It’s the final battle for a world we all recognize and Supergirl, Green Arrow and The Flash are pretty much powerless to do anything.
Previously on ELSEWORLDS…
This episode really needed to stick the landing to make this crossover better than the craziness that happened last year, what with the battling Nazis and all. And I wasn’t really sure they were going to pull through. Until the final scene, when they teased NEXT YEAR’s crossover.
Seriously, I can’t believe I have to wait a whole year for this. I guess it’s only fair, since I’m going to make you wait til the end of this column before I explain what the hell I’m talking about. As if you didn’t already know.
So, Barry and Oliver are now The Trigger Twins, powerless outlaws in Central City on the run from the black-suited Superman we saw at the end of Part 2. But it isn’t Superman, because only the reality of Earth-1 was shifted around, and Superman is on Earth-38. No, this is John Deegan, who used his second chance at writing reality to turn himself into Superman. And this Superman has a whole team supporting him. John Diggle and Killer Frost and Alex Danvers… The logic on this whole thing is going off the rails a bit, but at least they cover it up by having Deegan explain that the Book of Destiny must have a bit of a sense of irony. Anyway, Superman’s team has Kara locked up in Barry’s secret prison at STAR Labs, but Kara manages to convince Alex to let her out.
Meanwhile, Barry and Oliver find Cisco, an evil club owner who has James Olsen as his muscle – they were really stretching to get the SUPERGIRL cast into this thing… maybe next time don’t put them on last – and convince him to vibe them all to Earth-38, so they can grab Superman and maybe get the Book of Destiny back from Deegan and put reality back the way it belongs. But even Superman has some trouble with his evil twin, so Barry and Kara decide to run around the world to slow down time to take the book away from Deegan. This whole crossover has been an homage to the Christopher Reeve Superman movies, and I completely adored it. Every single oblique and obtuse reference.
Barry and Kara start racing around the world in opposite directions, even though Superman tells them they’ll both die if they do it. As Lois, J’onn J’onzz and Brainiac 5 come on the scene to help Superman out, Oliver goes to talk to The Monitor and makes a deal with him. Oliver wants Barry and Kara to survive. The Monitor wants balance to the universe. Somehow, I feel like whatever deal Oliver made still won’t make things as crazy as FLASHPOINT.
With the deal made, Oliver returns and hits Deegan with a Kryptonite arrow and Barry and Kara manage to survive their run and the heroes turn everything back to normal. Back at the Kent farm in Earth-38’s Smallville, Clark and Lois tell Kara that it’s OK that Kara got booted from the DEO last episode, because she’s gonna have some more responsibility, since Clark and Lois are going back to Argo City… because Lois is pregnant! Then, later, at the Fortress of Solitude, Superman turns some coal into a ring and proposes to Lois. I could’ve sworn they were already married, but it’s possible I just assumed because they’ve been married in the comics for 22 years now.
Finally, Batwoman makes one more appearance, chastising Oliver for Deegan, as he made a new friend in Arkham: the PSYCHO-PIRATE! And the one looney tells the other, “Worlds will live, worlds will die and nothing will ever be the same.” And then we get the big tease.
Holy. Balls. Coming Fall 2019. They’ve certainly set a whole bunch of things in place to make this CRISIS seem big enough. Given the outsized nature of the comic book crossover – a 12-issue maxiseries, with more than 40 tie-in issues over the course of a year – they could easily turn the whole of the 2019-2020 season into one big mega event, drawing in LEGENDS, BLACK LIGHTNING and the shows on the DC UNIVERSE streaming service. I doubt they’ll go that route, but a comic geek can dream, can’t he?
Now that they’ve teased me, terribly, the ARROWVERSE is going on a little break, with the shows not coming back til January. I suppose we all need a little break after that.