Later this year, The CW will air its biggest superhero crossover special yet with Crisis On Infinite Earths, an adaptation of the iconic Marv Wolfman/George Pérez comic book event of the same name from the ‘80s (arguably the comic book event that all other comic book events must be compared to in some way). The original storyline was about a guy named The Monitor who was in charge of overseeing the entire multiverse as he gathered up the best heroes from every universe. Their goal: Go up into space and defeat a guy named The Anti-Monitor who wants to obliterate the entire multiverse, while knowing that other universes are being completely wiped from existence at all times.
Those are big, extremely comic book-y concepts being tossed around, but The CW already laid the most important groundwork in last year’s Elseworlds crossover by introducing LaMonica Garrett as The Monitor and then not really having him do anything meaningful beyond making a mysterious deal with Oliver Queen to save the lives of The Flash and Supergirl.
After that, though, The Monitor made ominous appearances in the season finales of the Arrowverse shows, witnessing a major alteration to the timeline in Legends Of Tomorrow and unexpectedly arriving to make Oliver Queen pay up on his side of that still-mysterious deal on Arrow—all in the name of hyping up Crisis On Infinite Earths. So what else do we know about the upcoming crossover? A whole lot, surprisingly. Let’s break it down:
- Ruby Rose’s Batwoman, who was introduced as one of the heroes dealing with The Monitor’s machinations in Elseworlds, is getting her own spin-off show that will relate to Crisis.
- Crisis On Infinite Earths will run for five hours, encompassing every Arrowverse show: Supergirl, The Flash, Legends Of Tomorrow, Batwoman, and Arrow.
- Those five hours will be spread out over a couple weeks, with the first three airing on December 8, 9, and 10. The other two will air back-to-back as one of Arrow’s final episodes and a special non-season-premiere of Legends.
- Tyler Hoechlin will be coming back as Supergirl’s Superman, though he won’t be the only blue boy scout coming down from planet Krypton…
- Brandon Routh, who plays Ray Palmer on Legends, will be putting on a Superman suit for the first time since he starred in Superman Returns, reportedly playing a Kingdom Come-inspired version of the Man Of Steel.
- Burt Ward, who played Robin in the ‘60s Batman show, will be stopping by.
- Flash utility player Tom Cavanagh will reportedly be playing Pariah, a character from the comic who is doomed to witness the death of every universe.
- Based on some concept art that’s making the rounds, LaMonica Garrett might also be playing The Anti-Monitor.
- Black Lightning will be making his first appearance in the Arrowverse, crossing over from his decidedly non-Arrowverse CW show, along with some Black Lightning friends.
- Batman: The Animated Series star Kevin Conroy will be appearing as an elderly Bruce Wayne.
- There will be some kind of Batwoman/Supergirl team-up, playing off of the budding friendship that the two developed in Elseworlds (and a nod to a certain pair of famous Super Friends).
- There might be another Arrow spin-off spinning off from the events of Crisis.
- There will almost definitely be a scene where someone holds the body of their dead/dying friend as a reference to the most iconic scene of the original.