During this season’s CW crossover event, “Elseworlds,” the ending teased the impending arrival of “Crisis on Infinite Earths.” Now that the Arrowverse shows have concluded for the season, and we know that the “Crisis” will be the focus across the shows next season, I thought we could take a look at some of the important parts of the “Crisis” in the comics so fans can have a general understanding leading into next season. This week I will focus on the storyline from the comics and next week I will cover speculation for the CW’s interpretation of the well-known story arc. The story is pretty vast and complex, so I will try and pull the main points.
1 – It Eliminates The Multiverse
One of the more confusing parts of the Arrowverse (mainly on The Flash) has been the multiverse. Even for fans of the comics, keeping up with the different Earths, characters, etc. can be confusing at times. The CW shows are looking to do exactly what the comics did when they noticed a similar trend. DC at one time had numerous worlds depicted in their comics from various companies they had bought. In 1985 DC decided to take a pretty bold risk for the time as writer Marv Wolfmann wanted to eliminate the multiverse mainly because he felt it was difficult with readers to follow, and unfair for them to try.
Therefore, Crisis on Infinite Earths would lead to the unification of a single DC Universe. I think this is a smart move because it will not only freshen up the shows and story-telling, but it would make it be much easier to follow which will hopefully keep the “average” fan coming back. I feel it will also make for better writing because too many times the Multiverse was used for quick resolutions. Does Flash have an unsolvable issue? Grab a Harrison Wells from another Earth. No room for a specific baddy? Send them to an uninhabited Earth. Or maybe it’s Arrow. Want to bring Laurel back somehow? Alternate Earth it is. Unifying the Multiverse will hopefully create stronger writing, which would make better stories.
2 – It Will Get More Confusing Before It Makes Sense
The multiverse is already fairly convoluted and is easy to lose track of, so bear with me as I try to give you the Sparknotes version:
The Big Bang created the universe, but the main difference from the version many of us know is that the DC version created the Multiverses which were isolated from each other, with their own versions of history (which is why the characters could be so different).
Kell Mossa (Pariah) was a gifted scientist who had a primary goal: to witness the origins of the universe even though legend warned that it could cause complete chaos. He locked himself in an anti-matter chamber so he could witness the beginning of time, and while there, he saw a mere glimpse. This act unleashed the Anti-Matter Universe which pretty much released pure evil. Because of this, the Monitor and Anti-Monitor (also referred to as Monitor, but that is even more confusing) were created.
The Monitor may sound familiar to you as he is the individual who spoke with Barry and Oliver in the “Elseworlds” crossover about the impending doom coming, where we last saw him taking Oliver away (oh, and future Felicity but I don’t think anyone really cared about that) and he also made his presence felt in Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl. His intentions were to unite the Multiverses in order to attack the Anti-Monitor rather than try to defend all the multiverses. Strength in numbers, right? In 1985, DC also wanted to use every character that they had at their disposal, which was a huge task of the time (think of it as when The Avengers used most of their characters for the first time together in Infinity War).
The Monitor sends his companion Harbinger to recruit heroes and villains, including Psycho-Pirate who we saw in the Arrow episode of the “Elseworlds” crossover event. Psycho-Pirate ends up betraying the heroes he had been with leading to he and Harbinger being under the command of a mysterious foe, who ends up going against the Monitor.
The mysterious foe turns out to be Anti-Monitor who enhances Psycho-Pirate’s powers. Harbinger tries to fight the forces of Anti-Matter, but the control is too strong and she kills the Monitor. She is eventually released from the enemies’ control and sacrifices herself in order to hold off the anti-matter on the remaining earths. Monitor also reveals that his death had to happen in order to release his energy, temporarily protecting Earths 1 and 2.
Meanwhile, thanks to Brainiac, the villains have joined forces in order to take over the other Earths that are under distress. Eventually, the Spectre comes to tell the heroes and villains of the Anti-Monitor’s current location.
This leads to…
3 – Heroes and Villains Had To Join Forces
Another different approach for the time was seeing heroes having to team up with their sworn enemies for the greater good. The Crisis was one such case.
The Spectre organizes the heroes and villains while making a plan for them to travel back in time to the Big Bang in order to stop the Anti-Monitor before he was released. As they travel back to the beginning of time, the Anti-Monitor is waiting for them and a battle ensues resulting in the universe exploding.
The result? A single universe, but some characters from the other Earths are now in this single Earth. The only individuals who are aware that the other Earths ever existed were the heroes and villains who were at the beginning of time, and they now struggle with this knowledge.
Anti-Monitor returns to destroy the single Earth in which all of the remaining characters fight back, even Darkseid! Eventually, Kal-L, Earth-2 Superman, destroy the Anti-Monitor and they, along with Superboy-Prime, Alex Luthor, and Earth-2 Lois Lane leave the universe leaving Psycho-Pirate as the only individual to remember the Multiverse.
4 – There Are A Lot Of Deaths…And I Mean A LOT
Hundreds of characters die in the Infinite Crisis, which was an enormous deal at the time. To put it in comparison, Death in the Family came out a couple of years later in 1988, and many know how big of a deal it was to kill off Robin.
The two most well-known deaths were Supergirl and The Flash. Writer Marv Wolfman and DC’s vice president/executive editor Dick Giordano had pushed for the death of Supergirl mainly because it was a high profile death, but also because they felt that it seemed as if a chunk of Krypton had survived the explosion with the amount of Kryptonian characters they had, and wanting to make Superman stand out more.
Supergirl gave a valiant fight to Anti-Monitor reducing him to an energy form, but it was at the cost of her life.
Barry Allen was the most notable death (which the concept has been the primary, lasting focus on the CW show). The Anti-Monitor creates a huge anti-matter cannon in which The Flash sacrifices himself to destroy the cannon, which ultimately saves the universe.
RELATED — Crisis On Infinity Earth Crossovers Will Be Five Episodes And Take Place Over Two Quarters
Did you get all of that? Yeah, it is a lot, but I think it is the right move to focus on one shared universe. Obviously, the CW has not established all the characters that were used in the comics, but they do have some major players. How will their interpretation look? Leave your thoughts in the usual spot, and thanks for reading! Also, tune in next week for speculation on how the CW will depict Crisis on Infinite Earths next season!
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Sources: DC Archives, FanDom, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Crisis on Earth Prime
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