What to take away from Crisis On Infinite Earths’ biggest Easter eggs
TV Features For Our Consideration
Tonight, Arrow goes back to the relative normalcy of what we can start calling the Post-Crisis Arrowverse, even though tonight’s episode is technically a backdoor pilot for the new spin-off about near-future Star City and its new Green Arrow. Before that, though, let’s take a look back at the most interesting Easter eggs we noticed during the Crisis On Infinite Earths crossover and try to unpack what—if anything—that big-screen cameo really means.
The Multiverse
There’s no better place to start than the beginning, and Crisis On Infinite Earths started with the reveal that pretty much every other live-action DC superhero show—and a movie or two—took place on their own distinct Earth within the Arrowverse’s multiverse. Earth-89 was the world of Tim Burton’s Batman (complete with a cameo from Robert Wuhl, who played reporter Alexander Knox in that movie); Earth-9 was the world of DC Universe’s Titans (the one universe where they can say “fuck”); and Earth-66 was the home of the ’60s Batman show (as noted by a cameo from Burt Ward, that reality’s Robin). Later episodes in the crossover revealed that Fox/Netflix’s Lucifer also existed in this multiverse, as did The CW’s Black Lightning.
Kingdom Come
When the heroes of the Arrowverse split up to try and assemble the team of Paragons that the Monitor believes will save the multiverse, their stops include a visit to a grim vision for a Wayne Manor and a similarly grim (yet still kind of sadly hopeful?) Daily Planet. At Wayne Manor, Batwoman meets a version of her cousin Bruce—played by Kevin Conroy from Batman: The Animated Series—who has succumbed to his darkest impulses and straight-up murdered all of his enemies, with the various battles leaving his body so badly damaged that he has to wear a metal exoskeleton. Over at the Planet, the tragic deaths of his loved ones has inspired Brandon Routh’s Superman to wear a black logo on his chest—both of these costume changes being direct references to the costumes worn by Batman and Superman in Mark Waid and Alex Ross’ excellent grim future Justice League tale Kingdom Come.
The death(s) of Superman
The moment Jon Cryer’s Lex Luthor gets involved in the events of Crisis On Infinite Earths, he does everything he can to ruin everything. That includes stealing The Book Of Destiny—a reality-altering tome from last year’s Elseworlds crossover—and using it to hop from universe to universe so he can kill as many Supermen as possible (including a visit to Tom Welling’s Smallville Earth). During one of these murder stops, we see news footage of Earth’s Lois Lane mourning the death of her Superman in a pose that is lifted straight out of DC’s iconic The Death Of Superman storyline.
Harbinger and Pariah
Speaking of things lifted from the comics: The Monitor and the Anti-Monitor don’t quite have the nonsensical fashion sense of their print counterparts, but their lackeys do: Both Lyla Michaels’ Harbinger suit and Nash Wells’ Pariah costume are surprisingly close to the comics for the Arrowverse—though TV Lyla got the benefit of some pants. Seeing Lyla as Harbinger is also a payoff to something that’s been baked into Arrow ever since she first showed up, which was long before we ever expected to see superpowers on that show (let alone multiverse-ending events).
The Legends
After missing out on Elseworlds (something that is periodically referenced throughout the last season of Legends Of Tomorrow and Crisis On Infinite Earths), Sara Lance and the Legends had a lot to do this time around, which means they spent a lot of time setting up or referencing interesting stuff. For starters, there are some references to a member of the team named Behrad who never physically appears. As Legends viewers know, Behrad is the brother of team member Zari Tomaz and is supposed to be dead—or at least he was, up until the Legends once again altered history. In the current timeline, Zari never joined the Legends and (as far as anyone remembers) Behrad has been there the whole time. Crisis, evidently, has not changed that. Also, on one of the alternate Earths, the heroes met a version of Legends’ Mick Rory who retired from saving time and just hung out on the Waverider all day with its alternate Earth AI, a digital recreation of Wentworth Miller’s Leonard Snart (who doesn’t seem to get to live on most Earths). Finally, the big blue guy the surviving heroes had to fight in Crisis’ final episode? If you don’t know Beebo, you don’t get to find out who he is here. Go watch Legends.
Meet the new Atom
Crisis On Infinite Earths introduced Ryan Choi, a character known to comic readers as the guy who succeeds Ray Palmer as the new Atom. That in itself isn’t an Easter egg, but the character generated a few of them. For starters, he has a daughter named Simone in his CW appearance, which is presumably a nod to the character’s co-creator, Gail Simone. Also, when discussing the plan to use Ray Palmer’s Atom tech to shrink the Anti-Monitor into irrelevance, Choi suggests that they call this extremely tiny plane of reality the “Microverse.” Ray likes the name, but he says they might run into some copyright issues—because “the Microverse” was the original name of the place Marvel’s Ant-Man goes to when he becomes impossibly small, as seen in the Ant-Man movies. But wait! It goes deeper than that: Marvel’s Microverse was largely defined in a tie-in comic with the Micronauts toy line, but Marvel doesn’t have the Micronauts license anymore, so when it came time to make the Ant-Man movies Marvel renamed it “the Quantum Realm.” So yeah, there might be some copyright issues.
Featuring Ezra Miller as another Flash
Less an Easter egg than a shockingly big cameo, this one nonetheless has some stuff that needs to be unpacked. After running into the Speed Force (basically another plane of reality that can be accessed by really fast people) to try and find his friends, Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen from The Flash bumps into… Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen, from Justice League and that Flash movie that’s never going to happen. The implication seems to be that the DC movies exist somewhere in The CW’s multiverse, but this scene took place after the multiverse had been destroyed. That means our Barry and that Barry were only able to meet each other because of their connection to the Speed Force, so the DC movies must exist in a separate multiverse that is connected to the CW multiverse by the Speed Force. That’s cool, but it’s not quite as huge as the extremely distant possibility of, say, seeing Ruby Rose’s Batwoman beat up Jared Leto’s Joker. We’re not saying it can’t happen, but one of them would have to get carried to the other universe by their Flash.
The newer, brighter multiverse
The Crisis On Infinite Earths comic ended with the multiverse being destroyed, with only a single reality left. The TV version actually rebooted the whole multiverse, replacing Earth-1 with a slightly better Earth-Prime that is shared by all of the CW shows. In addition to the recreation of the realities that were wiped out (we don’t see Earth-89 or 66 again, but we can assume they’re back), we also now know that DC Universe’s Titans, Swamp Thing, and Doom Patrol all took place in their own separate universes—or at least they do now, Post-Crisis. Also, Brandon Routh’s Superman has been returned to his world, and as seen in a montage of the new multiverse (which even includes the Green Lantern Corps), his moody Kingdom Come suit has been replaced with his classic Superman Returns suit (implying that the bad things that happened in his world have been reversed).
Meet Sara Diggle… again
Relatively early on in Arrow’s run, lovable sidekick John Diggle and his wife, Lyla “Harbinger” Michaels, had a daughter. They named her Sara, after future Legends captain Sara Lance, who had recently been killed (she got better). Shortly after that, Barry tried to change history on The Flash, creating the bad Flashpoint reality and then causing more changes when he went back again and tried to fix that. One of those changes was that baby Sara Diggle was erased from reality and replaced with a boy, John Diggle Jr., who grew up to be a bad guy in Arrow’s future timeline. After the universe was rebooted, Crisis made a point to show us that John, Lyla, John Jr., and Sara now all existed as one happy family—a change that should have big implications for Arrow’s future timeline and its upcoming future-set spin-off.
“Make that out to Marv, M-A-R-V.”
It took a very long time, but the Arrowverse finally gave a distracting Stan Lee-style cameo to Marv Wolfman, one of the comic book creators whose work has been invaluable to the continued success of The CW’s superhero shows. In case the heavy-handedness of the appearance wasn’t enough of a tip-off (and we say that with nothing but appreciation for Wolfman), he’s the guy who appeared early in the final hour of the crossover, asking Barry and Kara for an autograph made out to “Marv.” They were more concerned about the reveal that they now lived on the same Earth, but they should’ve been more excited to meet the guy who co-created the Teen Titans and Deathstroke and—oh yeah—wrote a little comic book crossover called Crisis On Infinite Earths. There was even a subsequent reference to Pérez Pier, named after Crisis artist George Pérez!
Who needs the Justice League when you’ve got…
Crisis ended with the Flash, Supergirl, and the rest of the surviving heroes mourning the death of Oliver Queen at the big abandoned warehouse that the good guys used as a home base in the Invasion crossover a few years ago. Then, Barry presented everyone with a gift: abig table, surrounded by logo-emblazoned chairs for all of the heroes (including the dearly departed Green Arrow). We all know what to expect when a group of DC heroes decides to team up, but this was no Justice League. No, as teased by a specific musical cue and the empty cage of an alien monkey named Gleek, this was supposed to be the birth of none other than the Super Friends.
It was the perfect kind of silly gag for such an enormous crossover to go out on, and it speaks to the inherent positivity that the CW shows possess when they’re at their best. They may never call themselves the Super Friends, but we’ll always have Barry and Kara’s song.
177 Comments
So, the Reverse Flash wasn’t in TV Crisis at all, was he? That whole “See you at our next crisis.” was ultimately very misleading, wasn’t it?
Still plenty of “Crisis” titles that they haven’t gotten to.
Potential varieties of crisis to be explored in the future:Infinite
Time
Constitutional
Of Confidence
PR
You forgot ‘Identity’….oh, wait no, you probably didn’t…. 🙂
Careful, they might run into an Identity Crisis.
Guggenheim says that when Nora changed the timeline and moved the date of the Crisis up, she also changed Reverse-Flash’s involvement in it.
But if the Speed Force exits as another form of the multiverse that allows for movie Flash, perhaps Reverse Flash can also have survived through being in the Speed Force.
How bonkers is it that my first thought was that it might have been an actor availability issue?
Freakin Tom Cavenaugh, man.
Hey maybe they wanted to bring back Matt Letscher and couldnt get him.
It’s amazing how some actors can play such different characters that one’s initial feeling can be “oh, guess they couldn’t get them in” while literally watching that actor on screen. I had the same kind of moments at times while watching Orphan Black, and also for the evil vampire doppelganger of the lead of The Vampire Diaries (a show that started out incredibly bad and eventually returned to being such, but for a while really hit a groove that I think inspires The CW’s ambitions to this day).
It was misleading, yes. Really don’t understand why either, because without him actually being behind it all it was a pointless line.
According to the producers, it’s the same reason they didn’t follow up on the Psycho Pirate teaser in Elseworlds last year. When the time came to break the story, they found it going in a different direction and it would’ve just gotten in the way to try to be beholden to those past teases.And really, the fact that the Crisis happened 5 years earlier than teased due to the timeline changes was the perfect excuse to have it happen differently.
Apparently, the person who wrote that script wasn’t apart of writing Crisis. And apparently, RF’s scene was cut for time so they could include the Ezra cameo.
Gonna need receipts for that.
Sure, but plans change. Doesn’t seem like that big a deal to me.
“Our next Crisis” not “the next Crisis”?
“I threw my back out from practising maniacal laughter”
Loved that Wolfman got a cameo. I’m really enjoying the fallout taking place in all of the shows so far from this. It’s good to see it’s going to have real, lasting impacts and not just be hand waved away.
Well, except for Black Lightning since that show doesn’t film in Vancouver.
“Gambi, I was in another dimension, and all the earths were destroyed, and then we all came back in one earth.”“That’s cool, don’t mention it ever again.”
Also “Hey, metas exist outside Freeland, and there’s Supergirl, Flash, and Superman out there. If only we had a way to contact them or someone who knew them personally…”“Uh, yea. About that….”
“Easter eggs” are just a vehicle for nerds to brag that they like something deeper and better than other people. Shows and movies are not puzzles to be solved.
Wolfman Cameo was great, Superfriend ending was also great as who knows if we ever get any of the comic book tv shows without the Super Friends success.I really hope the next few crossovers are more one on one team ups. Leading to Kara and Batwoman being hunted by President Luthor as a take on Public Enemies. We can get Nightwing and Krypto then! 😉
Public Enemies would be fun; I’m hoping they do a big crossover version of Tower of Babel, where Kate makes a bunch of plans to dismantle the other superheroes just in case and someone steals them.
Oh for sure they can do Tower of Babel, just have to sow the seeds of mistrust with everyone and Kate feeling that the Super Power Hero’s under control would be too much for anyone to handle. Maybe have someone control Kara vs. her in a earlier season to lead to her making the plans.
I always wished Ollie would have gotten that storyline, but it could work for Kate too.
where Kate makes a bunch of plans to dismantle the other superheroes
Kate doesn’t seem to be the type to have contingency plans for her contingency plans. Kate isn’t the female Bruce Wayne.
I think that it would be better if it came out that Oliver had made those plans (as he totally would) and that they were left behind in some hidden cache that he didn’t tell anyone about (as he totally would).
Titans already has Krypto, so I don’t know that they’d bring him over.
yeah, I figured as much but I can dream!
Streaky!Or Beppo!
I think having Supergirl and Krypto in the same scene at the same time would cause an adorableness overload no device with a screen could withstand.
That would be awesome!
Love that Wolfman got the autograph of the two major characters he killed off in CoIE
Thats awesome! I’m so happy he has been getting some love from DC in main stream stuff. His and Perez’s story about saving the Titans is so great, my brother collected both X-Men and the New Teen titans back then.
I’d love it if Nightwing popped up early next season to chat with Kate about her picking up the mantle.It won’t happen, but it’d be nice.
Yeah I know it won’t happen but god would that be awesome.
Frankly, I hope for more appearances of the main actors on all shows. Barry and Kara have perhaps the best chemistry of all the stars as they have the most time in with each other, and would love to see the Flash help Supergirl and Vise Versa.
A take on Public Enemies is right up there when it comes to crossovers isn’t it? Though if they’ve got to fit it into a two part show maybe cheat and have it be a Mxyzptlk thing where he shifts reality around. Dramatic reveal by jumbotron before the first ad break and we’re off to the races. Oh, and as much as I’d love to see Krypto meet Kara I believe that breeches industry guidelines for allowed cuteness so sadly it might never happen. Go with Ace instead, so often overlooked and a big German Shep with attitude seems like the sort of style accessory Kate would go for 😉
It’s funny Ace has been a Shepard for the longest but I think they also made him a Great Dane in the last 20+ Years. But yes a big sweet Bat dog would be great!
So, honestly, I think the biggest thing is that even with the creation of Earth-Prime, that’s not going to be the most lasting consequence — given the events of both Supergirl and Batwoman this week.*** SPOILERS FOR BOTH ***Apparently when the worlds merged, some of the doppelgangers are mixed in. So we’ve got good-Beth on Batwoman, and likely bad-Winn on Supergirl. Remains to be seen what’s going to happen on Legends (doesn’t really need anything) or Flash (maybe Gypsy is back, or the Council of Wells are all on Prime, etc.)…… as well as our heroes think the Multiverse is gone! They left it open (“… unless it operates on a heretofore unknown vibrational wavelength…”) but unless we need Stargirl on Earth-Prime, this should be it for cross-overs between multiversal worlds for a while.
There’s a whole lot of people they could bring back of Flash. Gypsy, Jessie Quick, Earth 2 Harrion Wells, Ronny. They could also introduce Killer Frost as an actual separate person, although I like the concept of two people sharing a single body.
Jessie Quick in particular seemed like she had more storyline possibilities, though the actress becoming a regular on God Friended Me (where her speedster powers hardly ever come up) I guess precluded that
I liked Violett Beane as Jesse too. I’m not sure if they removed her because she got cast on God Friended Me, or what. Certainly being a regular cast member on that show is better for her career. But they could probably manage to get her back for some guest shots if they wanted.
There is an uncoming Flash episode called “Grodd Friended Me” which makes me think her return is likely.
That is awesome
I wouldn’t mind if they brought back Ronny. I feel like they never really knew what to do with Firestorm. Or at least, they didn’t know what to do with him on their limited budget. Maybe they could sneak him back in and spend more of special effects now.
I wanna say Harry definitely made it. it would feel like an oversight if Harry and Jesse disappeared since they were so integral to the core cast.
He’s going to be the new Toyman!
Apparently Quentin Lance is alive again on Arrow as well? As is Moira.Also, was that John Jr. at the end or Conor Hawke? I figured JJ was gone and replaced by Sara, but i also thought John Jr was still supposed to be on the Arrow spinoff in the future.
The promotional pics for Arrow’s finale seemingly brings back tons of long-dead characters. It’s gonna be a blast.
I was gonna give Batwoman one more shot to keep me interested – didn’t care much for the kludgy way they heavy-handed her sexuality storyline as well as most of the interactions (if you’re standing right next to Evil Beth just fucking punch her, don’t let her do stuff) but then they go and do Good Beth. That actress is just the best and I might have to (sigh) watch next week as well.
Diggle naming his daughter after Sara is just one reason he is the bestWait was Lyla wearing a pant-less version of the Harbinger costume an option?I loved Marv Wolfman telling Barry & Kara he loves it when they team up. Me too, Marv Wolfman, me too (they need to start doing the annual Flash-Supergirl spring crossovers again)
Harbinger originally looked like this:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbinger_(DC_Comics)So yeah, it could have been an armored bathing suit, the modernized take on it was a really cool look, though.
I am guessing filming the crossover in Vancouver would have made that Harbinger costume somewhat impractical & definitely uncomfortable
Wasn’t that one of the reasons they finally gave Supergirl pants?
It was for sure one of the reasons that Melissa Benoist wanted them
It’s not that cold here, especially the time of year they film those shows. It’s only really cold like, right about now.
its a shame, too. Audrey Marie Anderson has amazing legs.
I wonder how much planning went into using an obscure character like Harbinger as Diggle’s wife. She first appeared in Season 1 of Arrow, a year before Barry Allen appeared on Arrow. Did they always have the idea of a Flash show in the back of their mind (and long-shot of doing a Crisis of some sort) when they introduced Lyla? They could have used any character, it’s either best-case long-term planning or super happy accident.
I feel like the original choice was a coy little reference for comic book fans, mostly just so that they had a name for this character they were planning to have; there’s no chance they had it planned from the start.Which is the same thing I’ve always thought for how the Infinite Earths ‘foreshadowing’ in the future newspaper in the Flash. Originally just a side reference because they needed to fill space on that paper, they eventually got so successful and long-running that they decided to pull that trigger.
That’s what I kind of assumed, they couldn’t have thought they’d actually one day feature The Monitor on such “grounded” shows that basically used the Christopher Nolan playbook during those first 2 seasons of Arrow. Still, of all the characters, Diggle’s wife could have been so many others, I didn’t even realize she was Harbinger until last season.
Many things showed up in Arrow before other shows were ever hinted at by the CW, so I guess there was a somewhat grand plan for the future shows…
I reject your criticism of the Monitors costume design. That shit is vintage George Perez operating the height of his Perez-iness.
I don’t see where you disagree with the writer.
The Perez Monitor costumes were perfect for comics. The tv costumes were terrible for live action.
Monitors costume looked great.
The Ezra Miller super-cameo was probably the fan service highlight of the crossover. I haven’t seen Justice League so I was unaware of his take on the character, which seems very… not Barry. But it did have some great lines from him.
Oh, Miller’s Barry Allen is definitely more Wally West than Barry Allen.
He’s also more Peter Parker than either character…
Yeah he seemed like that to me too. Only moreso. At least compared to the Mark Waid Wally, who I’m most familiar with and who was mellowed out somewhat by his relationship with Linda.
I have to confess this is one thing I never understood about that oft-repeated statement: Wally West was never like that, at least not in the comics. I never watched the JL cartoons, did they write him that way in that? Miller’s Barry is far more like Bart Allen.
Flash in the DCAU Justice League show was the comic relief, thus often made the most smartass comments.
I’m familiar with that aspect, but that’s not what I get from Miller’s Barry at all. He’s more awkward than smartass, like an ADHD kid(which is apt given that he must be processing things faster than everyone else). He definitely feels more like Bart than Wally to me. Wally is more like an everyman, Bart is the eccentric weirdo.
It’s funny to think of Gustin’s Barry as being the template for the character when the original Barry was a block of wood and I think about ten years older than Arrowverse Barry
Gustin’s Barry was pretty blatantly the Geoff Johns Barry Allen (who in turn was basically just Barry with Wally’s far more likable personality)
To be honest, a lot of those Silver Age characters didn’t have a ton of personality. A lot of them were really written in the same voice, at least initially, and I think Barry grew out of it less than some of the others.
Yeah Gustin’s Barry is Barry Allen if Barry Allen was actually Spider-man. OG Barry was completely forgettable.
It’s blatantly obvious that the Ezra Miller cameo was done last second (because it actually was), but it was still a beautiful little moment. Because of course if any even brief link between the tv and movie universe could happen, it HAS to be the Flash. The fact that they immediately love each other’s outfits was adorable. It’s also a sweet moment for how the CW universe has been so creatively successful but will never get a billion dollar movie franchise, whereas much of the DC movie output has struggled for so long despite being far more well known than CW. It’s a great way to briefly elevate both franchises.
All we need now is for Zan and Jayna to be added in.
That means our Barry and that Barry were only able to meet each other because of their connection to the Speed Force, so the DC movies must exist in a separate multiverse that is connected to the CW multiverse by the Speed Force.That seems needlessly convoluted. Maybe Ezra Miller was just in the Speed Force when his universe was destroyed?By definition, I don’t know if there can be such thing as a “separate multiverse.”
It’s comic book world, of course there can. There’s megaverse and then there’s an omniverse, which includes a bunch of different multiverses, and includes our reality…
The term “multiverse” is taxonomic anyway; matter and energy used to regularly travel between universes on the CW shows, which means it’s all technically one universe (and one timeline; that’s what really gives away the game.)If there’s any way at all for matter and energy to cross over with this “new” multiverse (which there almost certainly will be, eventually,) or with this theoretical “totally separate because movies” multiverse, then it’s still just one universe. Welcome to the double-edged sword that is taxonomy: it’s useful until it isn’t, and the more you lean on it as a substitute for the more-complicated truth, the more confused you’ll end up getting on the margins.
Been there…as you say, it’s useful until it isn’t.
There wasn’t “one timeline” though. When they did Flashpoint and so much changed afterwards, Earth-2 Wells showed up and was just as confused by the changes as Barry. Only Earth-1 had been changed. It didn’t spread to the other Earths.
In this case, all the Earths were destroyed and then recreated at the dawn of time, so everything was effected.
I mean the comics has the local multiverse (The Orrery of Worlds), the Dark Multiverse, and then all the other stuff thanks to Convergence.
Fair enough – this is where I cop to being a casual DC fan, at best.
The scene was shot in anamorphic widescreen. IMO in the Flash movie we will see the scene from Ezra’s perspective.
Think of it as being a multiverse but there are different planes of existence and each plane has a multiverse. You have the comics, the tv shows, the new movies and animated stuff. Normally each multiverse is completely walled off with…I don’t know…magic? It doesn’t matter, the point is a comic book character can’t directly cross to the CW or whatever.(The movie multiverse appears to encompass the Nolan movies and every DC movie since Man of Steel)The Miller cameo was partly because the CW multiverse was extremely damaged and also because The Flash is the one character in any universe with the ability to do things beyond everyone else. It was a one time deal. The CW realities collapsing into one world don’t impact the movies because they’re on different planes of reality.
Perhaps the Bleed?
I tend to agree. I think the even bigger possibility in terms of going against expectations is that Ezra Flash might very well be dead and not have been in the Speed Force at the time his world died. But because of the wonkiness of the Speed Force this is a version of him that was in it at some time ever….past or future.
I think the whole Ezra Miller cameo is likely a jumping off point for a soft reboot to the DCEU.Granted it wouldn’t be the strangest way DC lore has been retconned. That would be the time Superboy Prime punched reality so hard Jason Todd came back to life (https://images.app.goo.gl/zcuNjBMvtrKjLyvH9).
I think the whole Ezra Miller cameo is likely a jumping off point for a soft reboot to the DCEU.That seems like a lot of heavy lifting to do for the benefit of a tiny fraction of the people seeing the film (assuming the film is successful).
Also, DC/WB aren’t even attempting to tie their movies together anymore. Even the next Suicide Squad has been described as a soft-reboot with many of the same actors.
I’ve read some takes on that too, like Ezra Miller Flash will be the only one to realize that Batman is suddenly like 15 years younger, and Superman no longer has a mustache.Also, this was the most I’ve liked that version of the Flash. Never really noticed that they never called him “Flash” at all in the movies. And also his remarking that Barry’s suit looked “so breathable…” was maybe my favorite part of the whole thing.
I wouldn’t read too much into it. It was a fun cameo and doubled as a message that Warner Brothers really loves the Ezra Miller flash (for some inexplicable reason). It’s far easier for the movies to just do what they’re currently doing, namely just making movies with no tight connection to each other.
The reason is he is a key player in 2 of their top franchises . . .
I’d love to see the Arrowverse characters pop up in a movie now. I doubt it’ll happen though.
Usually, scheduling is the big issue. The movies and TV shows do not shoot at the same time or anywhere near each other, and TV shows are much more time intensive than movies, so it would be hard to do and have them memorize lines and be good even in a cameo on a movie. It is probably “easier” logistically to get the movie versions on TV since movies take way less time to shoot and you may get an actor when he has nothing going on to do a cameo..but that is usually hard due to paying them and bringing them to Vancover to do it.
Yeah, not gonna happen. Personally I’m rooting for the almost as unlikely Legends / Doom Patrol crossover.
Oh man, I am getting chills from just reading the first paragraphs. As I’ve only watched the first 2 seasons of Arrow and half of the 1st season of Legends, can anyone tell me how best to watch Crisis? With the caveat that I really don’t have the time to catch up on eeeverything.
If you don’t have time to watch everything, might as well just watch the best parts, aka: the crossovers.Invasion!Crisis on Earth-XElseworldsCrisis on Infinite Earths
Don’t forget about World’s Finest
The big crossovers are the main thing. Invasion introduces Supergirl to Flash, Green Arrow, and the Legends. Earth-X introduces Supergirl’s sister to the other worlds and expands on their interactions. Elseworlds introduces the Monitor and the Book of Destiny, which play major parts in COIE. There was also a Flash/Supergirl musical crossover where the Arrowverse gang met J’onn.There are a few things to note though.- The crossovers continue storylines and setup new ones for the Arrowverse shows. For example, Invasion has Barry reveal that he changed the timeline in Flashpoint (the season premiere) to everyone, which causes a lot of friction. Meanwhile, the Arrow part of the crossover was Arrow’s 100th episode, so most of it is spent revisiting previous episodes. Earth-X starts out with Barry’s wedding, introduces a new character that will be important in that season finale and Season 5, as well as one of the main characters leaving the show. The current seasons of Flash and Arrow were all about setting up COIE, which includes Nash Wells and Lyla becoming Pariah and Harbinger respectively. – COIE is the first of the crossovers to significantly involve Supergirl’s cast. Invasion only involves Supergirl herself. Earth-X just Kara and Alex. Elseworlds has J’onn and the DEO appear, but soon enough the setting moves back to Flash/Arrow’s Earth. J’onn actually meets Flash and company in a musical crossover episode on The Flash. Earth-X actually features alternate versions of the Supergirl cast who don’t otherwise appear in the crossovers at all, even in COIE.- Legends changes its roster every season, though to be fair, that only really affects Invasion and Earth-X, since the Legends sit out Elseworlds completely and only the ones originally introduced in Flash and Arrow get significant screentime in COIE. But yea, the crossovers aren’t going to tell you who the second blonde woman is on the Waverider in COIE Part 5.- Tom Cavanugh plays a different version of Wells each season, and thus, appears as different characters in every crossover.
Sorry to be that annoying guy when you’ve put together such a helpful list and piece of info but Supergirl and Flash meet in an episode of Supergirl prior to Invasion, “Worlds Finest”I don’t know if it’s necessarily that useful to watch (they meet, they become friends!). However if someone wanted to blitz through by watching the big crossovers I thought it might avoid confusion to how those two new each other and no-one else knows Supergirl but does know Barry..“Arrow vs. Flash”, “The Brave and the Bold” along with “Legends of Yesterday” might be helpful too. They’re less vital crossovers (first two just being Arrow and Flash and the third is a two parter with most of the cast from Arrow and Flash) but might provide a bit of context to who a lot of important people are. (Plus I feel like part of the joy of the crossovers is familiarity with *these* versions of the superheroes)
“Arrow vs. Flash”, “The Brave and the Bold” along with “Legends of Yesterday” might be helpful tooLegends of Yesterday was actually the 2nd part of that crossover, Legends of Today was the title for the first part
I watched only a bit more than you of the Arrowverse (also watched the first season or two of The Flash, otherwise similarly just 2 seasons of Arrow and half of the 1st of Legends), but then have now watched all of the crossover episodes (including the few one-off crossovers or related ones) as listed on a wiki or two. Didn’t watch anything inbetween, and didn’t really feel the lack; if anything it really added to the heightened, comic-book fun of it all to have year-long timejumps generally between seeing characters, and since the shows know not everyone is watching every show they tend to kindof summarize the relevant intervening stories. So you get the most concentrated comic book fun of it all while also condensing the character and plot developments into a hell of a lot less than their respective 20+ episode seasons.
The implication seems to be that the DC movies exist somewhere in The CW’s multiverse, but this scene took place after the multiverse had been destroyed. That means our Barry and that Barry were only able to meet each other because of their connection to the Speed Force, so the DC movies must exist in a separate multiverse that is connected to the CW multiverse by the Speed Force. The implication to me was that the Speed Force has always existed outside of time and space. Meeting Ezra’s Barry in the Speed Force doesn’t mean that he escaped the destruction of the multiverse; it means that at some point he has entered the Speed Force and Grant’s Barry somehow found him.What’s more confusing is that he met Ezra’s Flash Barry in an episode about Barry revisiting memories.What to take away from I think we should take away that crossovers are now (and really have always been) as simple as Cisco pressing a button on the little doo-dad and boom, he’s visiting the Shaquille O’Steel Earth. So ScreenRant and all those other websites can knock off the “Last Night’s Episode Made [Show/Move] Arrowverse Canon” headlines unless they’re actually shown to exist on the same Earth.
and boom, he’s visiting the Shaquille O’Steel Earth Well now I’m dissapointed that this cameo wasn’t included.
I guess Shaq was too busy filming those weird car insurance commercials.
I can’t think of a better example of how bankrupt the concept of “canon” is than some hyperactive gibberish-essay site like Screenrant trying to spin “canon” out of TW/DC’s doomed, but ultimately charming, repeat attempts to make everything that ever happened in every comic book story they own, and every one of those stories’ adaptations in other media, fit together somehow.
The only thing that sucks is I have no way to watch the current season of Legends.
Also if Routh really is leaving then the only thing I’d watch it for would be Mick:(
There’s a lot of ways to watch anything you want. You just have to find them. 🙂
The CW app doesn’t require a login where I am.
The webpage doesn’t either but it doesn’t have all the episodes from this season.
This season hasn’t started yet. They usually show up the day after they air, so you can keep up week by week. I tend to use it within a day or two so I can keep up with the conversations on here. I’ve never tried to go back and binge a whole season.
Huh that’s weird…I had assumed it started in the fall like usual, plus the CoIE episodes made it seem like stuff had happened that I missed.
I binge whole seasons because none of the people I work with seem to watch superhero/sci fi shows at all…or comedy really. The young nerds/geeks these days are really boring apparently.
The CW website has the most recent five episodes for all their shows. Legends just haven’t started yet. I believe the same is true for the phone and Roku app. The CW shows I watch, I watch on one of the three each week. New episodes usually show up sometime after 1am (EST)
There are legal ways to do so once it starts airing, or of course you could always sail over to, say, a semi-enclosed body of water frequented by brigands.
Sara didn’t have a logo on her chair.
Yes, she did. She has the Nightwing-esque bird logo.
Rewatched it. You’re right. Thank you.
It’s a shame this week’s Supergirl spent so much time insisting the multiverse no longer exists. I could have done without the mental gymnastics required to reconcile that with what actually happened.
I saw an interview on a site with the showrunner of the crisis who basically explained they “had” to bring back the multiverse in the actual crisis because their bosses already have new shows coming and they did not want the show to imply they are killing those shows. However, in the CW “Arrowverse” I think it is implied that any “alternate earths” are now a thing in the past for them storywise
“Crisis On Infinite Earths started with the reveal that pretty much every other live-action DC superhero show—and a movie or two—took place on their own distinct Earth within the Arrowverse’s multiverse.”Just to note, the tie-in comic also featured the Fleischer Superman and the New 52 Justice League, though it’s canonicity is debated due to Wally dying in the comic but no mention is made in the show.
“his moody Kingdom Come suit has been replaced with his classic Superman Returns suit (implying that the bad things that happened in his world have been reversed).”Actually, no. It was the same Kingdom Come suit, just with the black parts filled in with yellow instead. The crew wanted to use the Returns suit to begin with, but WB said no.
“No” does seem to be WB’s favorite word.
They were the ones who offered up the Miller cameo which is pretty remarkable for multiple reasons.
Honest question.
Is there someone, like a lawyer or producer at DC who has just been there for 30 years making sure that their licenses can constantly cross-over with one another? Like is their ability to do this the exception to the rule?
I don’t even watch any of their current shows, but the ability for (TV) DC to keep shit together the way it seems kind of impressive.
I would think if anything there’s someone doing the opposite. WB is famous for forbidding certain characters to make appearances in TV shows at the same time as they are appearing in a movie (see: Batman, Wonder Woman, Suicide Squad, etc.)Otherwise, they all live in the same corporate family. Frankly it’s dumb that they’re not crossing over all the time.
Shortly after Justice League Unlimited, Aquaman and his related characters were forbidden because the WB was trying to Smallville the character. And Batman was the only member of the Batfamily allowed to appear because Kids WB was doing the Batman. Gail Simone’s episode, Double Date, featured Batgirl being sidelined after an injury and recruiting Black Canary and Huntress to help her close a case. The producers also wanted to use Blue Beetle and the Phantom Stranger and a few other characters and they were off-limits.DC and WB have some seriously weird rules.
I find the fact that WB/DC has kept Blue Beetle off-limits for so long, only for the most notable things they’ve done with him during that time is make him a recurring character on Brave and the Bold and appear on one episode in the last season of Smallville hilarious and depressing. Development hell is funny that way.
This was the Ted Kord version. Apparently, Arrow wanted to use Ted Kord as well, DC said no, so he became the Atom instead.
Blue Beetle was the single most important character in the second season of Young Justice, and returns in a smaller role in season 3.
Yeah, I remember hearing Timm/Dini talk about not being able to use Joker or most Batman villains.
I don’t even watch any of their current shows, but the ability for (TV) DC to keep shit together the way it seems kind of impressive.There is probably a Big Board and a Mark Gruenwald-type compiling it. Gruenwald would’ve loved trying to keep Arrowverse continuity together.
There’s been numerous instances of WB keeping characters from other shows. – Most of Batman’s villains were banned from Superfriends due to being used in his various starring shows, with Scarecrow and Riddler being the exceptions. Joker would eventually be allowed in the mid-80’s once Batman’s solo series had all ended.- Batman: The Animated Series wanted to use Black Canary in an episode, but Fox said no the first try and the second try she was caught up in rights issues with a supposed upcoming movie.- Superman: The Animated Series wanted to use Barry Allen, Hal Jordan, and Captain Marvel, but the latter had rights issues and the former two were dead at the time in the comics, so their replacements were used.- Wonder Woman had a TON of legal issues with her. Most notably, she could not be merely a guest star, she could only appear if she was a main character. Thus, she wasn’t allowed on Superman: TAS and was the only Leaguer that didn’t appear in the crossover with Static Shock. – Justice League Unlimited could only get Captain Marvel for a single episode and were denied the use of both the Ted Kord and Jaime Reyes Blue Beetles. Furthermore, they were denied the use of all Aquaman and Batman characters (except Bats himself) in the later seasons due to other shows. Aquaman was for a proposed spnioff of Smallville, the Batman characters were because of Teen Titans and The Batman.- Donna Troy was supposed to be in Teen Titans, but were denied because she would be a guest star, not a main character. She did appear in the comics based on the show.- The Batman couldn’t use Ra’s Al Ghul or Scarecrow due to Batman Begins, nor were they allowed to use Harvey Dent/Two-Face because of The Dark Knight. Additionally, they weren’t allowed to use Robin until after Teen Titans was cancelled.- Young Justice wasn’t allowed to use either Donna Troy or Cassie Sandmark in Season 1, but they eventually were granted being allowed to use Cassie in Season 2. – Arrow had to kill off Deadshot, Waller, and Harley Quinn due to the then-upcoming Suicide Squad movie. – Superman wasn’t allowed to be seen in Supergirl due to Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman. When those movies were done, Superman was allowed to appear for Season 2, but then banned again once Justice League began its advertising cycle. Now that there’s no more Superman movies being planned, they’re allowing a spinoff show.
I feel like lately D.C. has gotten better at this stuff, although maybe that’s just wishful thinking? But lampshading the different ongoing versions with Crisis, combined with the recent plethora of ‘duplicate’ or overlapping characters (ex. Batman in Crisis and Batwoman in general in the CW, while a different cast of bats tell a very different Batman tale in Titans, and Batman and Robin also appear in Harley Quinn).
Not only does Marv Wolfman have a cameo, he asks for the autographs of the two superheroes he originally killed off in the Crisis.
They said they ran out of time, but it would have been funny to have Psycho Pirate thrown in as well. Particularly if Psycho Pirate inexplicably recognized Marv Wolfman as being the original destroyer of worlds.
So, it seems, just like what happened after DC’s original Crisis, the multiverse is folded into one single universe. Except, eventually, it is shown to not really be the case. The problem with the comics is of course that no fan will ever let their favorite superheroes go. Even the original Supergirl popped up as sort of a ghost or spirit just a couple of years after the Crisis.
The last episode of Crisis on Infinite Earths basically confirmed that the multiverse still exists. It seems like because their Earths were folded together, the CW characters are just assuming that they’re the only universe left. Since The Flash doesn’t come back until February, I guess we have to wait until then to see if Cisco will bother to look for other Earths.
The dramatic secret Barry keeps from the team for the back half of the season will be the former existence of the multiverse.
I think the conceit is now that the multiverse exists, but the Earth-Prime people don’t know that.
This was my read, as well. Even in death, Ollie is a CW protagonist: keeping necessary information from his friends.
I think the opening notes of Superfriends was the most exciting easter egg. I got tingles. Maybe because i grew up on that show, but i grinning like a little kid on christmas morning. (All it need was to end with the voice-over guy from SuperFriends. “Meanwhile at the Hall of Justice…”)
They could’ve also cut to Lex in a secret fortress in a swamp…
Those people in the silly costumes look dumb standing there.
That’s actually my biggest problem with the crossovers. Like, Arrow looks fine just doing Arrow things, and Flash looks cool by himself, or with a few of their various team members. but when you get a dozen or so of them together in the crossovers, that’s when the TV show wardrobe budget really starts to show, and it really does look like really good cosplay instead of an actual major network TV show. Having that many just-OK costumes together really stretches the illusion.
I said back in 2017 that it would be a shameful missed opportunity if there were never any Gustin-Miller “Flash of Two Worlds!” moment in the now defunct Justice League movie series. If nothing else can be said for those actors and how they play that character, they’d at least convince as different versions of the same guy, and if the movies go that route, that’s where the whole “multiverse” idea started, a fun little story about a cheerful dude meeting the cheerful inspiration for his own name.I’m glad they squeezed it in somehow. It’s also probably for the best for WB’s movie franchise if it lets any of its own alternate-reality stories unfold free of baggage, since the lived-in feeling of that concept is one of the strengths of DC’s contemporary fictional world. (I’m guessing the core reason here is that the endlessly delayed Flash movie is supposedly yet another grim “Flashpoint” adaptation, which I think is a terrible idea for that character’s feature debut, but whatever.)I’ll be honest: I can’t stand most of these shows, mainly because of the writing. I did enjoy the handful of Supergirl episodes I saw early on, because they leaned hard into the show’s inescapably silly premise without trying for a brand of sarcastic wit it could never support, and because of Benoist’s talent and charisma. She’s the sort of casting choice I thought shows like these wouldn’t make: more right for the character than the market.But if this whole deal, however it worked on TV, led into the Super Friends instead of the Justice League—led to Barry Allen and Supergirl hanging out together in perpetuity instead of dying tragically, even temporarily—it suggests WB/DC’s TV team is correcting course to be more like those Supergirl episodes I saw than anything else, including this “event’s” source material. I may never watch any of it, but for what very little it’s worth, that makes me feel just fine.
I just realized that this is going to make Flash’s gimmick of a new Harrison Wells every year a lot harder to pull off. They might have to give it up!
God, I hope so. It got old after the second season.
They’re never gonna give Wells up. Never gonna let him down.Never gonna run around and desert him.Never gonna make him cry.Never gonna say goodbye.Never gonna tell a lie and hurt him (much).
The whole Council of Wells ends up on Earth-Prime somehow.
The only thing I would dearly love to see is something CoIE just barely made possible, but since it was a success, maybe it will convince the CW to open their purse a bit. What I want is crossover with Supergirl in Black Lightning’s neighborhood. I think opening up Kara’s eyes to a bit of real social injustice would be interesting, but primarily, I want them to not cheap out, and bring in Michael Rosenbaum’s Lex Luthor (Smallville) to tangle with Tobias Whale. A potent collaboration, the inevitable double-crosses, and Jon Cryer’s Lex Luthor thrown in just to throw everything well and truly off the rails.
I think we’ve got to refer to the two Barry Allens (Barrys Allen?) as Barry and Other Barry…
Except for the difference in costume color (red instead of silver), Flash in the photos above looks exactly like Lube Guy in Lindelof’s Watchmen.
Loved that one of the first things out of Lois Lane (Prime)‘s mouth was “Pants!” while pointing at Kara.
“That means our Barry and that Barry were only able to meet each other because of their connection to the Speed Force, so the DC movies must exist in a separate multiverse that is connected to the CW multiverse by the Speed Force.”That doesn’t follow. Keep in mind that they were in the Speed Force for the specific purpose of using it to travel back in time to before the Multiverse was destroyed. And at the beginning of Part 4, Barry jumped forward in time 6 months (relative to the supposedly “timeless” Vanishing Point) while being subjectively gone 2 seconds.So the simplest explanation is that DCEU Barry simply came from a time before the Multiverse (his world included) was destroyed. He managed to find his way into the Speed Force and, because of its temporally nonlinear nature, happened to glitch forward and intersect with his Arrowverse counterpart.Oh, and also, the team in Super Friends was the Justice League of America. Super Friends was just the name of the show, not the team.
At first, they did call themselves the JLA, but by the later seasons they gave that up and just called themselves Superfriends, then later the Super Powers Team.
Correcting myself — it was just “months” that Barry jumped forward, not specifically 6 months.
BRING ME MY WONDER TWINS!
ezra flash… please just die. the movie is going to suck. the tv flash should be the guy in the movie.
The thing that’s weird about the Sara/JJ thing is that Diggle remembers the previous history now, so he remembers having a son and he remembers finding out that his son was a crazy killer in the future. Is he just going to be cool with washing his hands of that potential disaster, or is he going to be as angry as he was at Barry when he found out that messing with the timeline changed his family?And man, I love that the CW shows have just embraced the Super Friends as the tonal lineage of the shows. Arrow started out being so serious, but the shows quickly learned that they worked best when they were joyful.
Thank you so much for this in-depth, extensive write up!But I, for one, cannot bring myself to watch these programmes because……. of the freakin’ costumes they wear. What little humor that relieved the ‘dramatic’ tension in “The Boys” is owing to the ridiculous outfits the “Supes” are forced to wear. The ‘costumes’ are hyper-sexualized and designed to remind us that you can’t be a ‘hero’ unless you have a proper bulge, an enviable chest (real or not), or the perfect 36, 24, 36 plus blonde beach waves: which is why I love The Boys.And also Cleverman on Netflix. Note: Although I reference this series over and over, no one ever responds. Why are people afraid to watch this fascinating series, I wonder?I wonder
I mean, I don’t have Prime.
Well, we can hope that Earth 66 is permanently gone. As for Earth 89, assuming that it was restored might be a mistake. There have been several Easter eggs in Batwoman inferring that Cousin Bruce’s adventures were some version of Burton’s Batman. Earth 89 might have been merged into Earth Prime to clean that up.
One thing I’m curious to see is if they’ll address the multiple Wells in Flash. The characters remember the OG Wells, Thawne, Harry(and Jesse, may they be brought back), HR, Sherloque, and Nash, but historically in this new Earth did they all exist? Can they use this opportunity to bring back one of the dead Wells, like the OG or HR?
I still think the dead Superman in that news report looked like Kirk Alyn’s Superman. Did we ever have confirmation on who played that Supes?
The Ezra Miller cameo is emblematic of the entire “Crisis” series. Just random fan servicey appearances with little rhyme or reason. Like, there’s 4 different Supermen. One of whom looks like Ray Palmer for some reason, but this is never explained. I don’t know. I watched the whole thing but I can’t say I enjoyed it.
Also, the Ezra Miller cameo reminds me of just how much I hate the “Justice League” Flash’s costume/armor. It makes absolutely no sense. At superspeed, those metal panels will just, like, fly off. I don’t know. I just think it looks like shit.
“they should’ve been more excited to meet the guy who co-created the Teen Titans and Deathstroke and—oh yeah—wrote a little comic book crossover called Crisis On Infinite Earths.” So they guy who…. killed them off? On balance probably best they don’t know that bit ;-)As for Superfriends, Kara’s actively used that for her support team (off the top of my head once against the Elite and once welcoming Lena, officially, to the group). Though I’d love to see *that* conversation with the group, somehow I can’t see Kate going for it…. Talking of which the mental image of an entire Batwoman episode dedicated to beating the stupid out of Leto’s Joker is likely enough to get me through an entire workday, thanks!
Still disappointed that there was no Zach Levi Shazam cameo, putting him on-screen with Brandon again.
Routh’s Superman had swapped the black out for yellow, but it was still the stylized Kingdom Come slash, not the S.
So what was the deal with J’onn wearing his costume without his CGI face during the first part of the final battle? Maybe they were just pushing up against budgetary limitations and couldn’t get in another effects shot?(I’ll be honest; I’m not sure why they don’t have a practical version of J’onn’s alien face; it doesn’t seem like something that would be difficult to create using a mask/makeup.)
I may be alone in this, but my favourite cameo was seeing Ashley Scott as Huntress from the Birds of Prey show from some years back, speaking to Barbara Gordon/Oracle on com’s as their world ended. The show was cheesy as hell, but I loved it, and the comic series was amazing. Of course, the upcoming Harley Quinn/Birds of Prey movie is going to shit all over the Birds of Prey legacy, but apparently DC doesn’t care about that, or that Harley was never part of that team.Don’t get me wrong, I’m a long-time superfan of Harley Quinn, I just don’t want her with the Birds of Prey. Tying this in to Crisis, seeing Ashley Scott as Huntress just served to remind me of how much I’m dreading the idea of the upcoming movie.
Weren’t Doom Patrol and the Titans in the same universe in the first season? When did any of them split to a different one?