Mick Rory (Arrowverse)

"I used to think the most beautiful thing on Earth was fire. Now I know it's vengeance."

- Mick to Leonard Snart.

Mick Rory is an antagonist in the first season of the CW superhero TV series The Flash and one of main characters later the secondary antagonist turned anti-hero in the spin-off series DC's Legends of Tomorrow. After having obtained a pyro-gun, he assumed the criminal persona Heat Wave and started working together with Leonard Snart. After being abandoned by Snart for betraying Rip Hunter and his team, Mick is found by the Time Masters and is brought back to the Vanishing Point, being trained and becoming the bounty hunter Chronos, who served temporaly as the secondary antagonist Season 1. After failing to kill his former team, he joined the team again.

He is portrayed by Dominic Purcell, who played Lincoln Burrows in the FOX TV series Prison Break (which Leonard's actor Wentworth Miller also starred in). Whilst masked as Chronos, his voice is provided by voice-actor Steven Blum, who also voiced Amon in Legend of Korra and Darkseid in Justice League: War.

Past
Rory found his love for fire at an early age. During one of his arsonic experiments, he accidentally burned down his parent's house, killing both of them.

Going Rogue
After escaping the Flash, Leonard Snart meets his former partner Mick Rory and gives Rory the flamethrower gun that he took from arms dealer Basil. Snart and Rory then team up together.

Revenge of the Rogues
Now working with Snart, Rory and Snart break into a garage after Snart breaks the door open with the freeze gun. After seing the cars, Rory asks Snart how they would escape with all the cars. Snart tells them that they haven't come to steal and that their entrance set off the silent alarm. However, when Snart realises that the Flash is not coming for them, Snart and Rory enter their car again and drive off. Back in their headquarters, Snart reveals to Rory that they will steal the abstract painting "Fire and Ice", that's worth a lot of money. However, Snart is worried that the Flash did not come for them. Rory claims that the Flash could be dead, but Snart tells him that that's highly unlikely. When the painting is brought to Star City from Paris, Snart arrives at the airport and invades the hangar. When the police arrives, Snart shoots at them with his cryo-gun but uneffective as Cisco Ramon has equipped the CCPD with temperature proof shields. Snart calls Rory for help, who shoots his flamethrower gun at the officers. Snart tells Rory to ignore the cops but to await the Flash but Rory is too carried away to listen. This gives Detective Joe West the oppurtunity to shoot at Rory's flame gun, rendering it useless. Snart and Rory then retreat with the painting.Back at their hideout Rory manages to repair his gun but Snart then aims his cryo-gun at Rory, furious that he once again lost focus. Snart claims that Rory is obsessed but Rory retorts that Snart is obsessed as well as all he now cares about is the Flash. Snart claims that the only person able to defy their weapons is the Flash and that they therefore have to kill them. He then gives Rory the oppurtunity to escape with the painting but offers him Central City if he stays. To show Snart that he convinced him, Rory burns the painting with his gun. Snart then tells Rory that the Flash is not so different from the two of them as he has partners too.

Together, Snart and Rory kidnap Caitlin Snow when she tries to enter her car. At Star Labs, Cisco finds out that Snart's and Rory's guns could cancel each other's effects should they cross streams. Before they can analyse more, Barry is called by Joe who tells him of Caitlin's kidnapping.

With Caitlin captured, Snart and Rory then send a message to the media, claiming that they will kill Caitlin should the Flash not reveal himself. while waiting, Rory guards Caitlin. She sees his burns and asks him why he didn't get skin transplants and he tells her that the fire showed him who he really is. He then aims his flamethrower at Caitlin, offering to show her who she really is. Before he can do anything Snart comes over and tells him that it's time to meet the Flash. Rory activates a bomb underneath Caitlin's chair and tells her that she should pray that the next people coming through the door are him and Snart.

Snart and Rory meet the Flash on the planned street crossing. The street has been cordoned by police officers who now know that the Flash is real. Rory and Snart then attack the Flash while Barry tries to make them cross beams to cancel their guns out. While Barry fights, Joe and Cisco enter the warehouse to save Caitlin. Although Cisco triggers the explosives Joe manages to save Caitlin in time.

Eventually, Snart and Rory have the Flash on the ground. Believing themselves to be victorious, Snart and Rory shoot at Barry but Eddie Thawne, who has grabbed a thermo proof shield, shields him from the blast long enough for Barry to get up. Seeing it the only possibility to stop Rory and Snart, Barry lets himself be hit by both rays and walks on until he stands right between Snart and Rory. He then runs off, causing Snart's and Rory's beam to hit each other. The resulting blast knocks both criminals off their feet. Snart and Rory are then arrested by the CCPD. While brought into the CCPD, Rory tries to wrestle himself free and threatens to burn every single one of them. The cryo-gun and flamethrower-gun are then given to Cisco, who brings them back to Star Labs. On their way to Iron Heights, the prison truck containing Snart and Rory is attacked and both are freed by Snart's sister.

Rogue Time
Snart and Rory are eventually captured by mob boss Vincent Santini, who has once run Snart out of town for being troublesome. Santini demands to know what Snart is doing in Central City. Snart tells him that it is his city. He also tells Santini that he and his family better left the city to find another area for their crimes.

Santini stands up, asking what Snart would do if Santini refused. Snart says that in that case, they would all freeze or burn. Santini tells Snart that he heard about their guns, but that he also heard that they lost them. He asks Snart what he is going to do without his toys, only for Rory and Snart to break free and take out Santini and his men except one, whom Snart tells to run to the rest of the Santini's to tell them that there's a new godfather in town.

To get back their weapon, Snart sends his sister Lisa to seduce and kidnap Cisco. When Cisco arrives at their house, Snart blackmails Cisco into creating new freeze and heat guns, having Cisco's cousin Dante as a hostage. After Cisco has created a new flamethrower gun for Rory, the latter takes it reverently. Eventually, Snart and Lisa head out to further injure Santini's business while Rory remains to guard Cisco and Dante. Dante breaks free and attempts to strike Rory with the leg of a table. Rory dodges him and knocks him out by smashing a bottle on his head. He is then attacked by Cisco whom he quickly overpowers. He throws Cisco to the ground and furiously starts to beat him. Cisco is saved by the arrival of Snart who stops Rory from harming him further. Rory and Lisa then leave the room while Snart tortures Dante to get the identity of the Flash.

Barry and his team find out that the reason behind Snart's attack on the casino was to trigger the relocation of the money outside the casino, according to protocol. Indeed, the money is brought outside in a truck. During the journey, the truck is attacked by the two Snarts and Rory. While shooting at the truck from his motorbike, Snart is grabbed by the Flash, who snatches him from his bike. This forces Lisa, who is sitting in the sidecar, to try to take over the wheel. The bike crashes nontheless, causing Rory to ride his bike right inside Lisa's. The truck with the money safely drives on.

Pilot, Part 1
Together with Snart, Rory is recruited by Rip Hunter to become a member of his time-traveler team in order to take down Vandal Savage. Although both reluctantly join in, they use the team's earlier journeys to steal jewels or other valuable goods from the places they travel to. However, Snart eventually begins to realize the importance of their task while Rory's only goal is to see the world burn.

Star City 2046
Their journey eventually brings them to Star City in 2046 which has been taken over by Grant Wilson, son of Deathstroke. The city is in ruins and ravaged by gangs. Rory is delighted and swiftly becomes leader of a gang after killing their leader with his heat-gun. However, when the teams business is done Rory refuses to leave as he likes the apocalypse-like state of the future. Knowing that arguing would be useless Snart knocks him out and brings him aboard the Waverider. After they have left the timeline, Rory wakes up and is furious at Snart for taking him. He claims that Snart has lost sight of what they want to achieve together and threatens to kill Snart should he ever touch him again.

Marooned
"Team? You and I were a team! What happened to you? You wanna kill me? Kill me! Only one of us is walking out here alive!"

- Mick to Snart.

Continuing their search for Savage, the team arrives at a state of monotony. Especially Rory is prickly because their search is not going as expected. When they receive a distress signal of a spaceship attacked by time pirates, Rip decides to investigate. Being bored, Rory volunteers to go with Rip and is thus captured when they walk into a trap set by the pirates leader Valor. They are imprisoned on the ship and Rory argues with Rip multiple times although Rip tries everything he can to get out of the cell. Eventually, Rip loses his temper and claims that Rory was never intended for the team to take down savage, as he is only a brute able to burn things. Coldly, Rory turns and contacts the pirate guarding them, telling him that he intends to talk to Valor.

Rory is brought before the captain and tells him that he is ready to hand over the Waverider to Valor if Valor returns him back to the point where Rip contacted him and Snart, intending to refuse Snart's offer. Valor then beats Rory up to make it seem like Rory escape. Rory then contacts the Waverider and, claiming that he managed to escape, is granted entrance. He then leads some of Valor's pirates onboard the Waverider, where he reveals that he betrayed the team. Facing the team, Rory tells Snart that he made sure that they could return home. He asks Snart if Snart is with him and, chosing a side, Snart attacks the pirates. Furious at what he considers a personal betrayal, Rory orders the pirates to kill the team while he intends to bring the time drive to Valor. However, while trying to do so Rory is attacked by Sara Lance. Rory tries to kill her and eventually corners her. He shoots her into the shoulder with his heat gun and intends to kill her but is then stopped by Snart who shoots him with his cold-gun and knocks him out.

After the time pirates are defeated, the team gathers to decide what they will do with Mick. They discard the option to send him back to his timeline because he could try to get revenge by harming Snart's or Sara's relatives. They also realise that the Waverider is unsuitable for long-time imprisonment. Seing no other way, Snart volunteers to "handle" the situation. Snart brings an unconscious Mick into a lonely forest, where he kicks Mick to wake him up. Realising his situation, Rory asks whether Snarts plan is to kill him here, in the middle of nowhere, where no one can't find his body. Heartbroken, Snart claims that Mick is dangerous and a liability for the team. Mick claims that he and Snart were a team and asks Snart what happened to him, to which Snart answers that people change. Mick then states that while Snart may think of himself as a hero he is still the punk kid Mick saved in juvy. He then prompts Snart to kill him, claiming that only one of them is going to walk out of the forest alive. Acknowledging that, Snart then uses his cold-gun and shoots in Rory's general direction. Rory is distracted by this and knocked out by Snart who leaves him behind.

Stranded in time and abandoned in the forest, Mick for weeks, starving and nearly turning mad. He is eventually found by the Time Masters who bring him to the Vanishing Point to regenerate. They then train Mick and turn him into the temporal bounty-hunter Chronos who had previous encounters with Rip before his mission, though he was unaware his enemy was the same man he'd recruit.

Pilot, Part 1
When Rip's younger self recruits the team, including his younger self, Chronos jumps back in time and the Wave Rider having only just missed the Wave Rider time jump back into the past. However he gets caught by two civilians thinking he is cosplaying as Darth Vader, Chronos merely looks to his scanner and identifies that they don't make any difference to the timeline so he mercilessly kills both of them.

Later in the episode Chronos has time traveled to 1975 and has found Rip Hunter's ship. Even though the waverider is currently invisible, Chronos can still identify it most likely due to the time distortion that it has caused. Chronos begins shooting at it and soon the ship is in critical condition. Meanwhile Rip Hunter, Stein and Ray Palmer are trying to get to the ship as fast as they can. As Chronos continues to fire on the the Waverider, Hawkgirl comes in to attack Chronos. The two engage in close quarters combat which provides a distraction for Rip's team to take cover. Chronos soon best Hawkgirl but Hawkman comes and uppercuts Chronos. Rip Hunter takes out his own gun and begins to fire at Chronos. The two engage in a gun fight behind cover which provides Martin Stein and Ray Palmer a chance to get back to the ship to become Firestorm and The Atom.

Chronos then throws a thermal grenade at Rip Hunter's direction, blowing up Hunter's cover. Before he can throw another,Captain Cold, returning from a bar with Sara Lance and his past self, drives him over with his car. Meanwhile, Martin Stein and Jefferson Jackson bond and Ray Palmer puts on his suit, emerging the ship as Firestorm and The Atom and start firing at Chronos at once. With everyone attacking him Chronos starts firing wildly and is able to deal a fatal blow to Aldus Boardman. This blow eventually results in Aldus' death which Hawkgirl was attempting to prevent in the first place. The LoT escape on the ship to treat Aldus' wound and Chronos is left behind in 1975.

White Knights
While on their way to the Soviet Union, the LoT encounters Chronos again. Rip Hunter remarks how Chronos must have been able to track them when they time jumped into 1986. Chronos appears to be piloting a similar vehicle to the Waverider and prepares to fire on the Legends of Tomorrow. Rip Hunter decides to drop the cloak on the Waverider and "make[s] as much noise as possible" in an attempt to draw out the Soviet Union forces. The U.S.S.R. fire heat seeking missiles on the Waverider but Rip decides to stop the engines which allow the missiles to barely miss the Waverider and hit Chronos' ship, forcing him to crash land outside Moscow. This allows Rip to get away but in doing so forces the Wavverider to crash land as well.

While surveying Valentina Vostok, a scientist who is currently helping Vandal Savage, Gideon detects a temporal anomaly just outside the boundaries of Mosco. Thinking that it's Chronos, Rip Hunter assigns Mick Rory to help him take down Chronos while Ray is attempting to get information out of Vostok. However as it turns out Chronos was killed in the crash and the temporal anomaly was really Time Master Druce who was seemingly assigned to offer Rip Hunter a deal: Return to the Time Master Council and all charges will be aquited. The LoT will be able to return to their own timelines. Rory tells Rip that Druce is planning on betraying him but his warning falls on deaf ears. After Rip has thought about the deal, he plans to accept Druce's offer.

However, he is ambushed by Chronos who faked his death and is in league with Druce. Rip muses how he won't be able to tell Mick (younger self) he was right. Druce remarks that even though Mick abandoned Rip, Chronos will be able to track him down. Rip then provokes Druce and calls him a coward which makes Druce stay, saying "Wouldn't want you to die alone." to which Rip replies "Who says I'm alone?" and allows Firestorm and the younger Heat Wave to ambush both Druce and Chronos. Druce quickly teleports away, leaving Chronos to fend off Firestorm, Mick's youngerself and Rip Hunter at once. Firestorm fire blasts Chronos but narrowly avoids a grenade which lands and forces Jax and Martin Stein to seperate. Chronos uses this opportunity to flee while the team is distracted with Jefferson who promptly feints.

Fail-Safe
After the Legends of Tomorrow succeed in their mission to stop Vandal Savage in Russia, they head to the next timeline. However as they are in the temporal zone the Waverider is struck by explosive projectiles. The cause appears to be Chronos who has tracked them down. As the Waverider starts firing counter measures, they manage to lose Chronos but not before he fires one more missile at the Waverider which strikes the Waverider out of the timestream landing them in Star City in 2046.

Night of the Hawk
At the end of the episode, while Leonard, Rip and Firestorm are waiting for the other three members of the LoT, the Waverider gets attacked by Chronos. Rip tries to seal the bulkhead but Chronos has already gotten into the ship and starts destroying the Waverider. These shots seemingly cause the Waverider to fly leaving Kendra, Raymond and Sara stranded in 1958. Together, Snart and Rip battle Chronos inside the Waverider's main room. To help them, Stein and Jax merge to Firestorm but when they arrive they find Rip unconscious and realise that Chronos has left with Snart. Eventually, Chronos detects the time beacon Ray built to contact the Waverider and deduces where Rip and his team can be found.

Left Behind
When Snart demands to know why he was the one to be captured, Chronos removes his mask and reveals himself to be Mick Rory. It is revealed that Snart did not kill Mick but only knocked him out, leaving him stranded in time. Mick reveals that he had nearly lost his mind, abandoned in time, when the Time Masters found him and brought him to the Vanishing Point where he was trained by them and reborn as Chronos. Mick also reveals that he did not hunt Rip and the team because the Time-Masters made him, in fact they barely had to ask. With Snart as a prisoner, Rory plans to travel to Central City to kill Snart's sister Lisa in front of Leonard. He also claims that he already did so multiple times only to travel back in time to do it again. Before he can fulfil his plan however, Rory is told that the Waverider has been detected in Nanda Parbat and changes course. Once Rory prepares to leave the ship, Snart tries to appeal to his former self while claiming that the Time Masters will eventually betray him. Rory claims that there is nothing good in him left, dons his helmet and leaves the ship.

He later enters the fortress during the trial by combat between Sara and Kendra. The Legue's assassins prove to be no match for his advanced technology and he kills many of them on his way in. With no choice left, Ra's frees his prisoners to make sure the League can continue to exist. Claiming that as they brought Chronos here, they should be the ones to defeat him, Ra's leaves Rip's team to fight and defeat Chronos. Overpowered by the team's combined efforts, Chronos is about to be killed by Firestorm when Snart bursts into the room. He tells them not to kill Chronos and forces Chronos to remove his mask. The entire team is shocked to see Rory alive. Rory uses the distraction to go for his gun but is swiflty kicked in the face and knocked out. The team then decides to try to reform Rory, whom they imprison onboard the Waverider for the time being.

Progeny
In his holding cell, he was visited by Rip and Sara, the former apologized and took the blame for bringing Mick onto the team under false pretenses and the latter encouraging him to repair his partnership with Snart as he was still a loyal friend to Mick despite being sold out. Mick and Snart later get into a fist-fight inside of the cell with Mick overpowering Snart and refusing to kill him despite the promise of getting to take the jump ship and escape to freedom. Mick then warned the team about Hunters, a team of mercenaries working for the Time Masters that lack humanity and will pursue the team, including Mick as he failed to bring them in, and will stop at nothing until they are all dead.

Reformation
Mick finally became a member of the team again. It has become less aggressive and more friendly with its partners, even caring what he might come their

He returned in 1958 with Atom and killed the Vandal Savage of that time.

As Mick Rory
He seemed to be an expert with taking machines apart and putting them back together. In addition, he possessed a flame-thrower that would allow him to burn anything on contact.

As Chronos
As a bounty hunter, Chronos is extremely adept at both hand to hand combat and ranged combat. He is an excellent marksman almost always hitting his mark, even when his target is invisible. The only times he misses are when he is taking on multiple targets at once. However, Chronos himself was able to make the Legends of Tomorrow flee from him. This implies that although they were able to hold him off, Rip Hunter believes that Chronos would be able to defeat the Legends of Tomorrow even as they worked as a team.

Chronos also has some kind of analyser which allows him to see who or what is integral to the timeline. This analyser was most likely what allowed him to see the Waverider in stealth mode. Chronos can also time travel to any part of time.

Killed Victims

 * Aldus Boardman
 * The Pilgrim (alongside Team Legends)
 * Declan
 * Vandal Savage (1958 version)
 * Numerous unnamed people
 * Unnamed Central City Police Department
 * Unnamed members of Vandal Savage's cult
 * Unnamed members of Grant Wilson/Deathstroke's army
 * Unnamed League of Assassins members
 * Two unnamed Hunters
 * Unnamed criminals

Trivia

 * In the DC Comics continuity, Chronos is an alias used by three different, but loosely connected, super-villains, two of which being enemies of The Atom. The first was David Clinton (first appearing in The Atom #3, 1962), a meticulous thief who based his crimes on precise timing and used gimmick time themed weapons. This character did, in fact, create a time traveling machine which latter became the basis of his successors' own equipment. The second incarnation of the character is Walker Gabriel (debuting in Chronos #1, part of his 12-issue mini-series), an actual time-traveler and a reluctant hero. The third incarnation of the character is Jia (intoduced in The Atom comics run of 2007), a Chinese woman who had been in a relationship with Ryan Choi, Ray Palmer's replacement as The Atom. She partnered up with Clinton in a scheme to torment Ryan Choi and destroy his life.
 * The name Chronos is also used for the pre-Socratic Greek deity who personifies time itself.
 * Chronos interacting with his past self as Mick Rory and his teammates was the cause of a Predestination Paradox, or a "casual loop".
 * Mick's transformation into Chronos could be compared to how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise; they both turned on their friends and allies, then were supposedly killed, only to be saved by a villainous group who made him their hit-man. They were both also associated with fire, as Mick used a flamethrower as his weapon of choice, and Vader had been set ablaze after facing his old master Obi-Wan Kenobi.