DC Universes Colliding

Worlds will live, worlds will die and the universe will never be the same. Here goes another CW annual crossover with their main DC tv shows but wait this is different. This crossover sets the bar for crossovers not only for the CW but television and other franchises to come. Mainly faithful to its source material as CW’s Crisis On Infinite Earths spans not only CW’S DC shows but across everything DC, past present and what’s to come.

The cross overs were excellent with a blend of sending off to beloved DC properties one last time with Smallville’s Tom Welling returning as Clark Kent, an enduring assist from Lucifer’s Tom Ellis as Lucifer Morningstar who may be used undoubtedly more time but most surprisingly 2017’s Justice League’s Ezra Miller as Barry Allen aka the Flash confirming that there everything dc may coexist with each other yet in different realities. Besides the splendid cameos and setups they may have fostered, the Crisis itself spans across 5 episodes from different CW shows.

Supergirl, Batwoman, The Flash, Arrow and DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow were paced quite excellently. Despite the second episode being lackluster as the other’s proposed danger, action and the fate of the multiverse in which these different “Earths” (realities) live within is simply more entertaining than gathering three characters to help in the Crisis; although Brandon Routh’s Superman, continuation of Christopher Reeve’s Superman and Osric Chau as Ryan Choi known as a version of The Atom in the comics were stupendous additions. Besides the scope of the story with not just the CW DC universe at stake but other properties such DC Universe’s Titans, Netflix’s semi-original Lucifer and what’s still canon within the DCEU (Justice League) it’s a wonder how this was managed to stay within the characters that were most important to the CW DC canon.

More assistance from other characters must have been due to the budget which restricted the event to reach bigger feats and better effects; although the budgeted crossover managed to pull it off some amazing feats with the cameos again being a massive highlight. Another complaint however has to be the bland villain who did not have many lines or an actual motive he explains himself. But he did manage to destroy the established universe that began with Arrow starring Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen all the way back when it aired in 2012.

Looking back on it now it would be crazy to even consider this reality in which Oliver became the Spectre, a being connected to every reality or in Oliver’s words, “something more” spawned a new universe which rewrote the reality of all DC CW shows as all the characters live within the same continuity. This change will continue to affect those shows for example with dead characters returning as they never died in this rebirth of reality.

To rate this crossover would be a first by episode parts 4, 1, 5, 3 and 2 overall all made a compelling crossover. A crossover that not only brought together DC properties from CW but set up multiple possibilities for more crossovers and hinted at other shows to come with DCU & CW’s Stargirl, HBO’s Green Lantern series as Earth 2 and 12 respectively and CW’s Superman and Lois to name a few. This was the best thing to come out of the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 that proclaimed a standard for television and CW crossovers to come with room for improvement; I rate Crisis On Infinite Earths a 9/10.