TVs' First LGBTQ Character Lead Superhero Series Comes To A Close

For nine years, fans of the CWs' Arrowverse have known the Black Canary and the White Canary. Then we got to know Caity Lotz as she morphed into Captain Sara Lance on D.C.s' Legends of Tomorrow. This week, the CW announced that the girl that couldn't die would no longer grace our presence once a week as the leader of our favorite band of time-traveling heroes.

Sara Lance

Sara Lance's first appearance officially happened in Season 2 of Arrow when she reappeared after being presumed dead. After being unseen by anyone for six years, Sara reappears to the world as a skilled, ruthless, and cunning vigilante. Clad in black leather and wearing a black mask, The Black Canary was known for her skills in a fight.

Quickly, Sara ran headlong into the Arrow, the person she was with when she died and the other survivor of the Queens' Gambit to come back after being presumed dead. Returning to Star City as every bit the skilled warrior that her counterpart on the Gambit, Oliver Queen had just a year ago, Sara joins Oliver's crusade to rid the city of the people taking advantage of their home.

The story of Sara's time away from her home get's progressively more complex through the stories of Olivers' past, shared with fans in snippets throughout the series. A year after the accident and the Queen's Gambit yacht went down at sea Oliver and Sara are reunited on the island of Lian Yu.

The adventures of season two eventually reunite Sara with her family and find Oliver and Sara briefly together again after years apart. Sara's past as a member of the League of Assassins comes back to haunt her, as does her former lover, Nyssa al Ghul.

The enemies they face in season two are many, and with the advent of a super serum in Slade "Deathstroke" Wilson, formidable. Sara's connection to the League of Assassins proves valuable as Nyssa and her army of trained, Ninja-like, assassins step in to help Sara and Team Arrow save the day.

The celebration of the first openly LGBTQ superhero on television doesn't last long into the third season as Sara is mysteriously killed and her death used against the Arrow and his friends. In comic books and comic book adaptations, anything is possible.

Ra's al Ghul, for hundreds of years, even longer perhaps, has maintained control of the Lazarus Pit. Its mystic waters hold the secrets of immortality. When the grieving sister, Laurel Lance (Katie Cassiday), learns of the Lazarus Pit she takes her sister there to demand that Ra's uses the pit to resurrect Sara. With help from Team Arrow, including John Constantine, they get Sara back and ensoul her.

Legends of Tomorrow

Legends of Tomorrow was a mid-season spinoff during Arrow season four. Time-traveling captain Rip Hunter put together a ragtag team of misfits that were capable of becoming the heroes he needed them to be. After assembling the misfits of the Arrowverse, Rip took Sara Lance, along with Captain Cold, Heatwave, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Firestorm, and the Atom aboard the wave ride to take on the immortal psychopath, Vandall Savage.

The team changed during the first couple of years. Captain Cold went first, then Hawkgirl. Steele came on board and the team traveled back to meet the Justice Society of America.

Throughout the years and the many crossovers the CW produced, there's been many bad guys and even more good guys. The craziest gang of heroes fought Nazis from an alternate dimension, Vandal Savage, Alien invaders, their own mistakes, and saved the entire universe.

Sara's "died" not once, not twice, but three times before season seven. After being taken prisoner by an alien ship and experimented on, our Sara died again, only to be brought back as a clone using the same tech that cloned her fiancee, Ava.

When we last saw the legends, they were being arrested and taken into custody by a version of the "Time" Bureau. They just introduced the character of Booster Gold, who promised to be a breath of fresh air for the team in season 8. Alas, on Friday, April 29th, the CW Network broke the hearts of fans as they announced the series was ending.

Final Thoughts

Hey, it happens, right? Television shows get canceled. Every so often, a show gets canceled that matters to a group of people. It matters so much that there are tears, feelings of loss, anger, disbelief, and even petitions that make the rounds. We live in an interconnected world. So, is this really the end? Or, will we see Netflix pick up the series the way it did Lucifer. Could we see a network switch, the way we saw Last Man Standing get three more episodes?

Caity Lotz took the role of Sara Lance to a place that people might not have realized she could. As a bit part, turned hero, then trendsetter, Caity became the first LGBTQ superhero to lead a superhero series. This lead the way for Kate Kane on Batwoman, the addition of Curtis Holt to Team Arrow, and it was all done in a very accepted, very tasteful, and no political way.

The fact that Batwoman has been canceled at the same time shows that the CW may be ready to move on from the superhero-rich programming that it has been doing since 2012. Or, perhaps the genre has burned itself out. Only time will tell. The Legends, while superheroes, bridged the gap between the usually dramatic events of a superhero drama, and were openly awkward and funny. I think, considering the diversity in the group's personalities, styles, backgrounds, appearances, and ethnicities, there was a reason that the show appealed to so many fans and ran for so long.