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Disagree. If they follow Crisis, the end result will be that they will feel the need to have additional crossovers on a more-or-less annual basis that attempt to fix all the stuff they're about to eff up during Crisis - but they'll just makes things even worse every time.
That's why I don't believe they'll just slavishly copy the comics' storyline. First, what would be the point? That story's already been told. Second, it turned out to be a mistake to eliminate the multiverse, so there's no sense in repeating that mistake. Third, we've already seen the Arrowverse do its own alternative versions that sometimes deliberately and explicitly diverged from the original version -- using Nora West-Allen's time travel to explain why Cicada had a different identity than in the comics, and having Oliver make a deal with the Monitor to save Barry and Kara from their "fated" deaths in the Crisis (or, okay, in the pre-Crisis event, but the comics reference was clear enough, since Elseworlds had plenty of Crisis-related elements to it). And they've just shown that even the projected date of the Crisis in the Arrowverse has been altered, moved up several years. So the signals are there that they're probably going to take the story in an alternative direction, hopefully one that prevents the collapse of the whole multiverse and leaves the major worlds intact (though it looks like Earth-90 is already toast).
The real Batwoman is a pale woman with natural red hair, and that's just talking about her iconic look (one of the few heroes who needs a certain look/ethnicity, because her being a pale ginger is pretty damn core to the look), not to mention all the backstory differences. I mean, TV "Batwoman" is closer to the actual Batwoman then, say, those fucking awful fake Legion of Superheroes characters on Supergirl or the Fake JSA on LoT were to the characters they were (supposedly) based on, but that's a very, very low bar.
CW's batwoman is a generic brown haired woman who shares barely any backstory connections with the real Batwoman, she only exists because the CW can't make the Batman show it would obviously like to make, so they've made her as close to Bruce as they can get away with to compensate for not being allowed to use Batman.
There is no such thing as a 'Real Batwoman'.
There have been several versions of the character, and of all of these characters over the years. None of them are more real or fake than the others.
There is no such thing as a 'Real Batwoman'.
There have been several versions of the character, and of all of these characters over the years. None of them are more real or fake then the others.
Exactly. Have you ever seen the animated movie The Mystery of the Batwoman? That takes the concept in a totally different, and very interesting, direction.
Honestly I think we'll see Shipp back as Flash, but rights wise they probably can't do stuff like having Routh play Superman again. I'd love to see it, but I have a feeling we won't be getting much from any Earth that isn't already well established in the DC CW shows, meaning we'll get Supergirl, probably 90s Flash, and maybe Jesse Quick, Gypsy and/or Jay Garrick but that will probably be it for characters from other Earths (assuming that Batwoman isn't set on her own Earth). I want crazy stuff, but I don't think they'll go too far with it, unfortunately.
That's why I don't believe they'll just slavishly copy the comics' storyline. First, what would be the point? That story's already been told. Second, it turned out to be a mistake to eliminate the multiverse, so there's no sense in repeating that mistake.
While I agree it was a mistake to eliminate the multiverse, that kind of was the whole point of COIE. It is a way to get Kara on Earth 1.
Obviously, it can't be a carbon copy. Such a story would be way too big for TV, and they don't use all the heroes necessary. It has to be scaled down a bit. But it CAN be epic.
In COIE, Supergirl had a fate even worse than death. First she died, but after the dust settled, she never existed.
They will definitely take the story in another direction, but I would be surprised if they deviate TOO far, since after all, they are using the name. I'm just hoping the epicness spreads beyond the actual crossover and is slowly set up during the 1st 8 episodes of each series.
Me, too. 5 hours doesn't seem long enough when Crisis had 12 issues plus events stretched across all of DC's series (about 40 titles at the time, if I'm remembering correctly?).
5 hours doesn't seem long enough when Crisis had 12 issues plus events stretched across all of DC's series (about 40 titles at the time, if I'm remembering correctly?).
Exactly. Since DC had 40 titles' worth of characters and continuity, they needed 12 issues etc. to encompass it all. The Arrowverse has only 5 series to cover.
Also, a single issue of a comic book contains a lot less story than an hourlong episode of a TV series. Typically, I'd think you'd need at least two comic issues to equal one TV episode (going by the one example I can think of, the comics adaptations of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles -- there was one episode I missed, so I bought the 2-issue adaptation to fill the gap). Well, with how decompressed comics are these days, you'd probably need 3-4 issues to equal one TV episode, but we're talking about a Wolfman-Perez comic from the '80s, so it'd be relatively dense.
Exactly. Since DC had 40 titles' worth of characters and continuity, they needed 12 issues etc. to encompass it all. The Arrowverse has only 5 series to cover.
Fair enough, but I still feel like that should mean that we'd get 2 or 3 episodes of each series PLUS a three-to-five-part Crisis miniseries to do it real justice. And since they probably wouldn't do a separate mini-series, then more like 3 or 4 episodes of each series.
Fair enough, but I still feel like that should mean that we'd get 2 or 3 episodes of each series PLUS a three-to-five-part Crisis miniseries to do it real justice. And since they probably wouldn't do a separate mini-series, then more like 3 or 4 episodes of each series.
Crisis on Infinite Earths was terrible. It was a sprawling, incoherent mess that favored continuity bookkeeping over narrative coherence. Its own writer, Marv Wolfman, has said something to the effect that the only good thing written in connection with CoIE was his paycheck.
So the way to "do it justice"... is to do it better. To do it with more discipline, more focus, less sprawl. Most of all, to do it in a way that makes sense for the Arrowverse and is meaningful for its characters, rather than merely copying the way it was done in a very different iteration of the DC Universe. What matters is the idea of the Crisis and how it can advance and inform the storylines of these characters. The premise should be transformed to fit those things, not the other way around.
That's why I don't believe they'll just slavishly copy the comics' storyline. First, what would be the point? That story's already been told. Second, it turned out to be a mistake to eliminate the multiverse, so there's no sense in repeating that mistake. Third, we've already seen the Arrowverse do its own alternative versions that sometimes deliberately and explicitly diverged from the original version -- using Nora West-Allen's time travel to explain why Cicada had a different identity than in the comics, and having Oliver make a deal with the Monitor to save Barry and Kara from their "fated" deaths in the Crisis (or, okay, in the pre-Crisis event, but the comics reference was clear enough, since Elseworlds had plenty of Crisis-related elements to it). And they've just shown that even the projected date of the Crisis in the Arrowverse has been altered, moved up several years. So the signals are there that they're probably going to take the story in an alternative direction, hopefully one that prevents the collapse of the whole multiverse and leaves the major worlds intact (though it looks like Earth-90 is already toast).
I agree with this. After finishing the current season of Arrow, I think that there is a good possibility the Crisis could actually be used to "divide" the worlds somewhat so we get a different possibility for the Arrowverse's main world than what we've seen while still keeping the future story from this past season of Arrow.
So the way to "do it justice"... is to do it better. To do it with more discipline, more focus, less sprawl. Most of all, to do it in a way that makes sense for the Arrowverse and is meaningful for its characters, rather than merely copying the way it was done in a very different iteration of the DC Universe. What matters is the idea of the Crisis and how it can advance and inform the storylines of these characters. The premise should be transformed to fit those things, not the other way around.
And CoIE was almost immediately retconned due to poor editorial planning on the effect the story would have on ongoing series. It made a needless mess of Power Girl, Hawkman, LoSH, and even Superman mythos going forward. DC should have just taken a lesson from Marvel and realized that decades of comics across multiple titles are just never going to form a 100% coherent continuity.
I agree with this. After finishing the current season of Arrow, I think that there is a good possibility the Crisis could actually be used to "divide" the worlds somewhat so we get a different possibility for the Arrowverse's main world than what we've seen while still keeping the future story from this past season of Arrow.
And CoIE was almost immediately retconned due to poor editorial planning on the effect the story would have on ongoing series. It made a needless mess of Power Girl, Hawkman, LoSH, and even Superman mythos going forward. DC should have just taken a lesson from Marvel and realized that decades of comics across multiple titles are just never going to form a 100% coherent continuity.
Part of that was that a lot of characters weren't rebooted. For COIE to have been a success, every DC title & character should have been rebooted, sadly only Superman & Wonder Woman were. Batman had a 'soft' reboot with Year One though it's true that Jason Todd the then current Robin was rebooted as pre-Crisis he was a Dick Grayson clone down to his origin. Otherwise they were all relatively untouched.
In terms of faithfulness to the source material, obviously unless they have access to the time/money & resources Disney lavished on Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame, not to mention access to characters, they can't make a faithful adaptation. However they can certainly cover the main beats. For example the Legends can time travel to the old west and interact with Jonah Hex as well as World War II (is there an Arrowverse version of Sgt. Rock or the haunted tank?) since those periods and their characters played a role. In terms of other characters, Batman didn't play much of a part and Constantine was only in a couple of panels. Harbinger played a significant role as the Monitor's sidekick/
mind-controlled betrayer
, she could be represented by an alternate Earth version of Lyla Michaels/Diggle.
In terms of the fate of the multiverse and as a sidebar Black Lightning's status - in COIE all but five universes were destroyed and partially merged, the merging centred around New York - think the closing scene of DC's Legends season 2/opening scene of season 3, when the Crisis was resolved those Earths merged to form the one Earth. Now in this it could be that the Earths that are partially merged could be Earths 1 & 38 whilst the Anti-Monitor hasn't gotten around to destroying many of the other universes and when the CWs COIE ends the rest of the Multiverse is fine but Earths 1 & 38 are fully merged. Thus leaving Black Lightning's Earth intact along with Earths 2, 3. X, maybe even restore 90 and obviously whatever Earths the DCEU, Smallville, Dark Knight Trilogy, Donnerverse Superman, Adam West Batman, Gotham etc all reside on. Another possible solution is that Black Lightning will take part in COIE, but it'll be the character, not the show, in the same way Supergirl took part in the Invasion! crossover but other than Barry & Cisco showing up in the last scene and their vortexes sporadically appearing in that week's Supergirl episode itself, Supergirl the TV show wasn't involved. Remember we didn't know Superman & Lois were going to be in Elseworlds straightaway so there's still hope for BL.
In terms of faithfulness to the source material, obviously unless they have access to the time/money & resources Disney lavished on Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame, not to mention access to characters, they can't make a faithful adaptation.
That has nothing to do with it. Avengers wasn't a "faithful" adaptation either. It took elements of the original work and put them together in a new way that fit their universe and their character arcs. "Adapt" literally means "change to fit a new context." It does not mean "exactly copy what has already been done." The idea of being "faithful" is hugely overrated, especially when the original version of a story was as flawed as CoIE. The value of doing a new version of a story is that you have the chance to improve it, to streamline its ideas and tell them better.
Look at the Alien Costume/Venom saga in Spider-Man. Originally it was a haphazard story that was made up as it went, spread out over dozens of issues -- the costume was created during Secret Wars, then it gradually turned out to be a symbiote that was draining Peter's energy and making him sleep-crimefight, then he got rid of it, then it got out and tried to rebond to him, yadda yadda, then suddenly we were introduced to Venom and told how the symbiote had bonded with this new character Eddie Brock whom we'd never heard of before and who gave a stilted exposition dump to retcon himself into the existing backstory. They made the whole thing up as they went along, so it didn't hold together very well. But then the '90s animated series came along and put the pieces together in a better way. Eddie Brock and his rivalry with Peter and Spider-Man were established from the start of the series; and when the alien costume arrived, it didn't just drain Peter's energy but turned him dark and aggressive, foreshadowing what it would do to Eddie and making it a more dramatic, personal problem for Peter to need to overcome. It was a far better story because it wasn't "faithful" to the initial, more slapdash and improvised version, but because it re-broke the whole story from the ground up and put its pieces together in a superior way. And that's why every adaptation since has drawn more on the animated version than the original.
It shouldn't be about "beats." That's superficial. It should be about using the concept to tell meaningful stories about their versions of the characters and their story arcs and relationships. Yes, the Arrowverse loves its nods to the comics, but it's never hesitated to change things around to fit its own storytelling purposes. And neither has the MCU or the X-Men movies, for that matter.
Harbinger played a significant role as the Monitor's sidekick/
mind-controlled betrayer
, she could be represented by an alternate Earth version of Lyla Michaels/Diggle.
I wonder if Felicity will become the equivalent of Harbinger. We know that Emily Bett Rickards is not returning as a regular next season, but she could be an occasional guest.
Now in this it could be that the Earths that are partially merged could be Earths 1 & 38 whilst the Anti-Monitor hasn't gotten around to destroying many of the other universes and when the CWs COIE ends the rest of the Multiverse is fine but Earths 1 & 38 are fully merged.
I've said before, merging the Earths was a terrible idea, one that DC quickly came to regret and eventually undid. It doesn't make sense to expect the Arrowverse to repeat a 30-year-old mistake. And merging Earth-1 and Earth-38 is a terrible idea too, because Earth-38's distinct history of extraterrestrial immigration is very important to Supergirl's worldbuilding and storytelling.
The one "advantage" that's usually cited for merging the Earths is easier crossovers, but these days everyone seems to carry a breach extrapolator in their pocket, so hopping between universes is easier than taking the train from Star City to Central City. Characters from multiple Earths coexist and interact freely already. So merging the Earths wouldn't create any benefit that isn't already there, and it would take away one of the primary storytelling devices of The Flash, the existence of numerous diverse alternate worlds with alternate histories and versions of the characters we know.
Have to say I was not a fan of this. Mind you, I consider myself comic-lite and I've only been watching Supergirl. In the past, I didn't mind the crossovers as they seemed more integrated into the style and feel of the show (and possibly other shows as well?). I've been watching via Netflix and binging and they don't have all the shows anyway. This crossover event seemed very different in its approach in that the tone felt very different and characters even felt out of character. Being that I don't watch any of the other shows, seeing so many other characters I don't even follow was very confusing and actually took away from it all, and I kept wishing for more Supergirl interaction which they gave little of. Mind you, I only watched the Supergirl episode, but at the same time, it never made me want to seek out the rest. At the very least, it at least felt self-contained, as it was never mentioned again in Supergirl.
That has nothing to do with it. Avengers wasn't a "faithful" adaptation either. It took elements of the original work and put them together in a new way that fit their universe and their character arcs. "Adapt" literally means "change to fit a new context." It does not mean "exactly copy what has already been done." The idea of being "faithful" is hugely overrated, especially when the original version of a story was as flawed as CoIE. The value of doing a new version of a story is that you have the chance to improve it, to streamline its ideas and tell them better.
Maybe I didn't explain myself better, which is entirely possible by the way, apologies if that's the case. I was acknowledging that the CW can't pull-off a faithful blow for blow adaptation. My comment about the last two Avengers films was about the fact that to do something like COIE faithfully, you would need that kind of scale. I've no idea whether Avengers 3 & 4 were faithful to the source material, I've never read it and I won't be seeing the films until Christmas when I hope to have both on Blu-Ray to watch together.
Look at the Alien Costume/Venom saga in Spider-Man. Originally it was a haphazard story that was made up as it went, spread out over dozens of issues -- the costume was created during Secret Wars, then it gradually turned out to be a symbiote that was draining Peter's energy and making him sleep-crimefight, then he got rid of it, then it got out and tried to rebond to him, yadda yadda, then suddenly we were introduced to Venom and told how the symbiote had bonded with this new character Eddie Brock whom we'd never heard of before and who gave a stilted exposition dump to retcon himself into the existing backstory. They made the whole thing up as they went along, so it didn't hold together very well. But then the '90s animated series came along and put the pieces together in a better way. Eddie Brock and his rivalry with Peter and Spider-Man were established from the start of the series; and when the alien costume arrived, it didn't just drain Peter's energy but turned him dark and aggressive, foreshadowing what it would do to Eddie and making it a more dramatic, personal problem for Peter to need to overcome. It was a far better story because it wasn't "faithful" to the initial, more slapdash and improvised version, but because it re-broke the whole story from the ground up and put its pieces together in a superior way. And that's why every adaptation since has drawn more on the animated version than the original.
It shouldn't be about "beats." That's superficial. It should be about using the concept to tell meaningful stories about their versions of the characters and their story arcs and relationships. Yes, the Arrowverse loves its nods to the comics, but it's never hesitated to change things around to fit its own storytelling purposes. And neither has the MCU or the X-Men movies, for that matter.
I would dispute that. Captain America: Civil War wasn't a faithful adaptation to the Civil War series which took place in the comics, but it hit certain marks or beats t justify calling itself such: an incident happens that affects public trust in heroes leading to the idea of people with enhanced abilities/costumed crime fighters even aliens like Thor being registered by the authorities. Captain America and iron Man end up on different sides of the debate and ultimately come to blows. If they didn't do that it wouldn't be Civil War.
In this case, the beats are the multiverse is threatened by the Anti-Monitor and the heroes of multiple universes have to band together to try and stop it. The heroes ultimately succeed, worlds will live, but worlds will also die (along with certain key characters) and things are never the same.
I've said before, merging the Earths was a terrible idea, one that DC quickly came to regret and eventually undid. It doesn't make sense to expect the Arrowverse to repeat a 30-year-old mistake. And merging Earth-1 and Earth-38 is a terrible idea too, because Earth-38's distinct history of extraterrestrial immigration is very important to Supergirl's worldbuilding and storytelling.
The problem with the original comic series wasn't the intention, it was the execution. As I understand it, not all of the editors at the time 'got the memo'. I remember Jim Shooter's foreword to the TPB of Secret Wars where he mentioned how proprietorial his editors could be on their titles. In DC's case some characters most notably Superman & Wonder Woman got hard reboots, whilst others were left alone. Batman was somewhere in-between, with certain characters getting rebooted/eliminated and others not. Though I did hear recently that Denny O'Neill offer to renumber Batman issue one for Frank Miller when he did Year One, but he declined. Had every character gotten an issue one and an updated origin/backstory maybe there would have been no need for Zero Hour , Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis or Flashpoint.
The one "advantage" that's usually cited for merging the Earths is easier crossovers, but these days everyone seems to carry a breach extrapolator in their pocket, so hopping between universes is easier than taking the train from Star City to Central City. Characters from multiple Earths coexist and interact freely already. So merging the Earths wouldn't create any benefit that isn't already there, and it would take away one of the primary storytelling devices of The Flash, the existence of numerous diverse alternate worlds with alternate histories and versions of the characters we know.
Yeah, everyone and their mother seems to have them these days. Team Arrow probably had one to send Black Siren back to Earth 2. Sherloque had one to send himself home and ultimately send the Earth 1 version of his ex-wife to safety while Cicada II was being dealt with. Who knows how many versions there are out there. That just seems to be wrong, like every villain from supervillains on down having access to Kryptonite pre-Crisis. it just seems like a crutch. 'How do we get this character from Earth A to Earth B? Oh just give them a an extrapolator.' As for eliminating the entire multiverse, whilst - if executed properly could have worked for the comics I'm not advocating that for the CW. Indeed in keeping with the idea that it doesn't have to slavishly conform to the source material, you could just limit the effects of this version of COIE to destroying a few universes and merging a few others and leaving the rest alone which would certainly handle the Flash side of your argument as well as leave the status of Black Lightning vis a vis the Arrowverse open.
I don't dispute that there would be issues merging Earths 1 & 38, specifically with the whole alien thing but even within the separate histories of both Earth 1 & 38 there are hard (not necessarily impossible to reconcile) anomalies to do with recent presidential history for instance. Was Obama president of America for two terms or one on Earth 1, or at all on 38? And there's the question that if everyone has a duplicate, where's the Earth 1 Lex Luthor or Cat Grant, or the Earth 38 Barry Allen, Oliver Queen etc? Bruce Wayne has duplicates on both worlds, so does Bruno Manheim. Admittedly the Earth 1 versions of Luthor and Cat may just not have shown up yet, but its been made clear that there aren't Earth 38 Olivers or Barrys. Come to think of it does Mars 1 have life or is it just Mars 38?
I think the Arrowverse crossovers of the past two years have managed to pull off a pretty epic scale by TV standards. Crisis on Earth-X actually juggled the character arcs and relationships in its huge cast better than Infinity War did, and thus felt more substantial as a story in a lot of ways. (Partly because there wasn't so much need to have characters meet for the first time, since most of them already knew each other or had gotten the meetings out of the way at the reception and wedding in part 1.)
And no, they won't be able to duplicate the big action set pieces on the same scale, but that's not what stories are about. None of that spectacle matters if we don't care about the characters going through it. Arrowverse CoIE will be about its own characters and their stories, and that's just what it should be. Being faithful to who these versions of the characters are and what their worlds and histories are like is more important than being faithful to the letter of the text that inspired this new version.
I would dispute that. Captain America: Civil War wasn't a faithful adaptation to the Civil War series which took place in the comics, but it hit certain marks or beats t justify calling itself such: an incident happens that affects public trust in heroes leading to the idea of people with enhanced abilities/costumed crime fighters even aliens like Thor being registered by the authorities. Captain America and iron Man end up on different sides of the debate and ultimately come to blows. If they didn't do that it wouldn't be Civil War.
You're not disputing me, you're agreeing with me. My point is that fidelity to the core ideas and themes of a work is what matters, not slavish replication of identical plot beats and story structure. What matters is to be faithful to the spirit, not the letter.
In this case, the beats are the multiverse is threatened by the Anti-Monitor and the heroes of multiple universes have to band together to try and stop it. The heroes ultimately succeed, worlds will live, but worlds will also die (along with certain key characters) and things are never the same.
Which does not require the same ill-conceived outcome of combining all the surviving worlds into one. That story's already been told, and it was retroactively regretted and undone. And as I said, we've already seen the Arrowverse do adaptations that reacted to and changed the original versions, as with Cicada and as with Barry and Kara's fate in Elseworlds. I expect the same thing to happen here. I think the story will be about preventing the destruction of the multiverse. This iteration of the heroes in this parallel reality will find a solution that their counterparts in the comics universe did not. I think that's what they've set up with the Monitor's observation that the heroes of this reality offer hope he didn't find elsewhere.
The problem with the original comic series wasn't the intention, it was the execution. As I understand it, not all of the editors at the time 'got the memo'.
It's not about the crossovers. I've read the collected edition of CoIE. It's incoherent. It's impossible to follow if you haven't read the series it ties into. It is fundamentally a badly structured story. The only viable approach is to take the core ideas and re-break the story from page one.
Indeed in keeping with the idea that it doesn't have to slavishly conform to the source material, you could just limit the effects of this version of COIE to destroying a few universes and merging a few others and leaving the rest alone which would certainly handle the Flash side of your argument as well as leave the status of Black Lightning vis a vis the Arrowverse open.
It was established way back in "Worlds Finest" on Supergirl that not everyone has a duplicate. Although Elseworlds did seem to establish the existence of Earth-1 duplicates of Alex Danvers and James Olsen.
It seems like some posters here could get their wish. It certainly seems like the season finale of Arrow was written as a series finale. It is also implied that both The Flash and Arrow are going to spend their pre-Crisis episodes as a prologue to COIE.
It was established way back in "Worlds Finest" on Supergirl that not everyone has a duplicate. Although Elseworlds did seem to establish the existence of Earth-1 duplicates of Alex Danvers and James Olsen.
That contradicts what Harrison Wells said in Crisis on Earth X about how there are 53 versions of everyone. Of course that itself has been contradicted by the fact that there are way more than 53 universes in the DC multiverse, Earth 90 for instance.
As for COIE crossovers I've got the TPB of Crisis itself, but as far as crossovers go, the only ones I've read are the Batman/Detective Comics ones. Though I believe I did own the final issue of All Star Squadron. The one which if I remember it correctly ends with FDR is sitting at his desk in the Oval Office and looks at a picture of the post-Crisis All Star Squadron (I believe earlier in the issue he was looking at a pre-Crisis one).
Why won’t this idea die a deserved death?
