Crisis on Earth-X is the name of the upcoming 4 part crossover event between Supergirl, Arrow, The Flash and DC's Legends of Tomorrow. The crossover will air over two nights from November 27th to November 28th, 2017.
The episodes that are involved in the crossover are:
"Crisis on Earth-X, Part 1" (Supergirl)
"Crisis on Earth-X, Part 2" (Arrow)
"Crisis on Earth-X, Part 3" (The Flash)
"Crisis on Earth-X, Part 4" (DC's Legends of Tomorrow)
Plot Synopsis:
In S.T.A.R. Labs, Prometheus-X is revealed to be a doppelgänger of Oliver's deceased friend Tommy Merlyn, and commits suicide out of loyalty to the Nazi regime. Harry reveals that, through his exploration of the multiverse, he discovered Earth-X is a dystopian world where World War II was not won by the Allied Forces. Dark Arrow, Overgirl, and Thawne steal a power source known as the Prism from a research company; the heroes believe that Dark Arrow seeks to build a neutron bomb with it. After a series of battles, most of the heroes are captured; Oliver's team, along with Harry, Caitlin, Cisco, and Mick Rory, are in captivity at S.T.A.R. Labs after the Nazi forces infiltrate it, and Oliver, Barry, Sara, Stein, Jefferson, Kara, and Alex are transported to Earth-X's concentration camp, but Kara is moved to S.T.A.R. Labs. The villains reveal that Overgirl is dying and Dark Arrow plans to use the Prism to create artificial red sunlight that would weaken Kara's invulnerability, preparing a heart transplant for Overgirl but killing Kara in the process.
In the concentration camp, the heroes are rescued from execution by Ray Terrill and Citizen Cold (Leonard Snart’s Earth-X doppelgänger). Thawne prepares to operate on both Overgirl and Kara, and Iris and Felicity work to rescue their friends at S.T.A.R. Labs, leading the latter to confront Dark Arrow. After they struggle with both Earth-X’s resistance fighters and the Nazi forces, the heroes eventually made it back to Earth-1 after hijacking the Nazi’s dimensional projector at the cost of Stein mortally wounded. Iris, Felicity, Kara, and the others are eventually rescued by the returned heroes and The Legends.
The Verdict:
I'm NOT going to split this up into parts to cover this properly, so bare with me as I talk about this in its entirety from start to finish. I might jump around a bit, so I apologize now.
This whole thing starts off with everyone being invited to Barry and Iris' wedding, something goes awry and we get the Nazi invasion from Earth-X. Before all of that though? We get a cool montage of every set of these heroes in one of their individual adventures. Supergirl is dealing with a Dominator (last year's crossover villain as noted by Kara's cute remark), Team Flash is dealing with King Shark, Arrow is fighting ninjas, and the Legends are in medieval England, getting their "Robin Hood" on. Everyone is scrambling with last second details for the wedding and/or RSVPing their seating for we can see everyone come together. As much as I've been annoyed this season of The Flash with the heavy focus on Barry and Iris' relationship (I had my fill of that during last year's storyline against Savitar with Iris' life in the balance...), I thought the focus here set the stage for a lot of great things here. The last few Arrowverse crossover events can be best described as muddled up in terms of narrative storytelling, with the one for 2016 was merely an afterthought at the cost of promoting Arrow's 100th episode and Supergirl not even tying into the event until the last two minutes to tease it. As a result of this get-together of all of these friends from other realities and time periods, we get a lot of fun moments from this episode. Sara Lance/White Canary and Alex Danvers hook up Wedding Crashers-style in a one night stand. Fans of Legends could see that one coming a mile away given the character's history with her random misc. flings of both sexes. It served as a wonderful departure from Alex's pining over her break-up from Maggie for the last few episodes.
Martin Stein and Jefferson bond with Stein's family at his home after Cisco and "Squidward"... err Wells (Earth-2 version) cooked up a means to destabilize their connection as Firestorm. For those who don't watch Legends, this has been an ongoing dilemma this season as Jefferson wants to break Martin Stein from their bond for Stein could return home to his family.
In typical soap opera fashion (much to chagrin that these CW DC Comics-based shows are written), the wedding gets crashed - literally - and we get a Nazi invasion while the heroes take action. What surprises me here is the lack of concern for the sake of maintaining secret identities. The Central City police are in attendance for the wedding, but Barry Allen uses his powers in plain view while Oliver Queen takes arms as the Arrow without a second thought. At least the Legends, Supergirl, and Alex Danvers have an excuse as the Legends are usually time displaced most of the time anyway while Kara and Alex aren't from this reality anyway. Still, that just seemed a bit odd for me here.
I don't want to sell the church battle short, but wow, that was one of the best choreographed action sequences ever (from what I've seen anyway...) out of any of these Arrowverse shows. If you don't watch anything else in this crossover, just watch that sequence in its entirety.
They cover all of the bases here: Cisco gets to do some breaching action to help Oliver out and invites Caitlin's "angry roommate" out to play, Barry and Wally protect the civilians, Kara takes the heavy hitting matters outside and away from everyone else, Alex and Sara dance once more - this time with hand-to-hand combat, and Mick just enjoys all of it.
Shortly after this ordeal, the heroes are confronted with the lead metahumans in charge of this invasion - Overgirl, Dark Arrow, and Reverse Flash. The first two are obviously dopplegangers from Earth-X, with Eobard Thawne somehow surviving the events of the Season Two finale of Legends. At this point, I'm done trying to keep up with this shit in terms of how many times he's been killed off and/or revive due to time travel, the Legends, or Barry's fuck-ups due to Flashpoint in The Flash Season Three, so I'm just like whatever at this point. Barry just killed his doppleganger in Savitar during The Flash Season Three finale so there was no point to bring him back again. That would have been hella redundant, so Thawne was a nice call, even more so for him to wear Wells' face again. I thought Tom Cavanagh was always a better choice for playing Thawne over Matt Letscher who took over in the role in The Flash Season Two and Legends Season Two. I personally don't watch Arrow (but I love Felicity Smoak though...), but I thought the Dark Arrow (Dark Archer would make a better name but I'm not getting paid to name these characters... that's Cisco's job) and Overgirl (Haha, I get it a spin on Overman's name from Earth-X) were clever opposite reflections on Oliver and Kara's characters. I visibly cringed when Kara tried to reason with her evil doppleganger while Barry and Oliver were straight to business when the fighting started. I thought it was cool that Metallo was included in the set of villains from Earth-X but he didn't get nearly enough screen time for my taste. I guess they had to limit his scenes as they were already pushing it on terms of the visuals for this crossover.
I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of the Arrowverse shows look like the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers fighting the Putty Patrol with the mid-season finales right around the corner next week. There's no way that they haven't blown their special effects budget from how great some of these scenes looked here. I have to admit I was really impressed with a lot of the action sequences in this.
In Part 3 of this crossover, the heroes found themselves captured and sent to a prison on Earth-X while Kara was held against her will at S.T.A.R. Labs as Thawne prepared to harvest her organs to replace those in the dying Overgirl from her overexposure to solar radiation. The heroes found themselves rescued by Earth-X's Leonard Snart/Citizen Cold and found themselves a new ally in Snart and one of their fellow inmates, The Ray. The Ray is supposed to make his Arrowverse debut in the upcoming straight-to-DVD animated movie, but damn, I had NO idea that they were going to debut him in this crossover. It was cool to see him around but much like Metallo, I kinda wish that he was given some more screen time to get established, but I understand why not, as this crossover was jam-packed enough as it was. The Ray is the homosexual partner of Snart in this continuity and if the looks on Barry and Oliver's didn't say it for everyone else, NO ONE saw that coming. This episode ends with Flash and Ray taking on Red Tornado while everyone else infiltrates the enemy stronghold to hopefully use their portal to get back home to Earth-1. We got another great sequence with Ray and Flash in action against Red Tornado, while the rest of the team fought against the other Nazi forces. Unfortunately, Martin Stein took a stray bullet shot and was mortally wounded. This episodes ends with a cliffhanger as viewers are left wondering Stein's fate along with the fate of Iris and Felicity back in S.T.A.R. Labs, who managed to rescue Supergirl, but were apprehended by Reverse Flash before they could escape.
I can't say that I didn't see it coming but the second Jefferson and Stein decided to separate from being Firestorm I thought it was a bad idea. As much as I was laughing at Iris and Felicity's exploits, it would have made the villains in this crossover pretty lame if they were foiled by them without any opposition. It's not until Part 4 where we learn that Stein's injuries are fatal and it would have killed him sooner if not for his connection to Jefferson. After a touching moment between the two characters, Stein severs their connection as Firestorm with the concoction that Cisco and Wells devised back in Part 1 and dies on the Waverider.
This was a sad moment for the Legends, especially since Martin Stein was a father figure to many of the heroes in this crossover and integral part of Team Flash and the Waverider crew since the first seasons of both Legends and The Flash.
If that couldn't be only great scene in this episode, we get another from Felicity Smoak as she finds herself in a hopeless situation as the Dark Arrow stood ready and willing to kill her for Supergirl to keep Overgirl alive. God, I love this woman...
Anywho, Professor Stein's sacrifice allowed the heroes to return in time to aid the rest of the Legends (who Felicity and Iris sent an SOS for help, along with some token members of Team Arrow, but you're crazy if you think I knew who all of those losers were supposed to be outside of Mr. Terrific...) in reclaiming S.T.A.R. Labs and forcing the Nazi's of Earth-X to retreat. The heroes mourn the loss of Stein with even Jefferson informing his family of the unfortunate news. My only gripe from this was that Jefferson's acting was fucking awful here.
From that loss, the heroes have their motivation to make a final stand against the invaders from Earth-X as we're treated to the crossover team-up group shot. Whoever filmed this had to be a fan of Power Rangers/Super Sentai as this was straight out of their MANY team-up episodes. I was half expecting everyone to do a roll call and do henshin transformation poses. I won't deny that I geeked out a little seeing everyone together like this. Bravo, Arrowverse, you did good on this one.
Nothing much to write home about in the final fight. Supergirl fights Overgirl to a stalemate until Overgirl overheats and self-destructs. Flash beats Reverse Flash and just lets him go. Man, I don't even know anymore on that one. Hey Barry, do you need Iris to kill him too for you like she did Savitar? At least Oliver killed his own doppleganger and there wasn't even no second thoughts about it. Glad to see someone in this crossover has some balls when it comes to these damn evil doubles and know you can't leave these lunatics alive.
This crossover ends with not one but two weddings to end this on a happy note as Iris and Barry finally tie the knot while Oliver and Felicity finally decide to do the same within the same impromptu ceremony. What was fucked up is that they waited until Kara and Alex went back to their Earth before cooking up this idea. It would have been nice to have them around for this when they were already hanging around for the bulk of this crossover anyway. It's not like Alex and Kara had anything better to do.
If you don't watch anything Arrowverse related this season, I HIGHLY recommend this season's crossover event. There's a lot of laughs, some great action, and a few heart-touching moments to enjoy from start to finish. This was actually a LOT better than the bulk of all three out of the four Arrowverse shows that I actually watch have been this entire season thus far if you ask me, if I'm perfectly honest.
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| Prof. Stein making Jefferson welcome with his family was a nice moment here. |
Martin Stein and Jefferson bond with Stein's family at his home after Cisco and "Squidward"... err Wells (Earth-2 version) cooked up a means to destabilize their connection as Firestorm. For those who don't watch Legends, this has been an ongoing dilemma this season as Jefferson wants to break Martin Stein from their bond for Stein could return home to his family.
In typical soap opera fashion (much to chagrin that these CW DC Comics-based shows are written), the wedding gets crashed - literally - and we get a Nazi invasion while the heroes take action. What surprises me here is the lack of concern for the sake of maintaining secret identities. The Central City police are in attendance for the wedding, but Barry Allen uses his powers in plain view while Oliver Queen takes arms as the Arrow without a second thought. At least the Legends, Supergirl, and Alex Danvers have an excuse as the Legends are usually time displaced most of the time anyway while Kara and Alex aren't from this reality anyway. Still, that just seemed a bit odd for me here.
I don't want to sell the church battle short, but wow, that was one of the best choreographed action sequences ever (from what I've seen anyway...) out of any of these Arrowverse shows. If you don't watch anything else in this crossover, just watch that sequence in its entirety.
They cover all of the bases here: Cisco gets to do some breaching action to help Oliver out and invites Caitlin's "angry roommate" out to play, Barry and Wally protect the civilians, Kara takes the heavy hitting matters outside and away from everyone else, Alex and Sara dance once more - this time with hand-to-hand combat, and Mick just enjoys all of it.
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| I'm with Mick here. I'm all for more Killer Frost. The ongoing joke was that he was going out of his way trying to piss Caitlin off to bring Frost back out while he was around. |
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| My thoughts exactly... It's up there with Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson's from Spider-Man: The Animated Series from the impromptu team-ups that it created. |
Shortly after this ordeal, the heroes are confronted with the lead metahumans in charge of this invasion - Overgirl, Dark Arrow, and Reverse Flash. The first two are obviously dopplegangers from Earth-X, with Eobard Thawne somehow surviving the events of the Season Two finale of Legends. At this point, I'm done trying to keep up with this shit in terms of how many times he's been killed off and/or revive due to time travel, the Legends, or Barry's fuck-ups due to Flashpoint in The Flash Season Three, so I'm just like whatever at this point. Barry just killed his doppleganger in Savitar during The Flash Season Three finale so there was no point to bring him back again. That would have been hella redundant, so Thawne was a nice call, even more so for him to wear Wells' face again. I thought Tom Cavanagh was always a better choice for playing Thawne over Matt Letscher who took over in the role in The Flash Season Two and Legends Season Two. I personally don't watch Arrow (but I love Felicity Smoak though...), but I thought the Dark Arrow (Dark Archer would make a better name but I'm not getting paid to name these characters... that's Cisco's job) and Overgirl (Haha, I get it a spin on Overman's name from Earth-X) were clever opposite reflections on Oliver and Kara's characters. I visibly cringed when Kara tried to reason with her evil doppleganger while Barry and Oliver were straight to business when the fighting started. I thought it was cool that Metallo was included in the set of villains from Earth-X but he didn't get nearly enough screen time for my taste. I guess they had to limit his scenes as they were already pushing it on terms of the visuals for this crossover.
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| Exactly how exciting I'm picturing the rest of the Arrowverse seasons will be after the SFX budget has been blown in this crossover... |
I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of the Arrowverse shows look like the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers fighting the Putty Patrol with the mid-season finales right around the corner next week. There's no way that they haven't blown their special effects budget from how great some of these scenes looked here. I have to admit I was really impressed with a lot of the action sequences in this.
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| Always nice to see Wentworth Miller back in costume as Captain Cold/Leonard Snart. |
In Part 3 of this crossover, the heroes found themselves captured and sent to a prison on Earth-X while Kara was held against her will at S.T.A.R. Labs as Thawne prepared to harvest her organs to replace those in the dying Overgirl from her overexposure to solar radiation. The heroes found themselves rescued by Earth-X's Leonard Snart/Citizen Cold and found themselves a new ally in Snart and one of their fellow inmates, The Ray. The Ray is supposed to make his Arrowverse debut in the upcoming straight-to-DVD animated movie, but damn, I had NO idea that they were going to debut him in this crossover. It was cool to see him around but much like Metallo, I kinda wish that he was given some more screen time to get established, but I understand why not, as this crossover was jam-packed enough as it was. The Ray is the homosexual partner of Snart in this continuity and if the looks on Barry and Oliver's didn't say it for everyone else, NO ONE saw that coming. This episode ends with Flash and Ray taking on Red Tornado while everyone else infiltrates the enemy stronghold to hopefully use their portal to get back home to Earth-1. We got another great sequence with Ray and Flash in action against Red Tornado, while the rest of the team fought against the other Nazi forces. Unfortunately, Martin Stein took a stray bullet shot and was mortally wounded. This episodes ends with a cliffhanger as viewers are left wondering Stein's fate along with the fate of Iris and Felicity back in S.T.A.R. Labs, who managed to rescue Supergirl, but were apprehended by Reverse Flash before they could escape.
I can't say that I didn't see it coming but the second Jefferson and Stein decided to separate from being Firestorm I thought it was a bad idea. As much as I was laughing at Iris and Felicity's exploits, it would have made the villains in this crossover pretty lame if they were foiled by them without any opposition. It's not until Part 4 where we learn that Stein's injuries are fatal and it would have killed him sooner if not for his connection to Jefferson. After a touching moment between the two characters, Stein severs their connection as Firestorm with the concoction that Cisco and Wells devised back in Part 1 and dies on the Waverider.
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| Rest in peace, Professor Stein. |
This was a sad moment for the Legends, especially since Martin Stein was a father figure to many of the heroes in this crossover and integral part of Team Flash and the Waverider crew since the first seasons of both Legends and The Flash.
If that couldn't be only great scene in this episode, we get another from Felicity Smoak as she finds herself in a hopeless situation as the Dark Arrow stood ready and willing to kill her for Supergirl to keep Overgirl alive. God, I love this woman...
Anywho, Professor Stein's sacrifice allowed the heroes to return in time to aid the rest of the Legends (who Felicity and Iris sent an SOS for help, along with some token members of Team Arrow, but you're crazy if you think I knew who all of those losers were supposed to be outside of Mr. Terrific...) in reclaiming S.T.A.R. Labs and forcing the Nazi's of Earth-X to retreat. The heroes mourn the loss of Stein with even Jefferson informing his family of the unfortunate news. My only gripe from this was that Jefferson's acting was fucking awful here.
From that loss, the heroes have their motivation to make a final stand against the invaders from Earth-X as we're treated to the crossover team-up group shot. Whoever filmed this had to be a fan of Power Rangers/Super Sentai as this was straight out of their MANY team-up episodes. I was half expecting everyone to do a roll call and do henshin transformation poses. I won't deny that I geeked out a little seeing everyone together like this. Bravo, Arrowverse, you did good on this one.
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| The only thing missing in the background here was that traditional explosion in the background and everyone shouting, "POWER RANGERS!" |
Nothing much to write home about in the final fight. Supergirl fights Overgirl to a stalemate until Overgirl overheats and self-destructs. Flash beats Reverse Flash and just lets him go. Man, I don't even know anymore on that one. Hey Barry, do you need Iris to kill him too for you like she did Savitar? At least Oliver killed his own doppleganger and there wasn't even no second thoughts about it. Glad to see someone in this crossover has some balls when it comes to these damn evil doubles and know you can't leave these lunatics alive.
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| Killer Frost doing her best Iceman... err Icewoman, impression for the ladies from Legends |
This crossover ends with not one but two weddings to end this on a happy note as Iris and Barry finally tie the knot while Oliver and Felicity finally decide to do the same within the same impromptu ceremony. What was fucked up is that they waited until Kara and Alex went back to their Earth before cooking up this idea. It would have been nice to have them around for this when they were already hanging around for the bulk of this crossover anyway. It's not like Alex and Kara had anything better to do.
Watch It or Don't Bother?
If you don't watch anything Arrowverse related this season, I HIGHLY recommend this season's crossover event. There's a lot of laughs, some great action, and a few heart-touching moments to enjoy from start to finish. This was actually a LOT better than the bulk of all three out of the four Arrowverse shows that I actually watch have been this entire season thus far if you ask me, if I'm perfectly honest.
