Crisis on Infinite Earths – Review
One of the best comic book series I read as a teenager was Crisis on Infinite Earths. If you are not familiar, the DC Universe before that included a number of parallel universes. Crisis was an attempt to clean up the mess of all the complexities that had accrued since the Silver Age.
In the story, heroes are gathered by the Monitor to fight the Anti-Monitor, who is destroying each universe with antimatter. It pulled together everyone in the DC Universe and ended up merging all the earths into one universe.
Since the beginning of the Flash series on CW, we have been given hints about the coming Crisis. In the comics, one of the major events was the death of the Barry Allen Flash and this has been held out as a possibility in the TV series.
The CW shows have been doing annual crossovers and this one includes Supergirl, Flash, Batwoman, Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow. That by itself would be a major crossover but it is bigger than that. This was a crossover like nothing ever seen before.
There will be spoilers below so if you don’t want to hear, stop reading now.
This crossover included appearances beyond those who belong to what has been called the “Arrowverse.” It included Black Lightning, who is on CW, but has been kept separate from the other series. A highlight was the Tom Welling Clark Kent from Smallville, which was an older show on CW.
But the appearances moved beyond the CW. Titans is a current series on DC Universe and they made some brief cameos. Even Burt Ward, who played Robin in the 1960s Batman series appeared.
The biggest surprise was a meeting between the Grant Gustin Flash and the Ezra Miller Flash (from the DC movies). I never thought I would see that.
In general, Crisis on Infinite Earths was pretty faithful to the comic version. Of course characters were different between the comics and TV shows but it was faithful in spirit.
Speaking of spirits, I liked what they did with Oliver Queen. It was Arrow that started this shared universe. I was not surprised that Oliver died but I was surprised that he became the Spectre. He was well used in the fight against the Anti-Monitor.
Of course the Anti-Monitor was defeated. More than that, the various earths are merged into one. This means that Flash, Supergirl and Black Lightning are all on the same earth. This is great news.
Another cool scene was the ending with seven heroes gathered in a building that we recognize as the Hall of Justice from the Superfriends. Seven heroes: Flash, Supergirl, Martian Manhunter, White Canary, Superman, Black Lightning and Batwoman gather around a round table with a Justice League emblem. The scene ends with the Superfriends theme (and a hint of an old SF character).
I really enjoyed this crossover. It was some of the best superhero fun I have seen in a long time. People thought the Avengers: Endgame was the biggest crossover but Crisis on Infinite Earths was much bigger.
There were some disappointments but nothing major. I wish there had even been a brief cameo by someone from the Gotham series. Also, at the end we see that some parallel earths still exist, mostly with the non-CW DC series. But I wish that Swamp Thing, Titans and Doom Patrol were on the same earth.
None of that takes away from the overall awesomeness of Crisis on Infinite Earths. This sets the stage for even greater stories in this shared universe.
