Freedom Fighters: The Ray Now Available on CW Seed

The animated series Freedom Fighters: The Ray now has six episodes (most only six minutes) available on the CW Seed digital network. It opens in a post-apocalyptic-looking Nazi-controlled city, a prequel to the recent superhero TV show crossover Crisis on Earth-X. (Similar to the way Vixen was a cartoon that explained that hero’s origin.)

The first episode sets the stage and shows the team of heroes — the light-powered Ray (Russell Tovey), the dark-casting and sometimes invisible Phantom Lady (Dilshad Vadsaria), whirlwind Red Tornado (Iddo Goldberg, who played a different version of the character in the first season of Supergirl), the flying Black Condor (Jason Mitchell) (who is literally dark-skinned now), and the shrinking Doll Man (Matthew Mercer) — fighting Nazis and the Nazi superhero, Overgirl (an evil Supergirl, so she’s voiced by Melissa Benoist, although she says very little).

Episode 3 is a distinct change, as we switch to our Earth’s Ray to find out his origin and his struggles — to live up to a beloved brother with military service, to find work that gives back to the community, to come out to his parents. Yes, the Ray is the CW’s first gay superhero. He gets tagged with the powers by Earth-X’s Ray, and the rest of the series so far deals with him learning to live up to the legacy. I hope there are more episodes to come, since I’m wondering what’s going on at the end of episode 6.