WARNING: The following contains spoilers for "Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part 1," which premiered Sunday on The Cw.
“Crisis on Infinite Earths” kicked off Sunday with a prologue spanning the creation of the Multiverse, the age of heroes and the impending end of everything. After a succession of parallel Earths were destroyed by a wave of antimatter, a Doom Protester (played by Wil Wheaton) on Earth-38, is suddenly attacked by a fire-breathing dragon. Just as the creature has him in its sights, Supergirl comes to the rescue by shielding him from the flames and talking down the dragon down until it transforms into a much smaller, and friendlier-looking, Komodo dragon.
Although it's initially jarring to see the long-anticipated Arrowverse crossover kick-start with a dragon attack, of all things, it's actually a rather appropriate callback to the Supergirl Season 4 episode, “Call to Action.”
In the episode, a domestic terrorist group headed by Agent Liberty targets aliens living in the suburbs of National City. They break into a man’s home and brutally assault him in front of his young daughter, Alana.
Then, the man is thrown into a reptile tank, shattering the glass and releasing the Komodo dragon inside. That Komodo dragon is Alana's pet, Spike, and Alana asks him to please do something to help her father. The dragon glows and transforms into the giant winged serpent we saw at the beginning of “Crisis on Infinite Earths.” Supergirl swoops in to fight the dragon but learns that it was only acting out of fear for Alana’s safety. When she tells him that Alana is safe, he goes back to his original size.
Bringing Spike back certainly makes for a visually stunning, if seemingly out of place, introduction to Kara in this year’s DC TV crossover. But the inclusion of Spike goes beyond mere cinematic spectacle. Kara is able to soothe Spike by letting him know that Alana’s worried about him. “She knows you're afraid of something,” she says, “but she just wants you to come home.”
We learned from his original appearance in the show that Spike only transforms when Alana is threatened. Since she is nowhere to be seen at the start of “Crisis,” it isn’t clear what triggered his rampage. Whether he knew of the antimatter wave itself, or was just lashing out against a general sense of threat, his emergence here serves as one of the first signs to Kara and crew that something very bad is about to happen.
"Crisis on Infinite Earths" Continues in Batwoman on Monday, Dec. 9 at 8 p.m. ET/PT and in The Flash on Tuesday, Dec. 10 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. After the winter hiatus, the crossover will conclude on Tuesday, Jan. 14 in Arrow at 8 p.m. ET/PT and in DC's Legends of Tomorrow at 9 p.m. ET/PT.