The main characters for Legends of Tomorrow have been assembled (so far as we know), and now more of the show’s other players are starting to be revealed. Earlier this week, Mr. Robot actress Stephanie Corneliussen was cast as Valentina Vostok, a Soviet scientist the team will encounter at the height of the Cold War. Now it’s been announced that actor Peter Francis James has joined the show as Dr. Aldus Boardman, an original character with a connection to Hawkgirl and Hawkman.
Boardman is described as a Classics professor at St. Roch University who has been spending his life studying the lives of Chayara and Prince Khufu, Hawkgirl and Hawkman’s ancient Egyptian selves, and their connection to main antagonist Vandal Savage. Comicbook.com cites Boardman as the only person who can help them find Savage and defeat him so they can go home. However, after learning a secret about Boardman, the team will insist he become a part of their journey, “only to learn the kind of sacrifice it will take to save the world.” Boardman will make his DC TV debut during the Arrow half of the Arrow/The Flash crossover this December.
It isn’t mentioned whether Boardman hails from the past, present or future in Legends of Tomorrow, but the university he works at in the same town where many Hawkman stories have taken place, so that helps with connecting him to source material. The mention of sacrifice has me wondering if Boardman will somehow be harmed or killed during the season. Since this is a time travel show, perhaps the team learns that something horrible will happen to Boardman in his future and decide to bring him along to keep him safe, only for something equally bad to happen on this temporal journey. Sometimes time finds a way to correct itself. Obviously, that's speculation, but presumably Boardman will also be a device through which the audience learns about Chayara and Prince Khufu in addition to Hawkman himself, who, unlike Hawkgirl, remembers their past lives together.
Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow will be Francis’ second comic book-related projects following his role as Fadhil in the 2011 film The Losers. Beyond that, his resume includes playing two different judges on Law and Order and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, respectively, Jahfree Neema on Oz and Clayton Boudreau on Guiding Light.
Legends of Tomorrow will debut on The CW sometime in 2016.
