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Of all the CW superheroes shows I’d count Legends of Tomorrow as one of the most impressive through its dedication to keeping a rotating cast from season-to-season. It’s a bold approach but one that has worked well for the show as it’s turned in two very enjoyable seasons. I’d actually count it as the best Star Trek show on the air right now, though we’ll see how Discovery turns out later this year. Season 3’s upcoming cast rotation sees Rip Hunter exiting the main character ranks for a more antagonistic role while Citizen Steel and Vixen will be returning to the crew of the Waverider. The newest member of the team comes to us from a relatively new direction for the series- the world of magic, although the ties to Ancient Egypt put her at least in tune with Hawkman and Hawkgirl from back in season 1. The latest Legend to join the team is Isis- to be played by Tala Ashe.
So, first things first, I’m aware that the name “Isis” has a bit of a loaded connotation to it these days. It’s an unfortunate truth that the name of the Ancient Egyptian Goddess of life and fertility has been co-opted by some violent and regressive terrorists because it makes a good acronym. To DC’s credit, the character Isis predates the recent organization by several decades, as I’ll explain.
I assume that in the show proper this particular parallel point will be glossed over with a passing comment from the other Legends, which I’m honestly fine with. I’ve never liked the societal resignation to the fact that the worst among us get to just own whatever fiction they glom onto so if CW wants to try and take Isis back from the terrorists I’m onboard.
As I said, the DC version of Isis has been around for decade though she’s remained a pretty under the radar character for that time. She’s actually pretty noteworthy as one of the few superhero characters to make the jump from TV to the comics as she was originally created in The Shazam/Isis Hour, a mid-‘70s live-action superhero show.
The Shazam/Isis Hour is one of those live-action superhero shows we’ve more or less turned our backs on completely as geek culture in the same vein as Legend of the Superheroes, Superboy, and Generation X. I’m not totally sure why that is other than that it’s split episode format and child-centric material hasn’t aged terribly well, though given I’ll probably review it for when Isis finally appears on Legends of Tomorrow I'm sure I’ll find out eventually.
In any event, one year after being introduced on the show Isis made her way into DC comics in the pages of Shazam, though she did manage to land her own comic during DC’s ‘70s explosion. That book didn’t last long, however, as DC had seriously over-extended their resources that decade and by the late ‘70s were canceling books left and right to try and remain solvent. Getting lost in that kerfuffle was bad luck for Isis but being tied to the Shazam mythos was even worse.
The Shazam mythos is notoriously impenetrable and nonsensical, to the point it’s constantly getting rewritten and with each successive reboot, it becomes harder to figure out. She basically ended up lost in the shuffle and hitched to a wagon that was going nowhere so Isis ended up languishing in obscurity for about 30 years after her ongoing got canceled.
However, after that 30-year interval was over she came back in a moderately big way, in the pages of DC’s supremely successful maxi-series 52. This is the Isis that Legends of Tomorrow is borrowing her civilian identity from, that of Adrianna Tomaz. I’m not sure how much of her actual story will be translated as that would require the presence of Black Adam, who so far hasn’t been confirmed to be anywhere near Legends of Tomorrow season 3.
Here the origin is that Tomaz was a refugee in the Middle East that developed a relationship with Black Adam as he was reclaiming his kingdom of Khandaq. The two eventually married and Black Adam gave her a magic amulet that, when she spoke the name Isis, transformed her into a powerful being with super strength, speed, endurance, flight, telekinesis, and command over certain aspects of nature.
As I said, I imagine Isis’ origin is going to undergo some serious reworking but it would be pretty cool if she ended up the champion of Shazam for the CWniverse. Shazam’s mythos is pretty unrewarding to dig into and even harder to convert into something modern audiences can parse out so if they wanted to side-step the whole thing and just make her a contemporary of Vixen that’d work pretty well.
Basically, I’d expect Isis to be a mantle held by several women down through the centuries charged with defending the Earth, much the same way Vixen is only one of the women to wield her totem over the decades. It’d be a good way to not have to bother with the immortal wizard, the seven deadly sins, or the rock of eternity (if all three of those things sounded like gibberish to you that’s pretty much my point.)
As I think I’ve made clear there’s a lot of comic book detritus that orbits Isis’ character, which honestly makes her an odd choice for adaptation. Combined with her very powerful abilities that put her on scale with the likes of Supergirl I don’t really know why Legends of Tomorrow settled on her for adaptation other than that she’s like the only name in DC’s middle eastern superhero subsection. That’s a fine enough reason to give her the live action treatment and I’m interested to see how they square the circle of her needlessly complex back-story and dump truck’s worth of character baggage.
I actually kind of hope they do bring in stuff from the Shazam mythos if only because that’s one of the more interesting corners of the DCU. Either way, I’m sure Isis will find her place on the team and who knows, maybe the increased exposure will lead her back into the comic books- we’re long overdue for a new Isis book after all.
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