In addition to all the other projects he’s currently doing, Mikenificent is going to be recapping this year’s Arrowverse event for us because it’s the Crisis on Infinite Earths and it promises to be a doozy. Here’s a quick run-down, with some minor spoilers.
The Crisis on Infinite Earths
Basically, DC Comics acquired a number of other publishers with their own stables of characters and this, combined with a history dating back to the 1930s, inspired them to do a reboot in 1985. Except they opted to not just reboot things, but do so in a multiverse-spanning story entitled The Crisis on Infinite Earths, which we discussed briefly here.
In short, two cosmic entities named the Monitor and Anti-Monitor were trying to save and destroy the entirety of creation and it took the combined heroes of infinite Earths to help save the day and combine things into a single semi-cohesive Earth with all the things that didn’t fit shunted off until they could be made useful again. It was a massive financial success and paved the way for many more events just like it. All of this so that the Question could hang out with Shazam or whatever.
The Arrowverse
The Arrowverse began in 2012 with Arrow, starring Oliver Queen doing his best Batman impression. He was later joined by The Flash, who never met a problem he didn’t try to fix by running faster and breaking the timestream. They were later joined by the Legends of Tomorrow, a bunch of characters who were at a weird point where they weren’t strong enough to support their own CW shows but were too strong to let languish. Also, Hawkman and Hawkgirl who were just kind of there. This team traveled through time and space to undo the evil that is Aku stop various evil things from happening.
Meanwhile, Supergirl began on CBS and thus necessitated the creation of another Earth before she was moved over to the CW. None of this stopped her from crossing over with the Flash and then everyone else. There’s also Black Lightning and his Earth, where he fights to make his city a better place. Oh, and also Batwoman, who just showed up earlier this year. There’s six interconnected shows here and, thanks to various network machinations, three distinct Earths if we don’t include the alternate timelines created by the Flash and the Legends and that’s only Earths where shows actually take place. According to the Flash, there’s fifty-three Earths. That’s a lot of Earths. This year’s event is probably going to fix some of that. Here’s what each show has been doing this season:
ARROW
Oliver has been hopping around Earth and Earths at the behest of the Monitor in order to create something that would help save Earth and, potentially, Earths. Since this is Arrow‘s last season, it’s also served as a sort of Greatest Hits and it’s been quite a send-off. Most recently, the device was finished and turned Oliver’s partner Diggle’s wife into a character named Harbringer. Also, it’s heavily insinuated that Oliver is going to die.
THE FLASH
The Crisis on Infinite Earths has loomed over The Flash from the beginning thanks to a newspaper clipping from the future that kept changing but continued to state that Barry Allen vanished during the Crisis. This also happened in the comic book, so everyone was pretty jazzed about it. This season was all about Barry coming to terms with his imminent death while trying to make sure that his family, friends, and city could carry on without him. Oh, and Mohinder Suresh infused himself with Dark Matter Anti-Venom and started trying to make sure no one died by turning them into zombies. While all this was happening, another character named Harrison Wells was trying to track down and kill the Monitor for reasons unknown, but he wound up giving himself over to him instead in a scene so important it served as the tie-in scene for each series.
SUPERGIRL
Supergirl, being on her own Earth, has no idea a Crisis is even coming and was busy dealing with her former best friend Lena Luthor slowly creating a device to erase evil from humanity. Oh, also an evil Martian was released by the Monitor to test the Martian Manhunter. Martian Manhunter passed the test and is currently the only one on the show other than Lex Luthor to know about the upcoming Crisis.
BATWOMAN
Batwoman’s show had the weird task of establishing her as a presence in her city which it did by setting the first episode before her first appearance in last year’s crossover and shifting things until they synced. Unlike Supergirl, who is in another universe, Batwoman was simply not told by the Flash or Green Arrow about the upcoming Crisis and instead has been dealing with her sister.
BLACK LIGHTNING
Black Lightning doesn’t even know any of these other people exist and is busy dealing with his city becoming a police state thanks to all the meta-activity. This will be the first time he meets any of them and the promos tell us he will not be happy about what’s going on.
LEGENDS OF TOMORROW
They only do half-seasons and theirs hasn’t started yet, but they have Constantine who used to have his own show on NBC but was cancelled and folded into the CW so there might be some mileage there.
WHAT TO EXPECT
They’re going all out with this and from what we’ve seen so far, not a lot is off-limits. Brandon Routh is revisiting his Superman role, Kevin Conroy is on hand as old Bruce Wayne a la Batman Beyond, and I think we’ve seen Tom Welling and Erica Durance from Smallville pop up in the promos once or twice. There’s a real feeling that anything could happen during this and, starting tomorrow, we’ll be here to keep you updated with the various Crisis happenings.
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