I've loved superheroes about as long as I've loved Star Wars, which is as long as I can remember. It pains me to admit that I'm a bit fatigued on both. It's not that I'm disinterested in either (I just rewatched an episode of The Mandalorian again last night), but part of the joy of both superheroes and Star Wars for me was obsessing over minutiae, revisiting and appreciating the finer details, and delighting in the hinted at larger realities. With SO MUCH CONTENT being released ALL THE TIME, and being an adult with job, kids, pets, and plenty of other things to do, there's next to no time to obsess, revisit, appreciate, and, sadly, delight. It's mainly just "consume" at this point.
I've been waiting nearly my entire life for something like Crisis on Infinite Earths to appear in media. Fans have historically spent so much time and effort complaining or trying to resolve continuities between different superhero TV shows and movies, that the solution has always been to acknowledge that they all exist in a multiverse, that they're all the star of their own stories, and those stories all differ from each other (and the comics) for fair reason. In a very simple way, it validates their existence in relation to each other (they shouldn't have to, but us fans are a pedantic lot). You may have been sad there's no more Smallville, but the Arrowverse didn't invalidate anything about that show. You may be wondering how Titans and Doom Patrol and the DCEU all connect. Well, they don't, except they're all part of a multiverse. This always should have been implicit to fans, but it's only been through the efforts of the MCU and Arrowverse (and shows like Fringe) that the idea of parallel realities have been accepted by the mainstream and something films and movies could explore without the expectation of audiences rebuffing it.The Crisis in comics was a way to flatten all the disparate realities and alternate earths of the DC multiverse into one reality, which helped as a hard reboot for the brand and a new jumping-on point for readers. It was also a one-time even epic that's never been duplicated on the same scale (because it's literally impossible for it to happen, the conditions for its creation were so specific). The point of the big Arrowverse/CW Crisis on Infinite Earths should very much be that same thing... if perhaps a softer reboot of the Arrowverse given Arrow's end, bridging the different realities of Supergirl, Batwoman, Flash and Black Lightning into one, making the potential for crossovers much simpler. As well, it should make for a good jumping-on point for viewers of one program to get to the others, but I'll have to catch up on the returning seasons of Batwoman, Supergirl, Flash, Legends of Tomorrow and Black Lightning to see if any of them are friendlier to new viewers.(I would hazard a guess that the answer is "no" as they were all so mired in their own story lines, that this disruption probably only acts as a speedbump in their season arcs).
Which all leads to the 5-part crossover Crisis... quite literally the biggest such event in television history. It took a year of planning by the production teams for the five series involved, and the nerd news sphere was abuzz practically daily in the months leading into the crossover. We would see glimpses of new comics-approximate costumes characters would be wearing, we would get news of certain actors from old TV shows and movies confirming their appearance as their legendary (or not so legendary) characters. The anticipation coming into Crisis, and the potential of what it could be were both huge!
All the talk of cameos and guest appearances didn't amount to much except the briefest of scenes as the "red wave" would consume one earth or the other. My hope was that these characters would be integrated into the proceedings more than they were. The few exceptions were a brief return to the Smallville universe, Kevin Conroy's first live action appearance as a dystopian Batman, and Brandon Routh returning as Superman for the first time since the failed franchise rekindling in 2006, leading to him doing double duty as both Superman and Ray Palmer. The best integrated cameo was Tom Ellis' Lucifer having a very specific story purpose for his cameo, and a true sense of history with Matt Ryan's John Constantine (plus his flirtation with both Mia Queen and Diggle brought them into the scene nicely).
One of the issues with each of these crossovers is the crossover isn't just a mini-series in and of itself. Instead, each part is an episode of one of the ongoing shows, as well as a part in the crossover. As such, each entry needs to service the cast of that show on top of servicing the crossover, which leads to fractured focus. Crisis should, however, be jumping between characters, as many as they possibly can get to, to see how the events are impacting them, but it doesn't quite do that. As such, characters feel tacked on (like Black Lightning or Killer Frost) and not purposeful.
This also leads to a lack of creativity with the crux of the crossover. The Monitor has been looking for the 7 paragons of the Multiverse for the past year (and beyond) to help save it. A whole multiverse of infinite possibilities at their disposal and the most of the 7 paragons are regular actors from 3 of the CW shows (Sara Lance, Barry Allen, Batwoman, Supergirl, J'onn J'onzz, (Brandon Routh) Superman) and the one wildcard in Ryan Choi (Osric Chau)
There's a lot of ridiculousness in the crossover, some of it good, a lot of it bad. I love the crossovers for the character interactions. Bringing all these random characters together, some having pre-existing dynamics, others less so, some with none, gives a lot for the writers to work with. Since the effects budget of television is limited, these encounters are really the blockbuster part of the crossover... that's where the fun is at. And these shows generally deliver. Like Ray Palmer discovering meeting his Superman doppleganger face-to-face was fantastic. Batwoman being the relative newbie had the most meeting of others to do. Supergirl's Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer) is actually the crossover MVP, a really delightful pain in the ass that lends a great X-factor to the proceedings (and one of its biggest surprises).
But the crossover doesn't hold whenever it really needs to get into its action, or its cosmic events. The big culmination of the Crisis in part 4 takes place largely in a quarry outside Vancouver, which is given a cheap filter to attempt for something otherworldly but never looked anything other than a quarry outside Vancouver. There are frequent fights against shadow demons, unexplained forces of the Anti-monitor, who are no real threat at all, given that a single punch is enough to dissipate them. While it allows every participant, powered or not, to participate in the fight, it makes for rather silly and tedious sequences when Supergirl is just as effective as regular human Ryan Choi in combat.
I want Crisis to be far more epic than it was, to let go of the confines of its production reality and really drive a story home. For how much Arrow and Flash led into this crossover, neither really play into those narratives satisfactorily. I mean, Arrow's whole purpose was leading into Oliver's death, which was handled with a terribly anticlimactic rooftop fight (another fucking rooftop fight) at the end of the first chapter. Oliver's end isn't finished there, however, as he later returns as the Spectre, a character not at all set up previously in the Arrowverse, and very poorly introduced here. It's one of the biggest swings-and-misses of the crossover.
I think the big Crisis event would have worked even better had it a focal character to work through it. Perhaps focusing on Ryan Choi as he's drawn into this world of superheroes. Or else if the event was in fact a mini-series (say in 3 parts containing the more epic scope of it) with character-specific crossovers in all the other shows, thus giving room to set up things like the Spectre. (It sounds like Black Lightning managed to do this, but I won't be able to see it until the season winds up on Netflix in the summer). As is it's uncohesive and a little frantic.
Chapter 1 is the setup, the perfunctory gathering of heroes and establishing the threat (which has been established in Arrow and Flash already). But as the Supergirl entry, it gets mired in trying to save first Clark and Lois on Argo City, and then trying to save "Earth 38" (Supergirl's earth) from the Anti-Matter wave by emigrating the people of that earth to "Earth 1" (the main Arrowverse earth). There's no real repercussions of all that migration (the impact of such a massive migration, plus the sudden awareness for Earth 1 inhabitants of the multiverse, since Earth 1 eventually gets destroyed as well. It's a hollow victory. There's a side visit to "Earth 95" where Sara encounters a "dark reality" Oliver... while I hoped for more alternate reality versions of characters, this one was a bit thin. This chapter also climaxes with a nonsensical indoor battle inside an abandoned shopping mall (or office building lobby) that's supposed to be a high tech tower that's holding back the anti-matter wave. Shortly after the indoor battle progresses to a rooftop battle resulting in Oliver's anticlimactic (first) death.
The next chapter deals with the fallout of Oliver's death, as Mia and Barry try to find an Earth with a functional Lazarus pit, much to Sara's objections. It also adds Lex Luthor to the mix who steals the Book of Destiny and tries to kill every Superman in the multiverse. We get another alternate reality, Earth 74 where we meet a not-that-different Rory and a rusted-out Waverider with a Len Snart (Wentworth Miller, yay) voiced AI. Chapter 4 also introduces the quest for the Paragons of reality, but also reintroduces the Book of Destiny from the Elseworlds crossover. This episode gives us the visit to the Smallville universe, Earth 99 Batman (Conroy) and Earth 96 Superman (Routh). It's a full episode of side journeys that are meaningful to the main story and to some of the characters, with a lot of fun aspects (Superman vs. Superman fight) plus it puts a nice focus on the Arrowverse Lois and Clark who will be getting their own spinoff. It's pretty much what I wanted out of every episode of the Crisis crossover but only really worked here. The quest for paragons should have continued with the next chapter
Where Chapter 1 opened with various Earths being destroyed (Batman 89, Titans, Batman 66), the third part starts with Earth 205, the short-lived Birds of Prey universe. I was expecting more of these. Being the Flash episode, Frost, Cisco and Elongated Man join the mix, and they immediately resolve the identity of the last three Paragons. Sigh. Layla Michaels, Diggle's wife, now Harbinger, has been corrupted by the Anti-Monitor, so added to the reveal that Oliver both died and then was returned via the Lazarus Pit last episode, Diggle's having a bad day. As established in Arrowverse canon, Oliver's soul needs to be returned to his body leading to the Earth 666 world and Lucifer encounter. The Flash team brings with it the corniest entry, and having to deal with so much of what The Flash set up this season it kind of grinds down the momentum of the crossover. But it has its moments, particularly the treadmill sequence with Flash, Earth 90 Flash and Black Lightning is so comic booky (perhaps it's my nostalgia for the 90's Flash TV show, that this is such a bittersweet sendoff too, as I'm sure the Smallville moment in the last chapter tweaked the fans of that show). And I love Cress Williams joining this crew. The chapter ends with the end of everything, sending only the Paragons to the vanishing point, a point in space outside of time, and one great surprise ending.
The fourth chapter treads similar ground to Avengers:Endgame with characters entering the Speed Force and interfering in the "greatest hits" moments of theirs or other characters' lives. It's rather tremendous fan service, while having some narrative purpose (ultimately, like so much of Crisis, the logic of the purpose of these proceedings are a conundrum). It also provides an origin story for the Monitor and the whole event and further's Oliver's journey. It's got some great bits, but also some bits that painfully expose the budgetary limits of the CW niche programming.
Ultimately, what I wanted out from Crisis was not seeing what happens (mainly because I knew it's budget couldn't live up to what I wanted it to be), but to see where it winds up. And where it winds up in the fifth chapter is close to what I was hoping for... a unified Earth that presents itself as something significantly different than what we've seen before. All the main shows - Arrow, Flash, Supergirl, Black Lightning, Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman - are all part of the same reality now. Only the Paragons are aware that it's a new reality (causing Kara much confusion), but J'onn, being a powerful telepath, is able to mind-jog people into remembering, which I think would be pretty traumatic, and is a bit of a terrible cheat, methinks.
The new reality kicks in with Lex Luthor having been rewritten a world-renowned good dude, receiving a Nobel Peace Prize, much to Kara's shock. Later proceedings are interrupted by a Giant Beebo storming down the streets like a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, which sends characters of all different walks into a delightful action sequence. The moments leading into the Beebo reveal had me thinking Starro the Conqueror (literally a giant outer space starfish) was going to show up. That it was Beebo was just as delightful, and it sets a bit more of a comic-bookish tone to the new reality of the DCCW universe (no longer the "Arrowverse" without Arrow leading it), and that the possibility of Starro appearing (or anything else larger than life like that) certainly not as out of the question as it may have been before. (I miss Legends tackling oddball elements of DC Comics rather than weird generic mystical shit).
As great as it would have been to flatten out ALL TV and Movie realities into one realities, that wasn't really tenable. The final part of the crossover ends dropping some highlights as to the realities of the known Multiverse, including the new Stargirl TV show, Titans, Doom Patrol, and Swamp Thing. Even though Ezra Miller's Flash makes a delightful guest appearance in part four, this end summary wisely avoids making any predictions about what reality/realities the current DC Cinematic Universe(s) would occupy. (Miller's appearance happened post-production at a Warner Bros. executive's request, but I can't help but think how much more awesome this crossover would have been adding in Zachary Levi's Shazam as a paragon, and likely how willing Levi would have been to participate. I believe the shows producers just avoided the DCCU altogether when preparing expecting that they wouldn't be allowed to even touch it, given how much an impact the movies have had on ongoing stories and character in the Arrowverse over the years).
If anything, my biggest issue with Crisis was in how it was presented, broken up into three nightly parts prior to the December holidays, and then two parts on one night two weeks into the new year. It really impacted the flow and progress. I probably would have watched the whole thing over again had it all come out before the holidays. It's not perfect, it's not the Avengers, it may not appeal much to outsiders, it may not be well told, and it may not pay off on a lot of the build up (both in universe and in the meta commentary) but it has its moments (both of the "hell yeah" and "bwahaha"), and it does its fan service relatively nicely, and it ends exactly how it should which kind of turned my whole opinion on it around...somewhat.
I was thinking that Crisis may be a stopping point for the DCCW for me, but it's energized the reality just enough to keep my toes in it and see how it builds out/carries on without Arrow.
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