This is it. This is what the entire seasons of Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, and Batwoman have been building up to. Since Fall, we’ve been promised a gigantic story bringing together nearly every DC show ever made, and boy did these episodes deliver.
Though I wish these shows had done more to set up the Anti-Monitor before this, the crossover does a decent enough job of selling the Crisis without it. After all, when entire universes are being swallowed up by antimatter, who’s responsible isn’t always the most pressing concern. This is The CW’s sixth crossover and they’ve gotten real good at making these. Hell, the movies could probably take some notes. But let’s get to it. The first three parts of the five-chapter event began on Sunday night with…
Supergirl: If there was ever any doubt that this event is huge, the opening puts it all to rest. As the antimatter wave destroys Earth after Earth, we get a ton of fun DC Easter eggs showing the spread of the Crisis. It hits the Gotham of Batman: The Animated Series (God, that music cue hit me right in the heart), the one in Titans, and even the one from the 1996 TV series. Calling it right now, Burt Ward has the best line of the crossover. Just as the Crisis is hitting, Lyla, who’s been turned into Harbinger, collects all the big heroes together on Earth-38. She warns Supergirl the Crisis is starting. She sends Team Flash on a reconnaissance mission. She interrupts a trivia night attended by Ray Palmer and Sarah Lance, and finally, she saves Clark Kent and Lois Lane from the antimatter wave at the last second.
Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen/Green Arrow and Katherine McNamara as Mia. (Photo Credit: Katie Yu / The CW)
The first thing they have to do is defend some quantum towers the Monitor set up to defend against the Crisis. They also have to evacuate everyone from this Earth before Crisis takes it. That ticking clock makes for a stressful fight scene where the whole team works together to stave off the Anti-Monitor’s shadow demons long enough for a portal to another Earth to open, and for everyone on this Earth to escape through it. They really opened this crossover with a bang. Everyones’ powers are on full display as they take down an endless hoard of demons.
The episode ends on a downer though, with the Monitor evacuating everyone to Earth-1, and Oliver choosing to stay behind. He makes sure everyone is off Earth-38 before allowing himself to be taken. When The Monitor finally teleports him, it’s too late. He says a tearful goodbye to Barry, Kara, and his daughter Mia, who now wears her own Green Arrow costume. It’s a sad scene on its own, but it becomes more worrying when The Monitor speaks. That’s not how he saw Oliver dying. They’re all in uncharted territory now.
Batwoman: The second part opens with Kara, Sarah, and Kate sharing a drink to say goodbye to Oliver. It’s a somber moment to open an episode with, which is familiar territory for Batwoman. Harbinger picks up an alternate universe version of the Waverider where all the Legends of Tomorrow have retired. Only Mick Rory is still on the ship. He lives there in solitude with a computerized Leonard Snart to bicker with. I’ve missed that show. With a functioning lab and more of the crew assembled, the Monitor gives them their mission for this episode: They have to find seven Paragons who might be able to stop the Crisis. They already have two: Sara Lance and Supergirl. They need to find two more: A future, even more reclusive Batman, and a brooding Superman. Kara and Kate go to find the future Bruce Wayne while Clark, Lois, and Iris West-Allen hunt for the other Superman.
Ruby Rose, Kevin Conroy (Photo Credit: The CW)
This episode makes the Crisis more complicated as each group runs into the different versions of superheroes. Kate and Kara meet a Bruce Wayne played by Kevin Conroy who’s gone all the way dark. He started killing people, which got easier and easier until he lost count of how many he’d killed. Kara finds a disturbing trophy case full of mementos from the supervillains he killed. Along with one from a hero. He killed this Earth’s Superman. Bruce attacks Kara with a kryptonite-holding gauntlet, and Kate defends her. She pushes him back into a generator, electrocuting him. They didn’t fail to find the Paragon, though. After returning to the ship, Ray Palmer completes his Paragon-detector and finds the Paragon they were looking for is on board. It was Kate all along.
Meanwhile, The Monitor has set Lex Luthor free with the Book of Destiny. Lex plans to kill Superman in every dimension. Clark, Lois, and Iris have to track down the right one before Lex reaches him. They try the Clark Kent from Smallville, and it’s good to see Tom Welling again. That show wasn’t perfect, but none of the current DC shows would exist if not for it. As we learn when Lex shows up trying to kill him, this Superman gave up his powers to have a family with Lois Lane. As such Kryptonite no longer affects him. It’s a very sweet tribute and a fitting farewell to the actor who really started all this.
Clark, Lois, and Iris find the Superman they’re looking for, and it’s Brandon Routh from Superman Returns. His movie may have not been the best, but Routh made a great Superman, and it’s so much fun watching him play the role again. Lex shows up and controls the Paragon Superman and we get a great high-flying Supes fight to fill out the episode’s action quota. Lois and Iris knock Lex out and grab the book, ending the fight. Four Paragons assembled, three to go.
TOM WELLING, ERICA DURANCE (Photo Credit: The CW)
Though we spent a lot of time with the other characters, Batwoman got a full arc in her episode. Each show did its best to retain its feel and character through-line in its part of the Crisis. Being Batwoman, that means there’s a little bit of dark foreboding thrown into the episode. When Kara says she plans to use the Book of Destiny to bring her Earth back despite the monitor’s warning, she pulls out a container of Kryptonate she took from her alternate Earth cousin. She might not ever go that dark, but she’s prepared to kill a Kryptonian if she has to. Elsewhere, The Flash, Mia, and Sarah bring Oliver back via a Lazarus pit, but the antimatter is weakening Constantine’s magic. He can’t restore Oliver’s soul. For now, he’s stuck as a Monster. If those images weren’t bleak enough, the Anti-Monitor summons Harbinger, and it looks like she’s about to turn on the team. Despite being the second part of five, Batwoman feels like the dark middle chapter of a trilogy. Will The Flash be any more hopeful?
Brandon Routh as Superman. (Photo Credit: Katie Yu / The CW)
The Flash: This is definitely the busiest of the first three parts. The rest of Team Flash shows up on the Waverider, having all survived. Yay! Elongated Man is so pure as he takes in all the strangeness that suddenly surrounds him. As Killer Frost says, it’s his first crossover. I’d be excited too. Ray’s Paragon finder locates the other three. Conveniently, two of them are already among the superheroes aboard the ship: J’onn J’onzz is the Paragon of honor and Barry Allen is the Paragon of love. Aww.
The other is on Earth-1. A doctor named Ryan Choi. Those of you who’ve been reading DC comics recently will recognize that name as the new Atom. Will we be see him on Legends of Tomorrow after this? Ray, Elongated Man, and Iris are the ones sent to collect him. He’s not willing to go at first, though. Once they convince him the world is actually ending, he decides he needs to be with his wife. It takes a sincere talk from Iris, non-powered human to non-powered human, to convince him to come along.
The team has another errand on Earth-1 as well. Cisco’s calculated the source of the antimatter wave, and it’s in an underground tunnel in Central City. The Monitor restores his Vibe powers against his will, saying he’ll need them. Killer Frost, Vibe, and The Flash head to the tunnel, where they find Nash Wells/Pariah. He’s the one who freed the Anti-Monitor and is now forced to be a witness to tragedy. That bodes well for this visit. Vibe uses his powers to see Nash’s memories and find out how to get inside the Anti-Monitor’s hideout. They hope to be able to shut down the source of the antimatter wave. Inside, they find a machine being powered by a treadmill. And trapped on that treadmill is The Flash from Earth-90. You know, because it’s from the 1990 TV series. Clever.
LaMonica Garrett as The Monitor and Carlos Valdes as Vibe. (Photo: Katie Yu / The CW)
Vibe portals Flash-90 off the treadmill which begins to erupt with no one powering it. They need a way to shut the machine down, so Pariah brings Black Lightning in from the end of his episode. At first he’s angry that he’s been taken away from his family at such a pivotal moment, then horrified that they’re all wiped from existence. When he takes in the full scope of the situation, he agrees to help. He absorbs the generator’s energy, but that only buys a little bit of time. To stop it, The Flash needs to fulfill the headline on that future newspaper in the Time Vault and vanish in Crisis. Barry gets ready to say goodbye to his friends, but Flash-90 steals his speed. The Flash has to disappear in Crisis, but the Monitor never said which one. He runs back onto the machine, running so fast that he destroys it and vanishes into thin air. Just before he does, we get one last shot of him and Tina from the 1990 show. This crossover’s really hitting all the nostalgia marks. With that, the anti-matter wave disappears.
Meanwhile, Jon, Mi, and Constantine try a different tactic to get Oliver’s soul back. They need to go to purgatory and bring it back themselves. To even get there though, they need to get a card from the devil. Constantine takes them to a nightclub where they meet Lucifer. I don’t know why, but of all the cameos, this one made me happiest. Now that was a cool show, cancelled too early. They find Oliver in Purgatory, and are able to make him remember them. He still can’t come back though. A specter appears and tells him that to save the world his soul still has a purpose to play. The show’s not giving us a lot here to latch onto yet. Here’s hoping this all leads up to something satisfying in January.
John Wesley Shipp as Flash-90 and Cress Williams as Black Lightning. (Photo Credit: Katie Yu / The CW
The Batwoman/Supergirl conflict doesn’t lead to much. It’s really only here to justify why they can’t use the Book of Destiny to put all the Earths back. It’s been a while since The Flash has had a can-I-talk-to-you hallway, but they dust it off for this. Kara eventually sees that it’s too dangerous to use it and Kate shows her the Kryptonite she took from Bruce. Kara trusts Kate to keep it and not use it on her. That’s about it. I know there’s a lot else going on, but this felt like a whole lot of build up to just drop the story like this.
Things really pick up just before the end, though. Once all the Paragons are gathered on the ship, Harbinger reappears. She pretends to be Lyla again for a second, but The Flash figures out that the Anti-Monitor is controlling her. And the only reason Pariah would be here is if a tragedy is about to happen. This is truly the dark middle chapter of the crossover, and it’s going to make us wait more than a month for the conclusion. With the Anti-Monitor’s power, she defeats every superhero almost instantly. She and the Monitor have an energy beam fight, but the Anti-Monitor has already grown too strong. Harbinger kills the Monitor. Finally, Pariah redeems himself and teleports all the Paragons to safety in the Vanishing Point, a place outside of time and space. Everyone else, including Iris, himself, John, and Black Lightning, are left to vanish as an antimatter wave takes out Earth-1 and the Waverider.
Jon Cryer as Lex Luthor (Photo: Dean Buscher / The CW)
Crisis on Infinite Earths has already given us an impossibly huge, amazing crossover and there are still two episodes left. Sure the cameos were mostly fan service, but that’s what these crossovers are for. It’s a reward to the DC fans who’ve stuck around this long, not only with these series, but with all the DC superhero shows that came before the Arrowverse. That’s what made the Smallville cameos and the Flash clip so special.
I do wish one of these shows had made the Anti-Monitor matter before this moment. We spend most of these episodes hearing about how bad and scary he is without any evidence of it. It’s hard to get really invested in a villain when we only see him once in three hours. That’s why I was so grateful for that last scene on the Waverider in The Flash. It made the Anti-Monitor matter. We saw how powerful he really is. Now this crossover has a truly threatening villain for the Paragons to fight.
They’ll have to do it without Superman, though. The final twist before Crisis takes a month-long break is that Lex Luthor edited the Book of Destiny to suit his own ends. Seeing that the Paragons would be saved, he replaced Superman’s name with his own. So no more Brandon Routh Superman and a whole lot more Jon Cryer Lex Luthor. I mean, I like this Lex a lot, but now I’m extra mad at him for taking Routh’s Superman away from us again. There is a ton they can do with this dynamic though. It’s just a shame we have to wait until 2020 to see it.
Crisis on Infinite Earths continues on Jan. 14.
More on Geek.com:
- ‘Black Lightning’ Season 3 Episode 9 Recap: A Personal Crisis
- ‘Batwoman’ Season 1 Episode 8 Recap: Spilling the Tea
- ‘The Flash’ Season 6 Episode 8 Recap: Gooey Title Card Variant
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