In the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover finale recap, the heroes battle to stop the Anti-Monitor and bring back the multiverse he set out to destroy…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
It’s been about a month since the conclusion of the first three parts of the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” event series, which has been the most ambitious crossover in the history of the CW ‘Arrow-verse’.
First and foremost, this crossover set the stage for the final season of “Arrow” where Oliver Queen would inevitably die, which would bring that show to its end. It stands to reason then that the final two episodes of “Crisis on Infinite Earths” would largely be an homage to the person who had a hand in nearly every superhero that spawned from the original series on the CW.
Beyond the tribute to Oliver Queen, the final two episodes of the epic crossover also set the stage for a much different future on the CW superhero shows because the point of this entire event was to finally bring all of them together on one world.
The idea of the multiverse in the CW largely started when the Flash crossed over to appear on “Supergirl” when that series was still on CBS. It explained why neither “Arrow” or “The Flash” had addressed Supergirl in any form or fashion up to that point.
In subsequent seasons, “The Flash” really leaned into the multiverse concept, especially when battling back against villains from different Earths not to mention the various versions of Harrison Wells that continually showed up.
By the end of “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, all of the CW heroes — Flash, Supergirl, Arrow, Batwoman and Legends of Tomorrow — exist on one world, although the multiverse wasn’t completely destroyed as it turns out. More on that later.
For now, let’s find out how we got to Earth Prime with our recap of “Crisis on Infinite Earths” parts 4 and 5…
Run, Barry, Run
The episode opens with a scene set 10,000 years ago on a planet called Malthus where Mar-Novu aka the Monitor was working on a time-traveling device with his wife that would send him back to the Dawn of Time. Sadly, his thirst for exploration led to the break in the universe that opened the crack between our world and the anti-matter universe.
In other words, Mar-Novu’s time traveling experiment led to the creation of the Anti-Monitor.
Fast forward to present day with the Paragons stuck in the Vanishing Point after the Anti-Moniter was successful in wiping out the entire multiverse. It turns out the heroes (and Lex Luthor) have been stuck here for months just trying to find a way to survive while constantly searching for answers about how to bring all of the destroyed worlds back from extinction.
Barry Allen is the one person who hasn’t been with them because he raced off into the Speed Force in hopes of finding an answer to defeat the Anti-Monitor. When he finally reappears, Barry doesn’t believe he’s been gone for more than a few seconds but it’s actually been months and unfortunately he didn’t find any of the answers to save the multiverse.
The good news is Oliver Queen returns as the Spectre with a plan that will hopefully allow them to defeat the Anti-Monitor and recreate the multiverse.
With a boost, he will help put Barry back into the Speed Force — he will transport Supergirl, Ryan Choi and Lex Luthor to the past in hopes that they can prevent Mar-Novu from traveling to the Dawn of Time, thus creating the Anti-Monitor. The rest of the heroes will travel to the anti-matter universe to battle his evil counterpart.
The plan almost works.
Barry drops off Kara, Ryan and Lex Luthor but the Anti-Monitor attacks inside the Speed Force before he can bring the rest of the heroes with him to the Dawn of Time where the Anti-Monitor is working to recreate a new world set in the anti-matter universe.
With the heroes scattered throughout time — a cornucopia of memories involving Oliver Queen’s greatest hits — Barry is forced to track each of them down and bring them back to the anti-matter universe.
His first stop takes him to a different STAR Labs when Barry comes face to face with — Barry Allen from the DC Extended Universe. Yes, Ezra Miller made a surprise appearance as the Flash while meeting the Flash for the first time. It’s a funny and charming encounter, especially after Miller faced a lot of backlash following his casting while loyal fans of “The Flash” television show felt Grant Gustin was the only Scarlet Speedster that the world needed.
The interaction was fun and definitely caught everybody off guard.
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Once Barry realizes what’s happening, he races off back into the Speed Force to track down his friends. He encounters Sara at the moment when she had died and her sister and Diggle were grieving for her. He found J’onn J’onzz back in the Invasion crossover when Oliver was struggling to trust Kara because she was an alien. Eventually through his travels, Barry is finally able to gather up everybody that was scattered through time via the Speed Force and he brings them back together to travel to the Dawn of Time.
As for Kara, Ryan and Luthor, they fight to stop Mar-Novu from ever going back to the Dawn of Time in the first place. Along the way, Lex reveals that he gave himself some new superpowers while writing himself into the Book of Destiny as one of the Paragons. Lex ends up fighting with Supergirl while Ryan finally lives up to the challenge and convinces Mar-Novu to give up his plans to travel back to the Dawn of Time. Just then, Barry shows up and swoops them all away.
The group ends up at the Dawn of Time in the anti-matter universe where they are greeted by the Anti-Monitor. He explains that stopping Mar-Novu had no effect because there are hundreds of Mar-Novu’s scattered throughout the history of the multiverse and one of them will always travel to that moment where the Anti-Monitor would be created.
It’s destiny that the anti-matter universe would eventually break through.
The heroes then team together to battle back against the Anti-Monitor and his shadow demons. Amidst the fighting, Spectre aka Oliver Queen reappears and personally duels with the Anti-Monitor after telling Barry that he would light the spark that would help recreate the multiverse.
As the fighting continues, Barry and the rest of the heroes finally get the better of the shadow demons as they watch an epic fight between Spectre and the Anti-Monitor. A giant blast of energy flies into the air as the battle continues and that’s when Barry realizes that this must the spark. So along with the other heroes, they concentrate on the energy source — apparently staring at it does the job — and a huge explosion lets loose as Spectre finishes the Anti-Monitor and the anti-matter universe collapses.
A Whole New World
When the heroes wake up, they have re-emerged on Earth again except this isn’t quite the place they left. First of all, all of the CW heroes now exist on the same Earth — Supergirl lives in National City, Flash in Central City, the Arrow crew in Star City, but all of them are now on the same world.
There are a few changes including Lex Luthor being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and he’s now Supergirl’s biggest fan. In fact, the DEO has been transformed into an agency funded by LuthorCorp. Lena Luthor is apparently his lieutenant and both are very supportive of Supergirl and her efforts to save the world.
As shocking as that might be, Kara is even more stunned that none of her friends or even her sister Alex have any idea that this is different from the world they left when the fighting began. That’s when J’onn J’onzz appears and tells Kara that the multiverse has been restarted, but no one is able to remember what exactly happened while they were gone.
Through his abilities as a green Martian, J’onn is able to restore memories to everybody who wasn’t part of the Paragons, who traveled to the Dawn of Time to stop the Anti-Monitor to clue them into what they missed. This includes Nash Wells, who has to find out to his own horror that he’s the one who let loose the Anti-Monitor in the first place.
Still despite the changes — including Diggle getting his son and daughter back — no one seems to be all that upset that Supergirl, Flash, the Legends and Batwoman are all part of the same Earth now. There’s only one problem — Oliver Queen didn’t come back to life as part of this rebirth of the multiverse.
When he died, Oliver fulfilled his promise to the Monitor and he’s not coming back.
Just as his friends begin to reconcile that he’s really gone, a group of shadow demons attack, which makes no sense after the heroes collapsed the anti-matter universe. Soon after, the Anti-Monitor reappears and tells them that he cannot be destroyed — because the anti-matter universe cannot be destroyed. No matter how many times he’s killed, the Anti-Monitor will just reform from the anti-mattter.
That forces the heroes to team together once again to stop him.
This time, however, the plan involves some ingenuity from Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi, who decide the best way to stop the Anti-Monitor is to stick him in a permanent loop where he’s constantly being shrunk down to microscopic size with no chance to escape. He would then be lost in the micro-verse (which apparently is the DC version of the Quantum Realm).
Ray and Ryan, along with some fast hands from Barry Allen, build the micro-bomb and rush it back to the scene of the battle where it appears the Anti-Monitor is just about to crush Superman. The bomb explodes and just as predicted, the Anti-Monitor shrinks down to microscopic size and the effect will keep him stuck in this vicious loop where he expands and immediately contracts again.
The Anti-Monitor has been defeated once and for all.
In the end, the President of the United States addresses the nation while giving thanks that Oliver Queen sacrificed himself to save the world.
Meanwhile the heroes converge at the STAR Labs warehouse that once served as a staging ground ahead of the “Invasion” battle a few seasons ago. A tribute to Oliver is built inside including his costume and an arrow flame that will burn forever in his memory.
Barry then tells the team now that everybody exists on the same Earth, he’s transforming this place into a meeting hall of sorts where they can come together to fight back against any threats too big for any one of them to handle. He invites Supergirl, Batwoman, J’onn J’onzz, Black Lightning and a few others to join him at a table he constructed that will serve as the meeting place for these super friends.
The heroes then hear a loud squeal and laughter, which then fades to a shot of an open cage marked with the name Gleek. Keen viewers will remember that as the name of the pet that belonged to the Wonder Twins back in the classic “Super Friends” cartoon series. That serves as the perfect segue to the exit, which shows the warehouse bares a striking resemblance to the same Hall of Justice that those Super Friends used in that classic cartoon.
Unlike the comic book of the same name, this “Crisis on Infinite Earths” ends by revealing that a new multiverse has been created.
Earth 2 houses “Stargirl,” the new series coming to the CW in 2020. Earth 9 houses the “Titans” while Earth 12 is the home to the “Green Lantern” movie where we get a glimpse of OA. Earth 19 is the home to “Swamp Thing.” Earth 21 is the place where “Doom Patrol” resides and Earth-96 will be protected by Superman as played by Brandon Routh.
With that “Crisis on Infinite Earths” comes to an end and the ‘Arrowverse’ will never be the same again!
