Citizen Steel is Legends of Tomorrow's Indiana Jones, EP Says

CBR

By Anthony Couto

Published Oct 11, 2016

The Legends of Tomorrow EP opens about about the more "historical" second season and compares one of the new additions to Indiana Jones.

If you thought you knew "Legends of Tomorrow," Season 2 is definitely going to shake that up. With the introduction of the Justice Society of America, the series will veer away from sci-fi, to a greater exploration of historical time periods. Fittingly, one of the new characters added to the series, Nate Heywood -- who goes on to become the hero Citizen Steel -- will take on a very Indiana Jones-inspired role on the team as the storyline becomes focused on the past and legacy.

Speaking to TVLine about a more historical Season 2 of "Legends" and its take on Nate Heywood, A.K.A. Citizen Steel, showrunner Phil Klemmer said, "Season 2 is much more about history, the fact that the Time Masters have been destroyed and the Legends are now fixing these aberrations in history, so we needed a humanities major on our show. We’ve got Dr. Stein, we’ve got Ray Palmer, but we needed somebody who is able to understand world history, and that’s what he offers. He is basically Dr. [Indiana] Jones, a swashbuckling academic."

Klemmer continued, "Nate would be the first to say that the blood has run thin in the Heywood family — it’s hard to grow up in the shadow of [his grandfather, JSA member Commander Steel]. He’s an historian and he thought he would remain one for the rest of his life, but when the Legends come into his life and introduce him to time travel, he realizes that he’s going to get to do more than read about it. I don’t want to spoil the surprise of how Nate comes into his powers, but he certainly is the last guy who ever thought he would be on a superhero show."

In the comics, Nate is the third person to hold a “Steel” mantle, after the WWII-era Henry Heywood, who was a member of the original Justice Society, and his grandson (introduced in 1984) Hank Heywood III, who was a member of the Justice League. Nate was created in 2007 as the other grandson of Henry Heywood, who took on the guise of Citizen Steel during Geoff Johns and Dale Eaglesham’s run on “Justice Society of America.”

Airing Thursdays at 8 pm ET/PT on The CW, "DC's Legends of Tomorrow" stars Arthur Darvill as Rip Hunter, Brandon Routh as the Atom, Victor Garber and Franz Drameh as Firestorm, Caity Lotz as White Canary, Maisie Richardson-Seller as Vixen, Dominic Purcell as Heatwave and Nick Zano as Citizen Steel.