Spoilers Crisis on Infinite Earths Discussion (CW Event Spoiler Thread)

[Greg Cox]

Batman was a myth, and Superman was the Blur.

That would be the rationalization, although that doesn't really gibe with how it's portrayed on BATWOMAN, with the Bat-Signal being a thing, the mayor declaring that Batman is gone for good, old newspaper headlines about Batman foiling the Joker, etc. Indeed, when Kate first dons the suit, the city's immediate reaction is "He's back!"

As opposed to "He was real?"

 

[Christopher]

That would be the rationalization, although that doesn't really gibe with how it's portrayed on BATWOMAN, with the Bat-Signal being a thing, the mayor declaring that Batman is gone for good, old newspaper headlines about Batman foiling the Joker, etc. Indeed, when Kate first dons the suit, the city's immediate reaction is "He's back!"

As opposed to "He was real?"

Well, Oliver did talk about Batman as an urban myth in Elseworlds, so that inconsistency was already there. (I assume he was considered a local legend that folks in Gotham believed in but people elsewhere were skeptical of.) But we know that Earth-38 Superman made his debut very publicly with a plane rescue, much as in several other continuities. Then again, maybe his Earth-Prime history is different.


So, let's see... Overall, how many other pre-existing, non-Arrowverse DC film and TV universes had characters appear in Crisis?

Tim Burton Batman (Earth-89)
Titans (Earth-9)
Batman '66 (Earth-66)
Smallville (Earth-167)
Superman Returns (and Donnerverse indirectly) (Earth-96)
Birds of Prey (Earth-203)
Lucifer (Earth-666)
The Flash '90 (Earth-90)
DCEU (unknown)
Stargirl (Earth-2 -- so maybe it is Arrowverse after all?)
Green Lantern (Earth-12)
Swamp Thing (Earth-19)
Doom Patrol (Earth-21)

By my count, that's 13 in all, though only 5 (two Clark Kents, two Barry Allens, and Lucifer) had more than brief cameos.

So what was left out?

TV:
Adventures of Superman
Shazam/Isis
Wonder Woman '75
Superboy
Swamp Thing '90
Human Target (both '92 and '10)
Lois & Clark
Gotham
Powerless
Krypton
Pennyworth
Watchmen (aside from a billboard)

Film:
Batman, Superman, and other serials
Swamp Thing
Steel
Constantine (Keanu Reeves version)
Nolanverse
Jonah Hex

(Note: I don't list Catwoman separately because it's an indirect sequel to Batman Returns, and thus would have taken place on Earth-89.)

The most surprising omissions are Lois & Clark and Gotham. It's also kind of surprising that three of the four ongoing feature continuities (Donner, the two Batman series, and DCEU) got referenced.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I get the sense that the president was intended to be Lynda Carter but something fell through.

 

[JD]

So with Oliver gone, it looks like our new trinity is going to be Sarah, Barry, and Kara. I'm a big fan of Sarah, so I'm pretty happy to see her stepping up as one of the heroes leaders. I didn't notice, what was the symbol on her chair?
If Green Arrow and the Canaries does go to series, could we see Mia come back in time and take over her dad's seat at the heroes' new headquarters?

 

[dahj]

I get the sense that the president was intended to be Lynda Carter but something fell through.

Yeah, a random President seemed a bit out of place, I feel it would have been better if maybe they had gotten Cat or Lois to do the TV speech.

 

[Mage]

I don’t think the two actors filmed that scene at the same time, just the way it’s framed feels like an insert, split screen.

There's on set images of the both of them together, posing.

 

[Christopher]

I get the sense that the president was intended to be Lynda Carter but something fell through.

It might be a recast Susan Brayden, who was Earth-1's US President at the end of Invasion!

In any case, I think they just wanted to reassure us that it wasn't Trump.

So with Oliver gone, it looks like our new trinity is going to be Sarah, Barry, and Kara. I'm a big fan of Sarah, so I'm pretty happy to see her stepping up as one of the heroes leaders.

She's essentially got seniority among the series leads now, though more broadly I guess Diggle is the longest-standing Arrowverse hero (in real-world terms as opposed to Earth Prime history).

Although they were definitely positioning Kara-Kate as the replacement for the Barry-Oliver friendship, so maybe it's not a trinity anymore so much as a... quadrinity?

I didn't notice, what was the symbol on her chair?

A birdlike emblem, presumably the White Canary insignia.

 

[dahj]

 

[dahj]

Although they were definitely positioning Kara-Kate as the replacement for the Barry-Oliver friendship

I hope they'll find a way to do a few one-episode crossovers with just them.

 

[JD]

Entertainment Weekly has posted an interview with Caity Lotz along with a clip from the behind the scenes featurette, Crisis Management.
They also have an interview with Marc Guggenheim, and he does address Stargirl's Earth 2. All he would say is that it will be addressed in the Arrow finale, in a scene between Laurel-2 and Quentin.
Pyscho Pirate did appear and no appear in different versions of the crossover, but they eventually realized that the only reason they were trying to work him in was because he was in the comics, and they didn't really need him in their version.

 

[Greg Cox]

Yeah, a random President seemed a bit out of place, I feel it would have been better if maybe they had gotten Cat or Lois to do the TV speech.

At first I thought the new President was Annette O'Toole (from SMALLVILLE and SUPERMAN III), but I was mistaken. Does seem like a wasted opportunity for another fun cameo by someone.

 

[Christopher]

Pyscho Pirate did appear and no appear in different versions of the crossover, but they eventually realized that the only reason they were trying to work him in was because he was in the comics, and they didn't really need him in their version.

Makes sense. Still, maybe at some point Batwoman can bring back Psycho-Pirate and explain how he was aware of the Crisis ahead of time. They've got the rest of the season to explore Crisis fallout, after all; as Guggenheim said, what the new universe is like is going to be a "mystery" for all the shows to explore going forward. So there's room to tie off the loose ends they couldn't get to in the crossover itself.

Let's see... looks like the big change that Supergirl will have to deal with is Lex being in charge and "heroic" now. The promo for next week's Flash seems to show a new underworld organization existing, plus they're adjusting to no longer having the Crisis looming over their heads. They said that Legends' new season and Sara's arc would be building on events from Crisis, and I guess that means her disconnection from her old life, having the Legends as her only remaining family. No idea how Batwoman or Black Lightning will be affected.

At first I thought the new President was Annette O'Toole (from SMALLVILLE and SUPERMAN III), but I was mistaken. Does seem like a wasted opportunity for another fun cameo by someone.

President Lana Lang would've been cool to see. The post-Crisis comics' Lana was First Lady for a while.

 

[Photoman15]

So, do you think Lex will be a recurring on Superman & Lois?

 

[Christopher]

So, do you think Lex will be a recurring on Superman & Lois?

I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[JD]

I just remembered something I haven't seen mentioned in the last couple pages that I loved BEEBO!! That was awesome. I loved how shocked the others were, while Sarah just kind of shrugged it off. Was this the first we heard a reference to Beebo being from a TV show?
Now I kind of want a Beebo show as their next animated miniseries on CW Seed.

 

[Noname Given]

I originally assumed it was Beppo the Super-Monkey from the old Silver Age comics, which makes me even older!

As for the "first hero" thing, I doesn't really stand up to close examination in a world which now contains Batman and Superman, but I'll let it slide since it works on a meta level, which was obviously what they were going for. Oliver was the first CW hero, even though they could hardly have the President spell it out in those terms.

I kind of like the irony in that the original intent of 'Arrow' was to do only a Human hero story and NOT delve into the super powered aspect at all; yet in the end, they made the Oliver character into the most powerful supernatural being in their TV Universe.

 

[Christopher]

I kind of like the irony in that the original intent of 'Arrow' was to do only a Human hero story and NOT delve into the super powered aspect at all; yet in the end, they made the Oliver character into the most powerful supernatural being in their TV Universe.

I just realized something: Since Spectre Oliver was the one who "lit the spark" that recreated the multiverse... that means it is literally the Arrowverse now! That's a handy way to justify the name even after the namesake show ends.


I just rewatched parts 4-5, and I realize that the reason the Ezra Miller scene was shot that weird way with them mostly in separate shots is that all the Speed Force scenes were shot that way, mostly as alternating widescreen shots with the characters facing directly into the camera.

Incidentally, according to Variety, it turns out that the Miller scene was added late after the episode was already "soft-locked." They got a call from the studio asking if they could include it, so they found a way to go back and work it in. The Arrow crew had already wrapped that episode (and indeed the series), so they got the Flash crew to shoot the scene on the STAR Labs set. Which is why it's this random thing that has no connection to the rest of the Speed Force sequence. I wonder what they cut out to make room for it.

Although the Variety interviewer seems to have missed that the multiverse as a whole still exists, it's just the three CW Earths that are combined.


What I'm wondering is, from an in-story standpoint (as opposed to the obvious metatextual reason), why is Black Lightning one of the founding Justice League members when the others have just met him? Why not Spartan or Atom or Vibe? Then again, given the merged history, I guess BL is a well-known veteran superhero on Earth-Prime now, as he was on Earth-BL.

 

[Noname Given]

What I'm wondering is, from an in-story standpoint (as opposed to the obvious metatextual reason), why is Black Lightning one of the founding Justice League members when the others have just met him? Why not Spartan or Atom or Vibe? Then again, given the merged history, I guess BL is a well-known veteran superhero on Earth-Prime now, as he was on Earth-BL.

Well, it was Barry who came up with the idea and BL DID have a hand in saving Barry's life in a situation where Barry thought he was fated to die. Also, even to he got his powers back, Cisco really doesn't seem to want to be a full time hero; Killer Frost is still occasionally slipping back to her old ways. Spartan I think just wants to retire and raise his kid. Now yeah, the Atom SHOULD be there, but since the character is being written off LoT...

 

[cal_guy]

However, when I rewatched Parts 1-3 last night, I realized that in Tom Ellis's cameo as Lucifer, he must have filmed his part separately from the other three actors, since there was never a shot including them together. You only saw shots of Lucifer by himself or over the others' shoulders, intercutting with shots of them reacting to him, and there's one shot of Lucifer over Constantine's shoulder where you can tell that it's a stand-in and not Matt Ryan. The first shot had Constantine knocking on the door, then moving out of frame when it opened to reveal Lucifer, but that's a simple split-screen effect.

Tom Ellis filmed his scenes with Katherine McNamara and Matt Ryan in Vancouver.

https://twitter.com/Henderson_Joe/status/1204815393736425472

 

[StCoop]

Given that Lois talks about "the boys" rather than specifically saying sons, I'm wondering if, in keeping with their friendship in the comics, it will turn out that they've 'adopted' Damien Wayne post-Bruce's disappearance.