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Crisis on Infinite Earths wasn’t perfect, but The Flash’s “Armageddon” can learn from the previous crossover’s mistakes.
“Crisis on Infinite Earths” was arguably the most ambitious crossover event in the Arrowverse and it understandably made a few blunders. Hopefully, the upcoming “Armageddon” crossover won’t repeat the same mistakes. The Crisis was built up way back in the first season of The Flash with a newspaper article from the future depicting Red Skies and declaring that the Flash went missing during it, which was a staple of the event in the comic. This quickly became a heavily ingrained part of the Arrowverse. It served as a central plot point in The Flash Season 5, where Barry and Iris’s daughter from the future, Nora West-Allen, reveals that Barry never returned from the Crisis. Additionally, it was heavily referenced further during the “Elseworlds” crossover of the same year, introducing the Monitor and his desire to stop the coming Crisis.
Naturally, “Crisis on Infinite Earths” had a lot of hype to live up to, and one of the ways the showrunners chose to do this was to fill the crossover with cameos from tons of other live-action DC works, either with stock footage or appearances from the actors in question. Through this, they established that Titans, the 1989 Batman films, the 60s Batman TV show, the original Superman movies, Smallville, Lucifer and even the DC Extended Universe were part of the Arrowverse’s multiverse, alongside many more. And while going this route was great for fanservice, in terms of character development and plot, it left a lot to be desired.
An example of this is introducing Kevin Conroy as the Bruce Wayne of Earth-99. While seeing the voice behind the animated Batman make his live-action debut was incredible, many fans were put off by the fact that he portrayed an evil version of Bruce Wayne and that his entire role was basically just to prop up Kate Kane as the Paragon of Courage.
Another example is Ezra Miller’s iteration of the Flash meeting Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen in the Speed Force during Part 4 of “Crisis.” While seeing the two live-action versions of the Flash meet onscreen was a welcome surprise, especially given Warner Bros’ previous embargos that limited the Arrowverse on what characters they could use, in terms of plot, his appearance made absolutely no sense. At this point in the crossover, the multiverse had already been destroyed, with only the seven Paragons as the remaining survivors, at least until later episodes in the Arrowverse revealed others. Earth-1 Barry even lampshades this point, wondering how DCEU Barry could even be there.
Because of these cameos, “Crisis on Infinite Earths” left a lot of other established Arrowverse characters to fall by the wayside, with Green Arrow, the Flash and Supergirl being the only ones who could really shine onscreen. Not to mention that several characters who were implied to appear in the Crisis itself never showed up. The final season of Arrow indicated that all of Oliver’s supporting cast, like Black Siren, Roy Harper, Thea Queen, William Clayton and Conner Hawke, were joining Oliver’s fight, but none of them appeared. Furthermore, Eobard Thawne, Barry’s arch-nemesis, was expected to show up during the Crisis since his introduction in The Flash was connected to it, but he did not make an appearance. And from Legends of Tomorrow, none of the Legends except for Sara Lance, Ray Palmer, Mick Rory and John Constantine appeared save for brief cameos near the end, with the in-universe reason for their absence being that they simply didn’t want to take part in the crossover. This made the Legends come across as complete jerks while the multiverse was at stake.
With the “Armageddon” crossover event coming up on The Flash, using the same five-episode crossover special that was built up for “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” this gives the Arrowverse a chance to rectify some of these mistakes. In addition, it also has the potential to tie up a few loose ends that resulted from the cancellation of shows like Black Lightning and Green Arrow and the Canaries, as well as giving these characters one more chance to make an appearance. Add on recurring plot elements like John Diggle’s hinted Green Lantern ring in the previous year, and “Armageddon” has the potential to revitalize the Arrowverse in a time where it needs it most.
To see if it improves upon Crisis on Infinite Earths, watch The Flash Season 8’s “Armageddon” event, airing Nov. 16 at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.
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