"Worlds will live, worlds will die and nothing will ever be the same". -Crisis on Infinite Earths Thoughts

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Crisis on Infinite Earths

(2019-2020)

"Worlds will live, worlds will die and nothing will ever be the same".

In 1985, I was 12 years old, and a comic book reader. At that time, I mostly read DC (Batman was my favorite DC character and had been since I started comics). The first issue of whopping 12-part mini-series came out, called Crisis on Infinite Earths. For the next year, I, and countless others, was engrossed, waiting anxiously every month for the next part to come out. This was new, this was unprecedented.

"Worlds will live, worlds will die and nothing will ever be the same".

I don’t know how to explain this to younger folks. Maybe like what you felt when you saw the first trailer for The Avengers (I felt pretty excited too at that).

Eventually, I moved to Marvel (it was more “mature”), and then largely out of comics. But I never stopped loving the heroes. I watched all the movies (until Batman Begins – I wasn’t interested in that after having been burned by the previous 2 Bat flicks, but I did eventually watch and love that trilogy). The 1978 Superman set the characters of Clark Kent, Superman, and Lois Lane in my tiny 5-year old brain. It’s 42 years later, and Christopher Reeve is still *my* Superman.  

In 2001, a little show appeared on a second-tier network. You might know it as Smallville. I was excited at the prospect of a new Superman show, even if it was young Clark and not Reeve. And I really loved Smallville even if I had numerous issues with it (my favorite part is the back third, when they really embraced the comic book nature of the setting).

In 2002, that same network premiered Birds of Prey. I didn’t fall instantly in love with it (well, I fell instantly in love with Dina Meyer as Barbara Gordon), but I thought it had a lot of potential, and I was tickled pink when one of the characters mentioned some weird things going on in Smallville. I didn’t think anything would come from it, but there was always the faintest hope that the two shows would crossover.

Of course, they didn’t, because BoP lasted only one season against the 10 that Smallville got.

By the end of Smallville, Michael Rosenbaum was my Lex Luthor. And surprisingly, Tom Welling had become my Clark Kent. Not my Superman, that was still Reeve, but he was entrenched as Clark. I desperately wanted them to cast him as Superman when I heard they were making a new Superman movie (Man of Steel which, by the way, I didn’t like at all).

Not too long after Smallville ended (you can find my review of the end of this show here) I started hearing news of a new super hero about Green Arrow. Except not starring Justin Hartley (Green Arrow on Smallville), but some guy I had never heard of. I wasn’t super excited about this, because I had never been that familiar with or a fan of GA. But I’m me, so I knew I would give it a chance at least.

And I fell in love from the start. This was, in all but the superficial trappings, the Batman show I had always wanted. Which is appropriate, since GA was just a rip-off of Batman in the first place. Arrow became must-watch TV. And eventually, on Arrow, we met Barry Allen. And I was like “Is it possible?” Are they going to try The Flash again? No. Maybe?”

And then we got The Flash. And at the end of the very first episode, we saw it, the newspaper headline:

"Flash Missing, Vanishes in Crisis"

Ho. Ly. Shit. What a teaser. But the date was years off from the date in the show, so I didn’t think there was any way we’d ever see the Crisis, that it was just a nice little Easter egg for the older comics fans watching the show.

But I still had that little spine tingle.

The show would revisit that headline occasionally. Which felt like a cruel parking lot tease.

Then, after many years and previous crossovers between the now expansive CW “Arrowverse”, we got the Elseworlds crossover (my God, it was magnificent). And how did that end?

“Don't worry, Doctor. Everything is as it should be. The stage is set. Worlds will live. Worlds will die. And the universe will never be the same.”

My entire body shivered when those words were spoken. I nearly lost the ability to form coherent words.

And then, the title cards

Coming Fall 2019

CRISIS on Infinite Earths

And I lost the ability to speak for a minute.

The only other times I’ve been that excited were when I learned that there were Star Wars prequels coming out, and new Babylon 5 D2D stories. I wasn’t even that excited for Infinity War. Because I knew something like that was going to happen. I never thought I would get more SW movies or B5. And I never, truly believed I would get Crisis.

Understand, at this point in time, Arrow is my favorite show on TV. Even when it’s bogged down mid-season, I love that show. I love all the Arrowverse shows (except Black Lightning), but Arrow is the one I don’t want to miss at all.

Then I learned that coinciding with Crisis would be the last season of my favorite show on the air. Because Arrow was ending with a 10-ep season 8. And my heart broke. I knew it was time. Oliver’s story was about done. But I wasn’t any less saddened by understanding that.

But in knowing that, I also figured out how things might go on Crisis. And they largely went as I expected (note, I still haven’t watched the finale of Arrow, have to stock up on tissues first!).

While there are a handful of things I might have done a little differently, I can honestly say that I absolutely loved Crisis. It was just about as perfect as it could have been lacking the expansive cast of the entire comic book series and tie-ins.

I mean. . . jeez. . .

I was super jazzed when we saw Hawk and Robin from Titans. I don’t even love “Titans” but it meant that show was officially part of the MultiArrowverse. They weren't just limited this to the CW shows. So was Burton’s Batman. Adam West’s Batman. The Christopher Reeve Superman, carried on via Brandon Routh was a part of this multiverse.

I thought for sure we were only going to get the CW people with maybe one or 2 surprising cameos.

I was wrong.

By the end of Crisis, we touched on just about everything. The only things that jumped out at me were nothing that I noticed (but admit I may have missed) from the Superboy tv show (and I admit, somehow I missed that it even existed until like 20 years later), Lois and Clark, and the Dark Knight trilogy.

I was disappointed that they couldn’t work things out with Michael Rosenbaum to appear as Lex Luthor. MY Lex Luthor. Because I figured that meant no Smallville representation, because I figured there was *no* way they’d ever get Tom Welling, Because somehow, I completely and utterly missed the news that they did, in fact, get Tom Welling. Both the SO and I squeed when we saw him show up. Especially since right now we’re in the middle of re-watching Smallville.

I’m mildly disappointed that we didn’t get to see Amell’s Green Arrow meet Justin Hartley’s Green Arrow.

At the same time, holy shit! Green Lanterns! They even connected the new crop of DC movies! God damn! It was much bigger and so much smaller than I ever thought they could manage.

12-year old me was emotionally eviscerated and uplifted by a comic book mini-series.

46-year old me was emotionally eviscerated and uplifted by this magnificent live action adaptation.

This was a beautiful love letter to the DC universe, to the CW Arrowverse, and to Arrow, which got us to this point.

  

The Multiverse is dead, long live the Multiverse.