In the ‘Supergirl’ recap for ‘Elseworlds Part 3’, Barry and Oliver try to reverse reality one last time while facing off with a power hungry Superman and a crisis hits close to home…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
There’s nothing like some good old fashioned planning in the ‘Arrow-verse’.
As it’s been teased for the past two nights during the ‘Elseworlds’ crossover between ‘Arrow’, ‘The Flash’ and then on the third and final night during ‘Supergirl’, this entire three episode saga was just the preview for the massive event set to take place next year.
The CW superhero shows will be adapting the famous DC comic storyline ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ as it was confirmed in the post show credits.
The short, short version goes like this — the Monitor (who we’ve already met during the crossover) has kept an eye on the multiverse since the beginning of time but his counterpart the Anti-Monitor from the antimatter universe has been preparing to attack. As powerful as the Monitor might be, he still can’t single-handedly stop the Anti-Monitor so he goes from world to world, trying to gather heroes who could help lend a hand during the eventual fight.
The Anti-Monitor wants to destroy all the separate universes and condense it down to the last one standing and he’ll rule whatever is leftover. In the comics, the Monitor ends up condensing the universes as well but in doing so he combines forces with a group of heroes powerful enough to stop the Anti-Monitor.
Sadly during this final battle several heroes lose their lives — including Supergirl and the Flash (Barry Allen).
In the end, the multiverse is condensed down to one universe — Earth-1 — and everybody co-exists in this same plane of existence.
Now we all know that the CW isn’t going to kill off two of their three heroes but we have some thoughts about what might actually happen later in our recap. The Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline does finally allow the CW series to condense down to one shared universe where the Flash, Arrow, the Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl are all on the same Earth (currently, Supergirl and Superman are part of Earth-38).
But how will we get to Crisis on Infinite Earths in the ‘Arrow-verse’? Well let’s get to our recap of ‘Supergirl’ for the final night of the crossover titled ‘Elseworlds Part 3’…
A Whole New World
Following the heroes briefly defeating John Deegan in last night’s episode of ‘Arrow’, the Monitor reappeared and returned the Book of Destiny to the deranged doctor from Arkham Asylum and told him to think bigger when he remakes reality on his second go round.
In response, Deegan transforms Barry Allen and Oliver Queen into a pair of criminals called the Trigger Twins and he turns himself into a Earth-1 version of Superman — dressed all in black (so that explains the strange alternate Superman we met in the last episode of ‘Arrow’).
Superman-Deegan shows up to stop the Trigger Twins because in his twisted reality, he’s the hero that will save the entire world. To escape, Oliver collapses a tower that will fall on a group of people if Superman-Deegan doesn’t fly off to catch it. Even without their skills or powers, Oliver and Barry are still resourceful enough to escape Superman-Deegan.
After getting away, Barry and Oliver are pulled into another reality where the Monitor confronts them once again about his plans to face this greater crisis coming for them but they are only interested in returning their reality to normal.
They leave but something about the conversation haunts Oliver as he rushes back out to help Barry reset reality. Their next stop is a seedy local bar where they hope to find Cisco to ask for his help.
Of course in this new reality, good has turned bad, which means Cisco is a crime boss ruling Central City with an iron fist. He made his fortune by breaching into bank vaults and stealing loads of cash. Barry is forced to name drop Cisco’s brother Dante to finally secure a meeting with him where they tell him the plan.
They want Cisco to teleport them to a different Earth to find help and in return this plan will help him stop Superman-Deegan on Earth-1. Cisco agrees and he breaches the entire group to Earth-38 where they reunite with the real Superman and his lady love Lois Lane.
Barry and Oliver ask for his help because he’s the only one powerful enough to go up against Superman-Deegan and they also know that Kara must be in trouble because she’s nowhere to be found. Add to that, Superman has heard of these objects called the Book of Destiny before and he might have some kind of insight on how this whole thing might work with rewriting reality.
Superman agrees to help as they prepare to breach back over to Earth-1 to stop Superman-Deegan.
Reality Bites
Back on the warped Earth-1, Superman-Deegan returns to his home base at STAR Labs where he coordinates with his troops — including Diggle, Alex Danvers and Killer Frost. They are all yes men who essentially have to bow and scrape at Superman-Deegan’s feet even though he just failed to capture the two criminals he was after.
That’s when Superman-Deegan goes to visit Kara Danvers, who has been imprisoned in the pipeline. It seems Deegan cloned her powers as well as records from the killer robot AMAZO to transform himself into Superman. Deegan is confused about Kara’s place on this Earth because he’s looked through the Book of Destiny and she’s no supposed to exist on Earth-1. He obviously doesn’t know that there is a multiverse out there with dozens of potential versions of Kara/Supergirl — unfortunately there wasn’t one on Earth-1.
When Kara spots Alex, she tries to connect with her ‘sister’ but she’s quickly shut down by this version of Superman-Deegan’s lapdogs.
Kara is eventually able to draw Alex into a conversation where she starts to tell her about moments from her childhood — information no one else should know — as they reconnect as siblings from different worlds. Hearing all this convinces Alex that Kara must be telling her the truth and the only way to stop Deegan will be to free her from captivity.
Alex opens up the pipeline to free Kara but on their way out of STAR Labs they run into Superman-Deegan along with his personal hit squad of Diggle and Killer Frost. Just when Superman-Deegan is about to fry them with his heat vision, a breach opens up and the real Superman along with Barry, Oliver and Cisco transport over from Earth-38.
Cisco makes a quick escape but Superman is left to battle Superman-Deegan, Oliver goes to fight Diggle and Killer Frost and that leaves Barry, Kara and Alex to find the Book of Destiny so they can rewrite reality.
The Battle for Earth-1
Supergirl, Alex and Barry find the Book of Destiny hidden away in the time vault at STAR Labs but they are unable to rewrite reality so they decide the only person who might know how to handle this is Superman.
The team rushes out to help Superman in his fight against Superman-Deegan and they are able to slow him down enough for the Book of Destiny to get put into good use. Superman starts to rewrite reality — Barry transforms back in the Flash and Oliver returns to the Green Arrow — but the changes are somewhat temporary.
Superman-Deegan eventually returns and gets the drop on Barry and promises to snap his neck if Superman doesn’t hand back over the book. Oliver manages to get within striking distance but Barry begs him not to give into his darker instincts to kill Deegan. Barry believes that’s what the Monitor might be testing in Oliver — if he can fight back against his dark side and do the greater good.
In the mayhem, Deegan flies off with the Book of Destiny and begins rewriting things yet again.
This time, Barry and Kara come up with a new plan — if they can fly around the Earth fast enough at the same time, they may be able to slow down the rotation and thus almost stop time (a nice call back to the original ‘Superman’ film). The plan might work but Superman warns everybody that when he stared into the Book of Destiny, he saw that Barry and Kara racing around the world would work but they would both die in the process.
Still with options limited and reality being rewritten yet again, they have to try.
Superman eventually tracks down Deegan but he manages to rewrite reality yet again and this time he brings AMAZO the killer robot back to life to do battle with the Man of Steel. Thankfully this time, Superman has back up as another breach opens up and this time it’s Lois Lane along with the Martian Manhunter and Brainy from Earth-38 to pitch in a helping hand.
Brainy is able to quickly subdue AMAZO and J’onn J’onnz is able to protect the people from the flying debris being thrown around during a second battle between Superman, Superma-Deegan and Lois Lane. Meanwhile, Barry and Kara race around the world and they both start to deteriorate just like the Book of Destiny predicted.
Knowing what the future holds, Oliver Queen pays one more visit to the Monitor to ask for his help in stopping Deegan but he’s not begging for help as much as allowing Kara and Barry to follow through with their plan without dying. Oliver tells the Monitor that those two are the best of these worlds and they should be able to carry on saving people on a daily basis as superheroes.
Oliver is willing to do just about anything to rewrite that destiny (stay tuned on that one).
Kara and Barry’s plan works as the Earth slows down enough that Superman is able to save a falling Lois while Oliver returns just in the nick of time to fire a glowing arrow into the Book of Destiny while time is slowed down and it falls out of Deegan’s hand, turns to charred pieces of paper and reality is returned to normal.
The Book of Destiny consumes John Deegan, turning him into some kind of withered creature while Kara and Barry both return home safely after slowing the Earth down just long enough to get this plan into action. Everything else turns back to normal as well and the day is saved.
Crisis on Infinite Earths
Back at STAR Labs, Cisco breaches the Earth-38 heroes back home again while Kara remarks that this is starting to be a yearly occurrence when they have to team up. Back on Earth-38, Clark reveals to his cousin that Lois is pregnant and he’s going to be leaving Earth for a few years so his child can be born and raised on Argo City in the last remnants of Krypton (never mind the questions about Lois’ pregnancy that Kevin Smith had some interesting theories about when he did ‘Mallrats’).
That means Kara is now the sole protector of Earth-38 as Supergirl.
Before leaving for Argo City, Clark finally proposes to Lois as well so the happy couple can soon be a wedded couple raising a child.
Finally back on Earth-1, Barry and Oliver share a post-reality-saving drink where they discuss what it was like to walk in each other’s shoes for a few days. Oliver admits that it peaceful and helped him reflect when he ran so fast that the rest of the world just slowed down for him. Barry ends up thanking Oliver for convincing the Monitor to save their world but it’s clear that deadly arrow that struck down the Book of Destiny came with a hefty price.
Before leaving, Oliver gets a call from Gotham City — Batwoman is on the line and she’s curious at what kind of trouble they may have stirred up at Arkham Asylum as Dr. John Deegan has been placed in a cell next to Roger Hayden — aka Psycho-Pirate.
“Everything is as it should be. The stage is set. Worlds will live. Worlds will die. And the universe will never be the same.”
In the comics, the Psycho-Pirate ends up being a henchman for the Anti-Monitor as he comes to destroy the multiverse.
The final end credit flashes to the revelation of the crossover for 2019 called ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’.
Now the one theory I can float based on the comics and what happened in the third part of ‘Elseworlds’, my guess is that Oliver Queen agreed to sacrifice himself during the oncoming battle against the Anti-Monitor instead of his friends dying in exchange for the arrow that allowed him to destroy the Book of Destiny. In the comic book version of the story, the Flash and Supergirl both die but we all know that’s not going to happen on the CW versions of the show.
But ‘Arrow’ has been going on longer than any of these series and there have been rumors that a final year could be coming sooner rather than later. Is it possible that ‘Arrow’ could come to an end as part of the massive ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ crossover next year with Oliver Queen giving up his life to save the multiverse?
There’s only one way to know for certain and that’s wait until 2019 when the ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ storyline unfolds in the ‘Arrow-verse’.
