Legends of Tomorrow's Totems are the Arrowverse's Infinity Stones

WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for the current season of DC's Legends of Tomorrow.

In a little over a month, everyone will be sitting in theaters for Avengers: Infinity War, the culmination of Marvel Studios' decade-long plan for their costumed superheroes.

After ten years of building up characters, locations and colorful MacGuffins, we'll see the Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-Man come together to stop the Mad Titan Thanos from acquiring all the Infinity Stones and destroying half the universe. but for those who have been paying attention, we've seen this unfold already... because Legends of Tomorrow has technically done it first.

The current season of The CW's show about time traveling heroes has slowly been telling a story about using glowing rocks to defeat an evil tyrant hellbent on destroying everything. Sound familiar? In this case, the titular Legends have to fight the demon Mallus, contained in a prison literally made by time. When the team broke time at the tail end of last season, the resulting aberrations were created by the demon as part of a plan to free himself; in short, Alexander Hamilton going to see Hamilton could be all that stands between the world going back to normal and a hellish monster wreaking havoc on everything.

Fortunately, there's a way to defeat Mallus: Simply gather the six ~~stones~~ Totems that imbue their wearers with different abilities based on the elements -- Water, Earth, Fire, Air, Spirit and Death. The back half of the season has revolved around the Legends both fixing the anachronisms as best as they can, and acquiring the Totems in the chance that Mallus does escape with the help of his accomplices, Kuasa, Damien Darhk, his daughter Nora and Gorilla Grodd.

In their own way, Mallus' team is similar to Thanos' Black Order -- they aren't Mallus' kids, though there certainly are family dynamics at play with both the Darhks and Kuasa being Vixen's granddaughter. They also sport specialized skills that make them ideal for time travel shenanigans and have their own methods of doing their master's bidding.

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In a way, the Totems work better than the Infinity Stones, story wise. Unlike their more famous Marvel counterparts, the Totems are presented as more than plot devices meant to fill time before the eventual final confrontation with Mallus. There's a genuine sense of history tied to the Totems thanks to the people of Vixen's home village Zambesi. It's a stark contrast when compared to Marvel's artifacts; in the films, the general idea is that they were created through singularities prior to the Big Bang. Of the six Stones, the only one that really matters at this point is the one on the Vision's forehead, and even then, it isn't like a power source can't or won't serve as a replacement for the synthezoid when Thanos finally snatches it. No one really cares about the Infinity Stones' history because they don't really have on. They're just a blatant way to bring the various characters of the MCU together in Infinity War.

On Legends, the show makes you care about the Totems. They're connected to various characters in ways that inform both their past and their future. The Vixen of 1942 has to live with the fact that as long as she continues to be a time traveling superhero in a relationship with a man from the present day, she'll put the future of her grandchildren -- Mari, the Vixen of the present day and Kuasa, who has the Water Totem infused into her body -- in danger.

Newcomer Zari Tomaz owns the Air Totem that previously belonged to her dead brother, and Mick Rory gained the power of the Fire Totem in the latest episode, furthering his evolution into a full blown hero after constantly asserting to himself that he hadn't grown into one.

It's a shame The CW never did much to promote their animated show devoted to Mari, the present day Vixen, because a lot of the work being done with the Totems is dependent on viewers being caught up on her corner of the Arrowverse. Her short-lived series introduced the Fire and Water Totems into the universe, but the live action Arrowverse shows largely pretend her show didn't really happen. By no means is there a huge barrier to entry in regards to the Totems, but since they've become a vital part of the Legends corner of the Arrowverse this year, it's a glaring oversight. Unlike Marvel, they have more prep time to get everyone on board with their glowing plot devices, and better time could've been devoted to establishing just what the heck happened to make Kuasa and Amaya's relationship to each other and the Totems much deeper.

This is probably the only season that Legends could really get away with it. The show has always been inspired by movies--they had an episode literally all about George Lucas last year, after all, and had no shortage of references about his filmmaking history--but this year kicked things into overdrive. Since time travel is built into the show's DNA, it makes sense that episodes and plots use iconic films as a source of inspiration or visual references, whether it's sending the team to the days of Old Hollywood or having an entire segment calling back to one of the most iconic scenes in Stephen Spielberg's career. Infinity War is iconic in its own way, and it's only appropriate that the show draw inspiration from that as well, even if that wasn't the original intent.

Legends' finale will probably not have the team fighting off hordes of CG enemies in a secretive African nation, but it is, for all intents and purposes, Arrowverse: Infinity War. It's impressive what the show has done in terms of scale and ambition with 18 episodes this year, and it's clear that this is a story that could only be done with the Arrowverse's all stars of bad first impressions.