Spoilers DC TV Arrow/Flash Universe Crossover Discussion

Yep.

 

I thought so but they were really stretching it in Legends.

 

I've been trying to keep track of which characters from one show guest-starred on which and how many of the others, and I realized something surprising -- Lyla appeared only in the Flash part and not the Arrow part, even though she's an Arrow character. Ditto for Vigilante, though he was just a cameo.

Let's break it down:

Characters in all "four" parts: Barry, Kara, Cisco
Characters in three parts: Oliver, Diggle, Felicity, Sara, Ray
Characters in two parts: Caitlin, Thea, Stein, Jax, Mick, Nate, Gideon, Lily Stein, Agent Smith
Characters in only one part (not counting Supergirl): Iris, Joe, Wally, HR, Lyla, Vigilante (cameo), Quentin (illusion), Curtis, Rene, Rory, Amaya, President #1, President #2
Current regular/recurring characters not appearing at all: Julian, Evelyn, real Quentin

Of the 2-part characters, Nate and Gideon were missing from part 1, Thea was missing from part 3, and the rest were missing from part 2. Aside from Lyla and Vigilante, the 1-part main characters all appeared in their respective series.

 

That was a fun two-part crossover.

 

I liked the whole crossover, minus the dream matrix stuff on Arrow. I liked seeing the characters interact, and outside of having an idiotic, somewhat confusing motivation the Dominators were a decent threat. I also liked how tyhe various shows got to progress their own stuff while still being in the crossover. Overall, this was a pretty great crossover. Hopefully we'll get one next year (and maybe it will have a stronger Supergirl connection).

 

I was very entertained by the final part of the Crossover, even to the point where I forgot I was watching a show I don't watch and instead it was just another episode of The Flash. This episode addressed pretty much all my concerns about developing the dominators, showing Kara getting home to National City, and even resolved a major plot point with Cisco and Barry. It was had enough action and character work and it was fun. I loved Felicity in this one (Honestly, is she only good in shows other than Arrow because I don't understand why people don't like her) and she and Cisco work really well together. I would love to see a Cisco, Felicity, and Winn team up. Make it happen DC, please!!!!

Anyway, as for Kara, last night I said Kara felt out of character with all the cute and quirky and tonight it felt like that was fixed. We finally got Kara as she is on Supergirl in the end and it was really nice to have one more little bit of Supergirl before the holiday season. I was really hoping for a reuniting of her and Alex, but hey, I understand I can't have it all. Still, for Cisco to give her the interdemensional isolator so she can move between earths was a really nice gesture, even though I wonder if that might be a detriment on Supergirl or something. I hope not. I like the idea of she being able to have more friends and shift between earths easily. I just hope we might get more Supergirl/Flash (And maybe Arrow) crossovers in a nice that was fun, I don't need more angst and drama kind of way.

I have to say last night I was feeling kinda down about this whole event, but tonight made me really optimistic again. Like I said yesterday, Berlanti has a way to make characters really likeable, and despite the angst, when you get stuff like the celebration at the end, you kinda want more. I don't watch Arrow or Legends, but I feel like I'm missing out on seeing these great characters in action.

I do have a question though, and this is a "I don't watch Legends so I'm a dummy please go easy" kind of question.

I didn't recognize some of these characters, like the girl in yellow, and DC's version of Captain America. Just so I know I learned something from this crossover these were who I recognized as part of the group fighting:

Sarah Lance
Barry (Flash)
Kara (Supergirl)
Cisco
Felicity
Firestorm (Martin and Jackson)
Oliver (Arrow)
Mick
Atom
Diggle

I know I missed quite a bit, hence the question.

 

The girl in yellow is the Vixen (who has been on Arrow) from the 40s.

The guy is (Citizen/Commander/not sure he's decided) Steel.

Enjoyed the reference to Routh's Superman role.

 

Thanks

Is there a reason behind the patriotic look? It really did look like DC's answer to Captain America.

 

IDK - Is it me; or did they really not explain WHY the Dominators just packed up and left after detailing the need to destroy metahumans because they become a danger to them?

I mean come on:
- Yes, our Heroes stop the bomb.
- Flash and Supergirl manage to plant a device on every single Dominator of the planet that causes pain

...And the result is supposed to be: They just beam back up; take their ships and leave; and I guess never come back? (pain really hurts I guess)

I actually liked the rest of the story and character elements of this final episode quite a bit, but the ultimate reason the aliens were defeated and left just kind of had me going:

Wait...what? I mean does it take these Dominators 60 years to make another bomb? And hey what about just launching/dropping the second one a few months later WITHOUT tipping the metahumans to the fact it's coming?
^^^
Yeah, I know - it's supposed to just be a live-action comic book - but IMO you'd they could have come up with some semi-logical reason for the Dominators to leave/agree to a truce and leave AFTER a big final fight sequence.

 

Well, they are Earth's Mightiest Heroes after all...

It's something of a reference to his grandfather who was a member of the Justice Society of America back in the 40s.

 

So Supergirl reminds Brandon Routh of his cousin.

 

I loved that line.

 

There was a lot of iffy stuff
How did the aliens know about Flashpoint? Are they shielded from timeline changes? Clearly they were going to wipe out all meta humans regardless of whether Barry surrendered or not, so why have him surrender? Could he have dispersed the weapons agent and therefore they wanted off earth? That should have been clarified

And how is Barry creating flashpoint the event that triggers action on the part of the aliens? Plenty of rogue time travelers have been around including reverse flash And what did flashpoint do to the aliens exactly? These aren't aliens from the future where some far flung effect impacts them-- but rather the aliens were contemporaries and we've seen nothing that would indicate a negative impact on them from flashpoint t at this time

And if the legends can detect aberrations in the timeline not sure why they didn't detect all the flashpoint changes--changes apparently bad enough to draw these aliens back to attack earth-- and stop Barry from changing his past. I could understand if they're incapable of detecting tiny isolated aberrations that don't make much of a ripple such as steins daughter but if we are to believe the writers flashpoint had galactic impact and yet it escaped the legends notice

 

The result is supposed to be the aliens pack up, take their ships and leave. To have a superweapon magically destroyed and an entire army instantly incapacitated in a matter of seconds is a huge defeat that would make any enemy run, unless they had come into battle specifically prepared for that level of difficulty.

The part about them never coming back is literally never implied in the show. I won't be at all surprised to see them again sometime in the future. But that'll be in the future. For now, the heroes won and the earth is (temporarily) safe.

 

I suspect the next crossover (the musical episode of Supergirl) will happen on Earth-38 with Kara asking Barry and friends to come over. That's probably what the extrapolator is meant to set up.

Yes, it does, which is why torture is such a terrifying and effective tool of control. Intense enough agony can make people do anything to make it stop. Certainly it's debilitating enough that the Dominators would've been unable to achieve anything under its influence, which would've left them helpless against more lethal attacks if they'd stayed. The only sensible move was to retreat away from the influence of the effect, at least until they can devise a defense.

I don't see what you mean. The incursion 65 years ago was a scout mission, and afterward the Dominators and the US government/Agent Smith made a treaty. It was Barry's creation of Flashpoint which breached that treaty and led the Dominators to return.

And now I'm wondering about the death of most of the JSA in the early '50s and the apparent disappearance of metahumans from Earth until 2014. Could it be that the metas of the '40s and '50s were assassinated or forced into hiding as a result of the treaty with the Dominators?

They didn't "tip off" anyone to the launch of the bomb. Felicity and Cisco were tapped into global satellite/radar systems and detected the approach of the bomb, just as they detected the approach of the ships.

I think if they were shielded from change, they wouldn't have felt so threatened by it. They probably have tech that detected the change, or are in contact with time-sensitive aliens that remembered the original history the way Cisco did after Barry first changed the timeline.

To assess whether they could still trust the non-powered human authorities they'd made a treaty with. If the government turned over the premier "war criminal" Barry Allen, then that would satisfy the conditions of the treaty and the Dominators could resume their detente with Earth after the metahumans had been extinguished. If the government had stood with the metahumans, though, then Earth would've been in breach of the treaty and would probably have been subject to conquest.

But Barry's the only one who's stuck around and made himself available for arrest. And unlike the time pirates of LoT, he's a metahuman, and that's the group the Dominators are afraid of. This isn't about protecting the timeline to them; this is about the dangers posed by metahumans. And the prospect of a single metahuman having the power to rewrite all history is, to them, the confirmation of all their worst fears. Maybe Flashpoint didn't change anything for them, but what they fear is what metahumans with that kind of power could do to them.

Because they didn't have the "time seismograph" until Nate came aboard and built it, which was after Flashpoint. So as far as that device is concerned, the post-Flashpoint reality is the "original" history.

 

I enjoyed the crossover more as it went along but the biggest miss for me was the Dominators. Could someone take them to an Old Navy and buy them some damn clothes. They can build galaxy spanning spaceships but run around in battle wearing nothing, really? Was the budget to small to create a couple generic looks for these guys? Even the green robes from the comic would have worked.

 

They tried that, but once they decided to go full CG with the Dominators, it proved too expensive to animate the fabric. Although it seems to me they could've put them in some kind of rigid body armor easily enough.

Besides, they're hardly the first nudist aliens in sci-fi.

 

It will never happen since TPTB are already doing a DC group superhero movie in the upcoming Justice League movie but I'd sure love to see these characters together on the Big Screen. They make a great team.

 

I think there's more potential to develop the teamup potential on TV than on the big screen. The only advantage of features is that you could have bigger action and spectacle, but they'd have less room for character interplay and exploring relationships, and those were the best parts of this crossover.

 

In any case, I want to see this team up again!