The CW has been setting up for Crisis since 2018’s “Elseworlds” storyline, where we saw The Monitor come into the universe and offer the Book of Destiny to someone insane enough to wreak havoc with it. His purpose was to set up for the battle with the Anti-Monitor, a storyline we’ve seen play out over the last episodes of Batwoman, Flash, and Supergirl.
In the end, we’ve watched as the Anti-Monitor managed to achieve his goal easier than even Thanos managed to, with the entire multiverse wiped away so Moebius can start anew with a universe made purely of anti-matter. The heroes have two episodes left to stop that from happening and stop the Crisis, but before we see that, here are ten questions we have about the story as we all understand it. Hopefully the series will enlighten us on most of them by the end.
10 WHY DID LEX’S KRYPTONITE WORK?
This is more of a minor, comic geek question than anything specifically about the story. But when Lex decides to hop from universe to universe attacking different Supermen with a piece of Kryptonite...how exactly does that work? Kryptonite isn’t supposed to have the same effect when it comes from a different universe. We’ve even seen some Supermen able to ignore the effects of Kryptonite altogether (like Kingdom Come Superman) or use it as fuel (like Ultraman).
9 WHAT'S UP WITH THE LEGENDS?
What’s the point of Sara bringing up how she told her team no crossovers? Between Ray, Sara herself, the Captain Coldcomputer, and Mick from another Earth, this is closer to the original Legends than ever. (John’s there too, so this isn’t just the “original” Legends.) It works great as a joke, even if it does feel a bit cheeky to have characters in universe referring to it as a “crossover”, but what’s the functional purpose? For that matter, why exactly would the team be allowed to just skip out on an event of this magnitude? All of creation is at stake—just how bad do things have to get before the team decides they wanna be available?
8 WHY THE OLD OLIVER QUEEN?
Early on in the crossover, we learn Jonathan Kent was briefly sent to another Earth where he wound up being cared for by old Oliver Queen of a future Star City. This scene might have made sense if it were set up for Jonathan maybe having aged some so he could be a ten year old for the Superman and Lois series. Instead it was just a random departure so Sara could talk to an older Oliver. In a crossover which needs every moment it can get, this is just a weird random departure.
7 DOES CISCO KEEP HIS POWERS?
It was pretty funny seeing Cisco’s powers so easily restored. One minute he’s telling Monitor he lost his powers for a good reason, the next suddenly not only is Cisco back to being Vibe but he’s got his costume as well, even though there’s literally no one to keep the secret identity for on this mission.
The Monitor definitely winds up being right overall, as Cisco’s powers are absolutely vital in destroying the Anti-Monitor’s anti-matter cannons and keeping Barry from sacrificing his life. But does Cisco keep these powers, or are we back to him being “normal” when this crossover is finished?
6 WHY KILL OLIVER QUEEN AT ALL?
So much of this season of Arrow has been built towards Oliver sacrificing his life to save everyone. And he did just that in the first episode of the crossover, helping to save a billion lives on Earth-38 fighting alone against an endless army. But an episode later they were working on reviving him, and before we knew it Jim Corrigan was giving Oliver the powers of the Spectre. But why have Jim hand the powers over at all? After so many long, long years working to save his city, the world, and even other worlds...doesn’t Oliver deserve a happy ending? Or is he doomed to forever work in the shadows as...something else?
5 WHAT'S RYAN CHOI'S ROLE IN ALL THIS?
The last episode of Crisis before the crossover gave us a new character: Ryan Choi, working at a location familiar to long-time Atom fans. Yet what’s his role going forward? We know for a fact Brandon Routh isn’t sticking around, so there’s about to be a vacancy in the CW universe, as our Little Robot Man makes his exit. It’s obvious Ryan has the potential to be the next Atom, and a more classic one at that—but is that what he’s doing now? The character he seems to be now isn’t ready for superheroics, and even if he helps them survive is that what he wants to do going forward? And does he join the Legends or help out another crew with his intelligence and skills?
4 WHY BOTHER EVACUATING EARTH-38?
This sounds totally cruel and makes us seem like supervillains, but honestly...the evacuation of Earth-38 seems so pointless in hindsight. It made perfect sense as a thing for the heroes to do, but from a plotting perspective it feels more like wasted time. Of course it sucks to see an entire Earth destroyed—even though Supergirl’s universe more than any other has established the existence of countless alien planets which were also destroyed—but there’s an even bigger problem here.
By the end of the third Crisis plot, all the Earths are destroyed. The big mid-season cliffhanger is “everybody dies”. Well if that’s the case what were they doing all this saving for? Even if they don’t merge Earths this is going to have to involve rebuilding every Earth from the ground up.
3 WHY NOT GET THE BOOK OF DESTINY EARLIER?
After having the entire last crossover be built around the Book of Destiny, the Book vanished in the aftermath of Elseworlds, never to be seen again. At least, until the Monitor thought things were getting weird, then he went and found it. But in that case...why not go ahead and get it before, and give the team a chance to prepare better for the Crisis?
2 THE BOOK OF DESTINY CAN BE REWRITTEN WITH A SHARPIE?
This was the best moment in the crossover from the perspective of a well written Lex Luthor, but it still raises a big question: how’d he pull this off? The Book of Destiny is supposed to be this cosmic maguffin that allows one to see the future, and holding the book with the right amount of determination towards a specific goal can alter reality itself somehow. All of that’s fine, but how was Lex simply able to tear out a page and rewrite it with nothing more than a Sharpie? If that’s possible, shouldn’t larger alterations be possible with enough permanent marker? “Bring back the other multiverses.” “Stop Lyla from turning evil.”
1 THE MERGED EARTH?
With all of the multiverse gone, they’re going to have quite the time trying to bring everyone back. But is it possible to revive an entire multiverse? Perhaps not. Comic fans know you can’t do Crisis without killing a Flash, and making permanent changes to the multiverse. So what does a merged Earth look like? Does it make a full-fledged Justice League possible? And what alterations would they make to everything else? Can we change the identity of certain heroes, or even villains, to bring back certain key characters like Captain Cold? We’ve had the showrunners admit they can make major changes thanks to the Crisis, so what big changes are they aiming for?