasionally come across younger and less experienced versions of Rip Hunter, all future Rips have effectively disappeared. Now separated, Booster sets up his own base elsewhere.

Booster and Michelle raise Rani in Neo-Gotham. Specifically the early 22nd century. This is Neo-Gotham at the end of Terry’s Batman career. It is more or less implied that sometime in the 22nd century, a nuclear war breaks out and gives way to the next dark ages. You can’t leave traces/ripples if they’re wiped from existence. Booster is still active in the 21st century by virtue of being an established hero there, but once keeping up appearances is over, he returns to the 22nd. Michelle stays in the 22nd century and just lives her life there.

Booster’s mystery future wife is Trixie Collins. After reuniting at some nebulous future date and going through a whole crisis together, Trixie can’t go back to her (unfulfilling) life, so Booster moves her to the 22nd century. At some point, she and Booster decide to act on the chemistry from their early years, and Rip is unintentionally conceived. Booster decides to retire from the 21st century hero scene, and they get married. But pretty early on, they realize that they’re not really romantically interested in each other. It’s partly acknowledgement of comphet society and that they’re both decidedly on the far side of the Kinsey Scale and also Booster is more or less too traumatized to truly emotionally connect to another person anymore. Booster and Trixie are still on good terms, so they stay married (and eventually come to consider each other best friends). And by virtue of being married, Trixie ends up getting more involved in Booster’s time cop thing and starts handling his logistics. They make a great team.

So from here, my brain came up with the following scenario:

Rani wants to become a superhero.

Rani-centric story idea under the cut. This one really got away from me.

The 22nd century is absolutely not a good time to get into heroics, and Rani knows that. That’s exactly why Booster chose it.

Rani has her own super power set, but it's not combat oriented. But there is this desire baked into her soul, so she takes a page (a whole chapter, really) from Booster Gold’s book. She steals a power suit and a time sphere and… doesn’t quite succeed as planned.

Instead of 1990s Metropolis, Rani finds herself in mid-21st century Gotham, the height of the legacy generation of heroes. Much to Rani's annoyance, Booster asked Nightwing and a not-quite-yet-retired Batman to keep an eye on her. It's mostly to prevent anyone else from solidly putting together that "Gold Star" is the infamous Booster Gold's daughter. Having the Bats' backing also means Rani isn't just plopped into the world with no legal records or emergency contacts.

Rani's story is mostly hijinks and heroics.

She's a D-list hero who frequently finds herself teaming up with other heroes, but she struggles to connect with any teams.

She keeps running into Legionnaires investigating some sort of intricate time travel plot and finds herself fighting alongside them to save the world. Unlike the 21st century heroes, Rani does connect with the 31st century heroes.

Sometimes, Rani also gets caught up in the Carter family business and gets swept away on a few time traveling adventurers with characters like Gold Beetle, a younger Rip Hunter (and Jack Soo), and even her baby brother, Junior.

In her downtime, Rani works part-time and does a few odd jobs here and there. Her saving grace is that she doesn't have to pay rent since she "inherited" Booster's townhouse.

Specific plot points include:

Booster's old JLI teammates immediately recognizing that Rani is Booster's daughter. They are equal parts glad that he's out there somewhere just living well instead of dead in a ditch, forgotten, and also hurt that Booster never introduced his family to them and that they had to find out from his teenage daughter.

In Time Masters: Vanishing Point #5, Booster warps their home to the end of time in order to lose the time assassins that had been chasing them. Time pirates also got to Rani in order to get the location of Vanishing Point from her, but she doesn't know it since Booster (with Trixie and Junior) abandoned the 22nd century shortly after Rani left. While the Carters frequently visit Rani, Rani doesn't have the means to visit them.

Rani overcomes her avoidance of the 31st century in order to save the world. While there, she becomes an official reserve member of the Legion. She returns to the 21st century anyway, not yet ready to give up on it.

Give me the Booster Gold: Convergence plot line, and Rani has to deal with the aftermath.. or maybe just ignore the whole Convergence thing and straight up rip off the time cancer subplot. Booster is bouncing through time uncontrollably, and Rani , Michelle, and an older Rip are chasing him down until they end up in the 90s (Rani finally gets a glimpse of the 90s and is disappointed) and find Booster in Ted's lab. Rani takes the place of N52 Booster in this. Everyone goes to Vanishing Point, and Booster transforms into Waverider. That has some wildly angsty potential.

The time cancer plot ends with Waverider returning everyone to their intended times. There's no universe-shattering crisis this time, so it's more like Waverider just isn't fully in-tune with his powers yet and fixed the anomalies by instinct rather than intent. It does mean that Rani finds herself in the 31st century and needs to be rescued from a dead planet and her own panic attack by the Legion.

Rani, fully attached to the Legion of Superheroes, officially-officially joins their group and decides to permanently stay in the 31st century as a hero.

Other notes:

There are also some implications that Booster may be nudging events in certain directions to keep the flow of time steady. Unbeknowst to Rani, Booster pre-programmed a different year and location for her to land in and disguised it as a glitch. He may or may have also arranged for some run-ins between her and some Legionnaires.

There’s a little hint at an abandoned Rani-centric plot thread towards the end of Vol 2. My guess is that there was supposed to be a 31st century arc for Booster Gold where he'd earn the trust and friendship of Braniac 5. I'm also guessing that Rani, who is shown to be a literal super genius, is more important than initially believed. She was probably supposed to be returned to the 31st century to fullfil some sort of essential role and subsequently not be adopted by the Carters because DC is allergic to happy parent-child relationships. I will be ignoring this guess.

Rani still has PTSD from Daxam's destruction and suffers from anxiety in her day-to-day. While she should have been returned to her intended place in the 31st century, she was too distressed by 1) being unadopted by Booster and 2) being in the time Daxam was destroyed and Emerald Empress is lose. Altogether, it was decided that Rani would stay with Booster and Michelle (and Rip as well, at the time). Either way, Rani refused to step foot in the 31st century, so Booster only ever brought his son of the two to visit Brainiac. Rani's knowledge of the Legion is restricted to what Booster and Junior have told her.

[thatsnotmygunflash]

Contantly thinking about how Gideon monitors dreams on the Waverider. Len is definitely the type of person who trained himself to lucid dream at a young age.

After his death, the Legends pick Barry up to help them with a mission and he finds Len’s untouched room and all his stuff and has a small breakdown. Gideon tells him about Len's dreams hoping to cheer him up, most of which involved Captain Cold and Flash fighting side by side or Barry and Len in a booth across from each other having dinner.