Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for the Legends of Tomorrow season 6 premiere.
The season premiere of Legends of Tomorrow revealed that 2020 was as rough on the Arrowverse as it was in reality. While they apparently avoided the COVID-19 pandemic, things in the Arowverse apparently did not change for the better following the Crisis on Infinite Earths event in early 2020.
The year 2020 was notable to the Arrowverse in several respects. The year opened with the various Earths that served as the setting of the CW superhero shows being condensed into a single shared world, Earth-Prime. It was hoped that it would become far easier for the shows to have crossover events once all the characters were sharing the same dimensional space. Unfortunately, all these plans had to be put aside in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and most of the shows had to rewrite their season finales at the last minute to make use of what footage was finished. As a result, most of the events currently being depicted in the Arrowverse are set in the year 2020, with the current seasons having picked up right where last year’s finales left off, without the traditional time-skip between seasons.
Whatever else happened after Crisis on Infinite Earths, 2020 for the Arrowverse was bad enough to be described as “the infamous year 2020” by the artificial intelligence Gideon. This fact was revealed in the Legends of Tomorrow season 6 premiere, after Ava Sharpe tried to contact the Department of Extranormal Operations (DEO) to ask for their assistance in rescuing Sara Lance after she was abducted by aliens. After several attempts to call the DEO offices failed, Gideon determined this was because the agency was shut down permanently in 2020 following an attack on their central base by the god-like alien Rama Khan. These events occurred during “The Missing Link,” the penultimate episode of Supergirl season 5.
Beyond the DEO shutting down and Lex Luthor trying to take over the world, quite a lot has already happened in the Arrowverse’s 2020 to define it as a noteworthily bad year. The Flash had to contend with the machinations of the Black Hole crime syndicate, the otherworldly Mirror Monarch, the death of the Speed Force, and the creation of three new conflicting Forces. Black Lightning had to repel a secret invasion by the nation of Markovia and bring down a corrupt government agency, the ASA, that was trying to build their own army of brainwashed metahuman soldiers. Even the Legends of Tomorrow were fighting for bigger stakes than usual, working to prevent the Fates of Ancient Greek legend from rewriting reality to eliminate all free will.
Despite this, it is hardly surprising that Legends of Tomorrow would reference the difficulties of the previous year in a joking manner. The time-traveling superhero series has become the most overtly comedic of the many Arrowverse shows and that humor is frequently of a dark and twisted nature. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the actors joked during a virtual convention panel that the storyline of season 6 would center around the team trying to figure out what caused the many 2020 disasters and perpetual screw-up Gary Green being responsible. Amusingly, Gary does have a major role in the events of the Legends of Tomorrow season 6 premiere, but he has not been proven to be responsible for 2020. At least, not yet.
