“Holy crimson skies of death!”
So we are finally here folks. After 9 long weeks and years of hype and anticipation, the CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover spectacular has arrived. We have spent all season of Arrow and The Flash preparing for the inevitable demise of Earth-1’s Oliver Queen and Barry Allen. The Monitor has caused all sorts of chaos over on Earth-38 by releasing Malefic in order to test his virtuous brother J’onn J’ones aka the Martian Manhunter to ensure he was up to the task of being a paragon of the multiverse. But are our heroes truly ready to confronting the largest threat they’ve ever faced, as the Anti-Monitor attempts to wipe out the entire multiverse with a wave of antimatter?
We only get the first three of a total of five episodes of the Crisis miniseries this week. They aired respectively across Supergirl, Batwoman, and The Flash. The two-part finale of the crossover will air early next year, technically on Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow. It would be hard to run through every plot point and character moment of this massive crossover event. Not only are we dealing with five intersecting series with their own casts, we also have multiple characters specific to this story, including versions of Batman and Superman we’ve never seen in the Arrowverse before, and an army of cameos from over a dozen alternate Earth-set DC properties.
Not everything about the crossover worked. Some of the major emotional beats, especially involving the sacrifice of Earth-90’s Flash and whatever Sara and Mia are doing with Constantine to help save Oliver’s soul, are too rushed to payoff the way they should, and the events that lead up to the big cliffhanger ending where the entire multiverse has been erased and our team of paragons (plus Lex Luthor, of course) find themselves stranded at the Vanishing Point, move so quickly its hard to track exactly what is happening and why. However, here are seven of the many things that really, really worked, in honor of the Seven Paragons destined to save the multiverse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h90H2GEsnak
Earth-38
Everything set on Earth-38, where Supergirl is set, worked perfectly. It was the primary location for the first hour of the Crisis and was the place where the best and brightest Arrowverse heroes teamed together to try to take a stand against The Anti-Monitor and his forces. The creative team did a great job utilizing this world and all its complexities, which we’ve been following on Supergirl for years, to make the stakes and scope of the threat feel real and personal for our heroes.
Argo, which is a floating Kyptonian city in space that is also home to Kara’s mother and temporary home of Earth-38’s Superman, Lois, and baby Jonathan, being destroyed is given proper emotional weight, with Melissa Benoist killing it as the Paragon of Hope, mourning the loss of her people and only living family in one moment while resolving to save her adopted home before its too late in the next. Alex and Lena get a pair of nice scenes that actually further their ongoing Supergirl arcs while helping to save the people of their planet once its clear all hope is lost for their Earth.
Despite being the main Paragon to be tested by the Monitor on this Earth, J’onn gets little to do, but most of Supergirl‘s main cast get at least a few moments to shine here before their Earth is erased by the antimatter wave. And finally, the climatic battle where Oliver Queen, foretold to die in this event but not like this and not so early, is killed as he fights to save every last person on an Earth that isn’t even his is an excellent moment for the original star of this multiverse.
Batwoman
For those of you who have been keeping up with my coverage of the CW DC shows this season, you will know that I have struggled to get through the opening episodes of Batwoman‘s first season. Ruby Rose, as Kate Kane, has struggled a bit under the weight of leading her own show, her supporting cast has been less well cast than previous CW DC properties, and her show’s writing has been less than stellar. However, unburdened by all that, Rose really shines as a member of this talented ensemble.
Throughout she is mostly paired with Benoist’s Kara, and their easy chemistry, first on display during last season’s Elseworlds crossover, is an asset to the entire event. Their contrasting personal energies belay a deeper commonality, as strong woman with big mantles and bigger hearts, and they work well in both comedic and dramatic scenes, whether Kara is oogling a mean, nearly shirtless alt-universe version of Kate’s partner in crime Luke (in a nice cameo for Camrus Johnson, Batwoman regular) or facing off against Kevin Conroy’s toxic, cynical, Dark Knight Returns-esque version of her cousin Bruce. She earns her place on this team of heroes as the Paragon of Courage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC7JIyq0z64
Lex Luthor
John Cryer first debuted his version of Lex last year on Supergirl, and he immediately felt iconic in the role. His presence was felt so deeply that I found myself shocked to realize after the fact he only appeared in three episodes last year. Bringing his anarchic self-interested version of the character to an already overstuffed crossover event seemed risky, especially given his excellent death scene last season, but it really paid off well as just the sort of X-factor one needs to shake up the script just as things start to feel a bit too safe.
His dynamic with Kara and Kate is fun, and his side-quest to kill every version of Superman in the entire multiverse gives us a few fun scenes amidst the chaos and carnage of all of reality being slowly unwritten. His holding on to that page of the Book of Destiny in order to swap place’s with Earth-96’s Superman as all of reality was being erased felt like a classic Lex move and makes the upcoming battle on the edge of space and time that much more interesting.
Iris West-Allen
Candice Patton has had the opportunity to grow with her character of Iris over six seasons of The Flash. In someways, it feels like it was all leading up to this. She started out as the girl of Barry’s dreams who thought of him more as a brother (because…ugh…he kind of is) and who needed to be lied to and gaslit in order to “stay safe”. Since those dark days, the creatives behind the scenes have recognized what an incredible performer Patton is, and they have given her more and more of a chance to grow, as both Barry’s wife and partner and as a team leader and journalist.
With the multiverse on the line and the love of her life fated to die, Iris steps up in a big way, working with Lois and Clark of Earth-38 to search for the Paragon of Truth version of Superman before Lex can kill him, helping Lois take down Lex, recruiting newby (and maybe the future Atom) Ryan Choi to be the Paragon of Humanity, and bravely saying good bye to the love of her life as he goes off on what they both believe may be his last mission. She is an MVP of her own series and she gets a great opportunity to shine with the multiverse on the line.
On Legends of Tomorrow, Routh plays lovable, dopey genius Ray Palmer, aka the Atom. He’s a brilliant scientist who is comically unlucky in love and prone to bouts of silliness, but he also has a genuinely decent soul and a big heart. He’s a vet of the Arrowverse, and yet he also has a past as another DC hero, playing Superman in the 2006 film Superman Returns which is a direct sequel to the 1970’s Christopher Reeves’ series of films.
In this crossover, Routh gets to inhabit both of his iconic parts, and he does so effortlessly. As Ray, he provides much of the techno babble and comic relief of the first two hours. As Earth-96’s Superman, he breathes new life into his old character as we catch up with him sometime later in that character’s timeline, after the Joker has attacked The Daily Planet killing Lois Lane and all of his friends and coworkers (a reference to the 1990s comic book story Kingdom Come). This version of Superman is briefly turned evil by Lex so we can see a Superman (Routh) v. Superman (Earth-38’s version as played by Tyler Hoechlin) fight, but for the most part he embodies a grave sense of nobility and hope through tragedy which is very much consistent with the themes of this Crisis event.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVuUd6QS9EY
Wentworth Miller as Leonard A.I.
This is just a bit of silliness, but its just the right amount of silliness for an epic Arrowverse event. Miller, of course, stole every scene he was in as Leonard “Captain Cold” Snart, the campy, sneering master thief with a secret heart of gold to go along with his ice gun, when he debuted as a recurring baddie on The Flash. He later graduated to lead character on the first season of Legends of Tomorrow, before nobly sacrificing himself to save all of time. Since Legends is a series that hops through space and time, and sometimes dimensions, Miller has had the chance to pop back up on multiple occasions since then, and it would not have felt like an all hands on deck multiversal crossover without his presence.
As such, the creative team worked him in as the deliciously droll A.I. for the alt-universe version of the Waverider, usually the home of the Legends. Having his dulcet tones sarcastically remark upon the happenings of the ship as the plot shuttles ahead like a runaway train may be the best use of him yet.
Black Lightning
Cress Williams kills it every week in the under-appreciated Black Lightning series, which has always existed slightly outside the Arrowverse proper. With the entire multiverse on the line, it was exciting to see his incredible turn as Jefferson Pierce have a chance to take center stage, if only for a few scenes. This week, the Crisis event helped to inspire a terrific hour of Black Lightning, which tied directly into the Crisis far more than I expected, before dropping Jefferson right in the middle of all the chaos, where he helped Earth-1’s Team Flash shut down the Anti-Monitor’s antimatter generating machine. This machine was in the underground tunnel in Central City where last week’s teaser took place. We thought Nash Welles was breaking into the Monitor’s chamber, but it turns out he was breaking the Anti-Monitor out of his lair, inadvertently turning himself into the being Pariah and kick starting the Crisis.
Black Lightning was successful in helping contain the antimatter generating machine long enough for Earth-90’s Barry Allen to take the place of Earth-1’s Barry Allen, destroying the machine and saving the multiverse…or so we thought. Later on, Jefferson and Barry get a nice moment on the Waverider discussing the impacts their fathers have had on their heroism. I hope this is the first of many team-ups for these two.
Those are some of my favorite parts of the giant Crisis event. Will our team of Paragons (Barry, Kara, Kate, J’onn, Sara, Ryan), interloper Lex, and the spirit of Oliver Queen be enough to stop The Anti-Monitor and recreate reality? Will Mia traveling through time with New Team Arrow ever be explained? What will the new status quo of the Arrowverse be when all is said and done? January 14th, 2020 can’t get here fast enough.
The Crisis on Infinite Earths episodes of Supergirl, Batwoman, Arrow, The Flash, and Black Lightning can be streamed on The CW Network website or app.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp5ZfE07Z7Y
