Spoilers DC TV Arrow/Flash Universe Crossover Discussion

Guggenheim didn't specify, but I'm assuming he meant Mari/Echikunwoke?

 

That's what the Arrowverse Wiki claims, and the article said "fellow CW Seed star Vixen." It stands to reason.

 

Well, needless to say, I loved the whole thing. I liked how it
incorporated many storylines from each show and it wasn't just about the "Wedding of the Super Century" or just about the usual inhabitants of the super hour.

Starting with part one, Supergirl's hour, after glimpsing Earth X we are immediately reminded that not only are Supergirl and Mon'el no longer an item, we learn the wedding planners and their employers on Earth 1 are not aware of that fact. Non Supergirl / Earth 38 viewers are quickly brought up to speed re the central relationship of that series... not Kara and Mon'el, or James or Wynn or even Lena but Kara and her Earth 38 sister, Alex. Her equally heartbroken, and now substitute "plus one". This central relationship will be referenced throughout the 4 hour event.

But despite the above, you can't tell this hour "belongs" to "Supergirl". We have heart to hearts between both major Arrows and Flashers, several between Legends and Flashers, one amongst the Legends, a co-mingling between Legends and sisterSuper, speeches by Father of the Flash-bride & stepfather of the Flash-groom and a wedding proposal not to mention a wedding refusal amongst the Arrows... and that was only the first 2/3rd's of the show.

My only "complaint" of part 1 was the same one James/Guardian had in the teaser. They couldn't find anyone else to take down the rebel base than the Fuhrer???? I could understand why he led the attack on Earth 1, he wanted to protect his wife. Leading the attack on the Earth X base made no sense.

I loved, loved, loved everything about the day of the wedding, from the separated yet sleepless Arrows "I wish I could sleep-fly", to Alex being mortified when she woke up in bed with a woman she couldn't even name, to her meeting outside the church with both her sister and that same now named woman.



"Sara's awesome... ah, except for the fact that she's an Assassin." (Loved Alex's double-take), to Kara's singing, to Rory sitting next to the cops and falling asleep until the fighting began,

Speaking of said fighting, I howled when both Sara and Alex jumped up and ripped their tight dresses to give themselves fighting room.



It made me think of that scene in Wonder Woman when she asked Etta Candy, "How can a woman possibly fight in this?"



And kept howling when Rory first saw Killer Frost. Maybe he just has a thing for cold fighters? (I also thought it was very thoughtful later when Caitlin decided to wear clothes her "mean roommate" would appreciate.)

I guess I have two other minor complaints about the church scenes.

First, I've never been to a wedding that had a waitress AT the church, is that an Earth 1 thing???

And second, where the heck was Ollie hiding all his arrows?

 

The Arrow hour starts with a wonderful insult flung at a "Legend" by Barry.

"Well, good thing we have a metric ton of smart people in this building, and Rory."

Looks like Rory made the right choice when he sat on the bride's side at the church.

And befitting the named hero of the hour, I loved it when Eobard asked Dark Arrow to be "10 % less brooding."

I get that people who dislike "relationship stories" dislike this one especially, but that's why I like it. It doesn't matter how super you are, relationships are hard, whether its between the original rom-com relationship on Arrow, or the filial relationship from Legends, the married relationship from Earth X, the sororal one from Earth 38 or the one night stand from the West-Allen wedding.

I have to admit, this crossover has also produced some of the best lines...

Alex to Sara, "Well, punching Nazis... that was definitely as satisfying as I always imagined it would be."

Ollie to Kara & Barry, "Just a quick reminder, Superspeed... I don't have it."

Kara to Barry and Ollie when she learns her doppleganger is married to Ollie's, "Your wife? GROSS... (looks to Ollie) No offense."

Kara to Ollie, "Is that a Kryptonite arrow? WHY do you have a kryptonite arrow?
Ollie, "In case an EVIL you ever showed up!"

Overgirl. "Can't make an omelet with invulnerable eggs."

Glad to see Iris has joined Felicity's Tech support hero brigade seen last year.

And finally, its nice to hear that every one (except Kara) from Supergirl on Earth X was in the resistance, since we learned Alex from there tried to kill Overgirl.

 

Was her sister Alex Danvers, though? Kara said her pod landed in the Fatherland, i.e. Germany. That suggests she was raised by another family. We also don't know whether she was trapped in the Phantom Zone like "our" Kara, so she could've arrived 24 years earlier.


At first, I found it odd that they paired Dark Arrow and Overgirl as a married couple. It seemed a bit random. But then I remembered that when they first met last year, Oliver and Kara didn't really get along at first. And apparently that tension hasn't entirely gone away, judging from Kara's "Gross!" So I guess they wanted to contrast that relationship by having their evil doppelgangers really like each other.

 

Since the use of the word "fatherland" is a bit unclear here (and annoying) it can mean the US as well.
But I didn't get the impression that they were sisters on Earth X too.

Btw, you wrote it above at some point: Fatherland doesn't mean being superior to other countries, which would be the "children" - it's the people that are the children. It's like mother country (if I understood that correctly) only in the male form.

Anyway, I found the Nazis rather boring. I've seen it a second time now and I'm not too sure that it will be something I love to come back to very often. The episodes were pretty intense on the one hand (with Garner leaving that the plot around that) and on the other hand you have those Nazi soldiers who just get shot and nothing else. But they are not really terrifying. The only thing that would be funny to revisit them would be to see Quentin Lance as the new fuhrer.

Funny sidenote: They played the german national anthem at the wedding before the Nazis invaded. In the original Haydn-string quartet form.

And I loved the gay relationship between Snart and Ray. Both were blond I guess when they were younger and have grey hair now.

 

Isn't the entire world "The Fatherland"? I get the argument that the sun never set on the British empire, but only Britain is "home", but in this case I felt the unaccented Overgirl suggested she did arrive in America.

As for the question of "was she trapped 24 years?", my guess is "yes". If she hadn't been, she would have arrived 27 years ago with baby Ka'el, in 1990 at age 14, 4 years before Hitler died. Both would have grown up indoctrinated in Hitler's propaganda and she would have assumed the both the Generalship and the Fuhrur's mantel when Hitler died. Ka'el was just 4 years old then and dark Ollie not much older. I don't see evil Kara, who thinks she rules by merit, giving up power to Dark Ollie when he grows up just cuz he's so hot.

I agree T(writing)PTB thought it would be funny to pair up Kara and Ollie after last year's inauspicious beginning. (I definitely thought it was funny! )

I still wonder how Ray got to Earth X... esp since he doesn't know about the Earth 1 heroes. It suggests he was taken 5-6 years ago, long enough to get hit by the collider's energy but not know about Flash and Arrow.

Felicity really got to act out some serious stuff this hour, both on Earth X and Earth 1, and again I am loving her badass team up with Iris this hour.

I have to admit, I have always loved Felicity but this hour finally got me on the Iris bandwagon.

 

No, I don't believe it can. The term "fatherland" means the land of one's ancestors, as a symbol of nationalistic identity and pride. In WWII, it was used to refer to Germany specifically, evoking the nationalistic pride that drove the Nazi belief that their land was the home of the "master race," the one that should dominate all other lands. So using the term to refer to all nations equally would contradict its inherent meaning.

Besides, Kara-X specifically said that her upbringing "in the Fatherland" was what made her different from Supergirl, who was shaped by "Americana." That makes it pretty clear that she didn't land in the US.

It's a myth that people speaking a second language have to speak it with the accent of their original language. Yes, that's often the case, but people who are fluent in a second language are often able to speak it with little or no accent, because of course part of speaking a language well is knowing how to pronounce it. It's most common with people who are bilingual from childhood -- for instance, there are quite a few Hispanic-American actors on TV who speak both English and Spanish without accents -- but it can be done by someone who's linguistically skilled and has a good ear. And Kryptonians have superhearing and high intelligence, so I'm sure it wouldn't be hard for Kara to learn to speak virtually any language without an accent.

That said, there were times when Benoist delivered Overgirl's lines with a cadence that sounded vaguely German to me.

His web series debuts in 5 days, so maybe we'll find out then -- or a week or two later, depending on how the story is structured.

 

The third Flash hour opens and ends with horrific scenes.

The prison yard and its gate in German, (I assume it said "Work will set you free), the prison uniforms and their triangles/stars. The glance between Sara and Alex when Ray explained what his meant, the bile expressed by Evil Quentin as he looked at Sara.

That firing line at the edge of the killing field was harrowing and Alex's soft apology to her distant sister heartbreaking.

The third Flash hour gets even deeper into the depth of our characters.

Alex going to bat again and again for her sister, Sara supporting Alex in her innate confidence over past decisions at the same time she demonstrates her style of team building by sharing her own story about Lauren and obliquely about Nyssa.

In fact, Sara has one of my fav lines this hour.



" 'Good' might be an over simplification."

You know, it strikes me that the writers stumbled upon an appropriate enemy this year, given the stuff going on in our country (Charlottesville) and other countries (EXTREME right wingers elected in Germany this year and killing UK politicians in London last year). Seeing that SS on Overgirl's chest was wrong in so many ways.

And the final scene... now that's how you do a cliffhanger.

 

No stumbling involved. The rise of white supremacism and ethnic nationalism has been evident in the US for a while now -- remember, Trump declared his candidacy in late 2015, and the racist and authoritarian elements of his campaign were evident all along, which unfortunately is how he won so much support from a segment of the population that turned out to be far larger and more entrenched in society than we realized. And he was elected a year ago, so this storyline would've been conceived and written after his inauguration.

 

From an outside perspective it blurs of course, I just wanted to point that out. The Nazis preferred the terms "Reich" and "Deutschland" but not "Vaterland". Poiting that out in a tv show it is nitpicking of course, I admit.

"Vaterland" originally is older than the German Unity, which came in 1871. When you have it in the national anthem it was orignally anti-monarchistic (against Prussia and Austria f.e.) and democratic (more or less) and only later changed and turned radical.

I can live with both possibilities.
I understood it this way: 60-70 years after the occupation there is not much left of "Americana", while the "Americana" is thriving on Earth 38 (Supergirl's world). A democratic spirit is a fragile thing.

Yes, esp. those who grow up with different languages have no accent.
As for Kara: Well, her mother tongue is kryptionian and if she managed to speak english accent free she should be able to do that with german too. So I don't see a problem.

Btw, where do I get the information that her name is Overgirl? I missed it.
Damian Darkh has a very slight american accent when he speaks german btw.

 

Yes, it's been used by many nations, but its meaning has always been the land of one's fathers/ancestors, the source of one's heritage, history, and national pride. Nazism is specifically about the ascendancy of Germanic heritage and nationalism at the expense of everyone else. So if a Nazi Reich that had been in continuous existence since the 1930s did use the term Vaterland/Fatherland, it would logically use it to mean Germany, not the US or anywhere else.

Oh, of course. I missed the obvious argument. Good catch.

That was unclear. She was referred to as Overgirl by a couple of characters in Part 4, but it wasn't clear how they knew to call her that, since she'd only been called "their Supergirl" or "Supergirl-X" in the previous parts. Otherwise, we know it from press releases and interviews.

In the comics, Overman and Overgirl are the Superman and Supergirl of Earth-X (pronounced "Earth-Ten") in Grant Morrison's Final Crisis and Multiversity miniseries. Although the comics' Overgirl isn't Kara Zor-El, but the creation of a Nazi experiment to duplicate Overman's powers.

 

Actually we could debate this for sure but in the end it's a comic version, where Oliver Queen is the Fuhrer. So I guess they showed us Earth X and were a bit unclear about the poltical structure. They took some liberties, so I wouldn't assume too much for sure.

Thanks. Interesting about Earth 10. The name sounds a bit odd at first and smells a bit of supremacy but it's still better than "Mr. Terriffic".

 

I dunno... If you think about it, "Mister Terrific" and "Superman" are practically synonyms. Well, not etymologically, since "terrific" originally meant "terrifying," but in terms of modern usage. They're both "a little braggy," as the Ray put it.

 

And I guess it doesn't get easier the more superheroes there are to find a new name. It still sounds like someone, who makes the music at weddings in very small villages.

I'm sure Superman would be funny too if since we know him since childhood and so we don't notice.

 

Well, at the time, the term "superman" was fairly well known as a term for a superior, more evolved form of humanity, as a translation of Nietzsche's "Übermensch." It had been used that way in English since George Bernard Shaw's 1903 play Man and Superman. That's why the character was called that in the first place -- he was a literal embodiment of a term that had been theoretical. Jerry Siegel originally used the name for a fanzine-story villain based on Nietzsche's ideas, but once he and Joe Shuster got together, they decided it was better to go with a more heroic, idealistic take on the "superman" concept.

So at the time, the name "Superman" wouldn't have seemed comical at all, since it was so well-known from Nietzschean and eugenicist philosophy and was in the vernacular as a term for a superior man. (You can hear this in the early Superman radio episodes, where Superman was more of an elusive, urban-legend sort of hero than he was in the comics, and a number of characters described the mysterious figure as "a superman" even though he didn't stop to introduce himself.) The name only seems silly to us because it's been the name of a comic-book character for nearly 80 years and that's supplanted its original use.

 

Sorry, folks: though there were some good moments, I found the overall event to be bad.

- Biggest problem: after a promising first part, it got pretty darn dull, and never recovered. When the Legends are criss-crossing all of history and the world on a weekly basis, getting stuck for most of the event's remaining two hours in and around STAR Labs was a big letdown, and the final battle under the freeway wasn't even as cool as the rooftop Dominator battle. Worse yet was the trite script and heavy focus on relationship melodrama, with each damn conversation a near-replay of the last. And if our heroes' melodrama wasn't bad enough, we had to get X-Ollie and X-Kara's endless melodrama, besides! Ugh.

- The lack of a single, dominating (no pun intended) villain was a big problem. Thawne, X-Kara or X-Quentin Lance would have made great baddies, but diffusing their power and having all the villains endlessly bicker like Klingons on in a lesser TNG ep severely drained the tension.

- Speaking of Earth 1-Thawne, after seeing him erased from existence twice, to resurrect him with zero explanation was incredibly lame, as was his out-of-nowhere well-established alliance withe the X-Nazis. And why was he taking orders from X-Ollie, anway? If he was afraid of Kara, and more taking orders from her, that might have been one thing, but in that case he should have taken the opportunity to kill her, and seize control of Earth-X and the operation for himself.

- Which reminds me, the X-team's refusal to kill the Team Arrow members or the rest of the gang was pointless and stupid. Why lock them away, and then send the others to Earth-X instead of summarily executing them, especially when that's to be their Earth-X fate anyway? It made the X-Nazis look both incompetent and not entirely vicious, both of which sucked.

- Our "heroes" gave outrageously zero fucks about Earth-X and its civilians in general, and, when the Resistance sheltered them (in a shameless re-use of the Arrowcave set, which would have been fine if somebody didn't uselessly speculate aloud that they were therefore in X-Star City), they were nothing but total assholes to their hosts. Barely a word of empathy, encouragement, and zero promises to help later; they instead instantly demand the Resistance bend over backwards for them and their world, and then Alex harangued X-Winn when he didn't leap to do so. (That actor/character is still the worst, but the way, but that's another series.) Then the team tried to make us think that Nazis' breaching device was their only opportunity to ever get home, which is completely absurd, given that interdimensional hopping is routinely portrayed as a cinch across the shows. In short: "What a bunch of a-holes."

- Large battles in which speedsters are zipping around, and yet not making everyone else redundant, strains my credulity. Add multiple Kryptonians to the mix, and things just get absurd. Also, the visual trope of Kryptonians perfectly evenly eye-beaming each other for seconds on end, with zero result, starts out dumb and gets dumber each time they do it. Besides, nothing in that final battle was anywhere near as fun as Giant Ray Palmer.

- Okay, time for some positives. Despite finding him one of the worst actors I'd ever seen in LoT S1, Franz Drameh was pretty good in Part Four, and I loved Leo Snart. And there were some cute lines and moments here and there.

- But, alas, it must always be noted: Barry/Iris is still gross. Also gross: letting your marriage be officiated with a guy who just vomited. Never mind that Barry literally kidnapped Diggle; he couldn't have spent a few more seconds zooming off to get him a soda to wash out his mouth and throat? And couldn't they move more than five feet away from his grass-stained puke?

- And, finally... I found the Earth-X Nazi thing problematic. Part of the villainy of Nazis, both WW2 and contemporary, is that, with only a few exceptions (say, the youngest of the Third Reich citizens), they grew up in a world with democracy and freedom and no Nazism. Ergo, they should have, and did, know better. The Earth-X Nazis, however, are third- or fourth-generation Nazis, making their culpability all kinds of murky; they're more like contemporary North Koreans than Nazis as we know them. (Iron Sky runs into the same problem, but The Man in the High Castle has the time and depth to really explore such issues, and give us strange but credible things like second/third generation Nazi hippies.) This event ran much closer to exploitation and cheapening of the issues at hand, IMO.

Conclusion: the best Arrowverse crossovers so far have been the lower-key ones: "All-Star Team Up", "Flash vs. Arrow"/"The Brave and The Bold", LoT's Grodd episode immediately prior to this... hell, all of LoT, if one can call an entire series a "low-key" crossover, which is bananas, but, I just did. I'm sure these huge events must be incredibly difficult to pull off, but if "Invasion!" and this are the best they can do, I'd frankly rather they not do them at all.

Overall Grade: C-. After the first part, I'm afraid I really didn't enjoy it - way too much loud and meaningless automatic weapons fire - and I certainly won't be rewatching.

 

I had written some of this over in the Arrow thread before realizing that the crossover had a separate thread.

I did enjoy the crossover. By no means was it perfect, but it was a much more cohesive effort than last year’s “Invasion”. This year’s crossover was more ambitious and they mostly carried it off. I enjoyed the designs for Dark Arrow, Overgirl, and the Nazi soldiers. The soldiers looked different without being overly futuristic like the HYDRA soldiers in Captain America: The First Avenger. Of the quibbles I had with “Earth-X”, I thought making Oliver-X the Fuhrer was going too far. I mean, yeah, he’s the Batman of the Arrowverse, but why waste an opportunity to mention Vandal Savage, Damien Darhk, Malcolm Merlyn, or Lex Luthor? To me all of them would’ve worked better in a leadership role than Oliver.

It was also a missed opportunity to use some of the Nazi villains in the DC comics lore, either as New Reichsmen or as the Fuhrer. Before someone mentions the budget and the already large cast, the New Reichsmen thing is just wishful thinking. As for the Fuhrer, that could've been a portrait of the leader. Or a mention of him without an actual appearance.

It was great seeing Tommy again. I wish he had been Prometheus last season. I did enjoy Adrian Chase quite a bit, but the story just would’ve gelled better with Tommy in that role, and from what I saw of “Earth-X” he could’ve pulled off playing the villain easily.

Likes:
-The scope. This was an epic event and it felt like it. From how the show was titled to how it flowed, not being so anchored to each respective show, "Earth-X" played almost like a movie. I could easily see DC/CW putting it out on a DVD/Blu-Ray, because it mostly worked as a standalone. I don't think "Invasion" does work as a standalone.
-The action. There were so many fights and cool moments.
-Heatwave. I was skeptical about Heatwave's inclusion on Legends, but he always delivers. He had some of the best lines in the crossover.
-Killer Frost's ice slide reminded me of Iceman. So cool (pun intended).
-Earth-X villains, as mentioned above. Oliver-X really didn't act differently than Oliver-1, but I did like that Overgirl felt different than Supergirl.
-James Olsen's shield. Cool Captain America-like shield. This is probably the closest I'll get to seeing Patriot or Isiah Bradley in live action. I wish a reference to either character, Steve Rogers, or The Shield had been thrown in there.
-Kryptonite arrow. It was so cool that Oliver would have one. It just made sense and felt so him, this incarnation of him.
-Supergirl saying the line from Superman II.

Dislikes:
-Olicity. I just felt it was very rude for Felicity to interrupt Barry and Iris. The writers likely think everything they have Felicity say or do is cute because of EBR's skills but that came off as obnoxious.
-Killing off James Olsen. His armor and shield were cool. I bought him as leader of the resistance more than Winn. Winn tried but he was unconvincing as a hardened general.
-Overgirl not being too affected by kryptonite. I wish she had had more visceral reaction to when Oliver-1 shot her with the kryptonite arrow. She just took it out and tossed it to the side.
-Dinah not using her sonic cry until after she was imprisoned in Star Labs. I didn’t get why she didn’t use it during Team Arrow’s initial fight with the Nazis.
-Gaith reminded me of another dislike. Didn't like the Diggle bit. I did find it gross, but also an attempt at a cheap laugh at Diggle's expense.

 

James/Guardian's flag-painted shield was a reference to Captain America and The Shield. After all, Guardian's shield is shaped a lot like Cap's original shield and The Shield's shield (which I think was the reason Cap was given a round shield instead, to avoid the similarity with The Shield). After all, both Cap and Guardian were Kirby designs.

She caught it before it hit her. I think maybe she sustained a slight scratch from the tip but nothing more.

 

Just finished the crossover. I liked it. It worked a lot better in mini series format then last years did trying to just kind of make it a running plot divided by show. It makes me wish I could stand to watch Supergirl, Arrow and LoT, because I do like a bunch of the characters from those shows, I just hate the writers that work on those shows at this point. Not that Flash is doing much better, but it still periodically puts out stuff that isn't terrible.

I hope this is the style of crossover they stick with, assuming they do another one next year.