Crisis on Infinite Earths -Overview Thread- (Spoilers)

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Putting this up because we’ve got a thread for Episode 1, but not episode 2, and some are talking about it in other threads - So this one encompasses all episodes. Just talk about the ongoing crossover.

So far, as of episode 2, I’m disappointed.

I’ll be dead honest, I only came here for the Supermen. The big advertisement was the return of Brandon Routh and Tom Welling.

Tom Welling was a bust, making the entire ending of Smallville feel cheap.

Routh has, so far, been really good. It also clearly shows that power levels fluctuate across universes. As he was CLEARLY stronger than Supergirl’s Superman.

Which is a point - I really hate how Supergirl constantly puts down Superman - But compared to their comic counterparts both Superman and Supergirl from the CW are weaksauce anyway.

Very disappointing to see Kevin Conroy Batman be played off as evil and insane - Only to kill him - And have the Monitor be like, “JK the true Batman is Kate!”

I kind of imagined Conroy Batman as quarterbacking this whole thing.

The use of Lex was just bad. Lex wouldn’t let his petty grudge against Superman go so far as to endanger all universes. Especially since he lives in a universe. He’d use the situation to ,“One up” Superman.

Or in the CWs case Supergirl as Superman is so watered down as to be completely second rate there.

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Bruh… WHY DO YOU HAVE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT SUPERGIRL IN ALL OF YOUR POSTS HAHAHAHHA!!! As for the Conroy Batman thing, I thought it was a genius way to subvert expectations. We see Conroy and expect the picture-perfect Batman, so when he ends up being evil it hits way harder than if it were someone else. As for Kate being the true Batman or whatever, I’m fine with it. It’s like a mentor passing down the baton. She’s the one with the show, not Conroy.

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Why do you have to complain about my complaints?

Go. Away.

I’m never responding to you here again. I just wish I had a block list.

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I would have liked to have seen more of Welling, but I know he had no interest in putting on a suit, and he didn’t really want to play Superman again as it was. I’m glad to see that he got to have his happy ending. And he was still Superman for, like, ten years, so it’s not like the series was a waste. He had his time in the cape and moved on. He got to walk away without getting hurt or dying. In a weird way, it’s kind of like the fate of Earth Two’s Superman from the book. He gets to live in his paradise with Lois as a reward for his sacrifices.

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I don’t know, I guess I just like having conversations. That post was moreso a response to the Batman comment. I’m sorry if you feel antagonized, it was just a bit of a “goof.” Everyone, of all perspectives, are welcome on DC Universe. I’m sorry if Ive made you feel otherwise :slight_smile:

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One thing we certainly learned from Crisis…

the Gotham Gazette never did get any photos of Batman from Vicky Vale

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Ordway%20Batman%20in%20Crisis2204×2890 2.03 MB

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Me watching the drama in the comment section

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Same here. So after 10 seasons of SMALLVILLE, Clark gave up his powers when exactly? And to be a farmer. Lame.

And still no references to Wonder Woman at all. Ugh.

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I’m expecting Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter) to appear tonight. (Tomorrow for me, as I have to wait for the app.)

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See…

I guess I see this as different. This crossover was supposed to be the “Fan Service” crossover. Instead they’re going the Rian Johnson route of, “Hey! This character you’re super excited about seeing? That we hyped up? Yeah! Wait until we poop all over that! It’s exciting because it subverts your expectations!”

I don’t want my expectations subverted.

The chance of a massive crossover like this happening ever again in my lifetime is pretty slim. I’ve spent roughly 34 years to see something like this. I would kinda like to see my expectations.

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I thought Part 2 was decent but didn’t love it as much as part 1 I will admit.

I had no problem with the three big guest starring characters. I get why people were disappointed Tom Welling didn’t don the suit. But I thought it was a nice epilogue to Smallville, good since if Crisis goes like we all expect that will be the last chance to put him in. So Clark got his happy ending. And since he was reviving his Smallville role which he never wore the suit in, it made some sense to not have him wear the suit in the crossover.

The Lex Luthor scene with him was good, but wish they could have done a scene with Rosenbaum instead. But I heard rumors he declined returning so might not have even been able to bring him back if they wanted.

Kevin Controy did good. Maybe if I had been younger when Batman TAS came out I would feel differently about him being evil. But while I loved the show I don’t have the nostalgic connection a whole lot of others do, so it worked for me and he gave a great performance. And we got to see Kevin Conroy more or less play a live action Batman which felt right.

Brandon Routh did great as Superman, and I hope this helps cement him as one of the best Superman actors. He deserves it and got a bad rap due to what was a bad movie but not really due to anything he did.

But as a whole the episode kind of came up a bit short. It was good but felt like filler despite the amazing guest stars. I don’t get the point to bringing Oliver back, or trying to. Maybe it will make more sense once this all plays out but the scene felt like just something for those characters to do. Cool to see Jonah Hex appear but other then that it was mostly wasted time.

Speaking of wasted time, what was the point to the whole find the Paragon’s? If he knew Kate Kane was the Paragon why not just tell her? What was the point of sending her and Supergirl to talk to a Batman who was a dead end and might have possibly killed them… two of the actual Paragon’s. And what was with the Lex Luthor thing? He would lead them to the real paragon… HOW… they got to him before Lex did. And how did he know Batman was a dead end but had apparently three Supermen contenders… and if it was one of those three they could have found out by just which it was by visiting them.

And why do all of that anyway? I thought time was off the essence but all he did was waste time with that, and put everyone in danger for no reason… and leave Lex to kill who knows how many Supermen pointlessly. Yeah, the monitor is not heroic but I did not see any argument at all for why those Supermen needed to die.

And on a last note it is probably a nit pick… but what was the point of having them meet a Mick Rory from another earth… who was EXACTLY like the Mick Rory we know (well except he had one failed self published romance vs 1 successful published sci-fi romance… WHOA what a change!). If he was going to be exactly like the earth 1 Mick Rory then why not just write in the earth 1 Mick Rory? Maybe it will also make sense by the end but it doesn’t feel like it is going to anything, feels pointless. And for that matter while I liked the meta joke of Sara saying she promised the team they wouldn’t have to do any more crossovers, from a story standpoint why on earth would the legends not let them use their own Waverider if the multiverses fate was on the line… of course they would… but hey they had to find a way to write in a parallel earth Mick Rory who was exactly like the real Mick Rory… so see it had to happen… for… reasons.

I know I sound like I am hating on it, and a lot of it I was not big on. But do make no mistake, still liked it a lot and loving the crossover. I do think when all is said and done it is possible giving it a year of hype will have built up expectations unreasonably. But we are getting a crossover that not only puts all five of the CW Arrowverse shows together for the first time, but also brings us characters in one form or another from the Tim Burton Batman movie, Smallville, the animated Batman actor in the flesh as Batman, Titans, Barndon Routh’s movie Superman (not sure if that is canonically supposed to be him but felt like it different suit or not, which in some way ties the Christopher Reve version into this), Batman '66 and that is just so far. We know Birds of Prey will tie in and rumor heavily of Stargirl and that is assuming there aren’t more coming, which there might be.

Nothing like this has ever happened on TV and much like the original Crisis is something never before done. I can’t hate on it because the fact they pulled it off at all is history making TV.

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I think this is the thing about COIE. The comic had a lot of moments that were WTF. Especially as we moved through the first 6-8 issues. During the run, there were plenty of groups of disgruntled fans about one thing or another. But, it also eventually came together in a way that made sense. And for as infuriating as some issues could be, there was no doubt it was compelling. Are there some plot holes and red herrings in the comics version of COIE, absolutely. However, it’s important to remember that nothing had been on this scale before.

The same is true for CWVERSE COIE. It’s not going to be perfect, as something of this scale has never been done before either. It seems to me, so far, they have embraced the general sense and theme of the original. To my view, it’s ok to break fans expectations. That is a part of crisis lore and like the original, if you go in with certain expectations and find some of them “perverted”, you are getting to experience COIE in much the same way as people did when the comics series happened. COIE breaks things, knowing & willingly. It is kinda the point of COIE, pretty much, everything you know & want is at risk. That is why the stakes are so high.

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Also noted that they simply could never do something on the scope of the comic due to the difference in TV mediums. Budget is one thing. I mean for one the show doesn’t have the effects budget to do things visually that the original comic books did where the imagination was the limit.

And as far as the cast. I think a lot want to see something like that famous scene in Crisis where nearly every DC character was in one room together listening to The Monitor. And a lot of fans visualized the awesomeness of seeing every TV and movie DC character in one place at one time. But obviously even if CW was given a literal unlimited budget, which they never would be, factors such as the actors availibility, their willingness, and licensing issues with all said move and TV shows some of which Warner doesn’t even own would make that impossible. And even if we were to imagine everyone who ever played a DC character in movies and TV all was 100% willing to show up at the same time to do this thing, which is pretty much impossible, not all of them are even still alive.

For the budget CW obviously had and the complexities to doing something like this I think they have done a great job so far. They clearly are committed to doing this the best they possibly can within the real world limitations they would have.

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Quite so. Also, they are trying to tell all of COIE in 5 45min episodes. That 3 hours 45 min tops. And we know arrow is going away, but Flash, Supergirl, Batwoman, some amount of LoT, are going to survive.

To create a true live action of Crisis to encompass all the settings and characters would come at more than Infinity War and Endgame combined. And would need to be 3 3 hour films at a minimum. So WB would be looking at a 1 billion dollar budget, if not more. For CW to take up this challenge given their much tighter restraints is a VERY ambitious project in and of itself.

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I guess this is where we differ. I actually liked the Last Jedi, too, so at least we’re both consistent. And as for Welling, his end was kinda like Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, so in one way it’s a subversion of expectations, but in another it’s mirroring the way the comic worked.

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You don’t have to do the full CoIE storyline, nobody asked for that or expected it.

When you tease, “The return of Tom Welling as Smallville Superman” you don’t waste him as a throwaway character and say LOL you gave up your powers.

You tell Tom:
“For years we said you’d be Superman. We really cheated out on the last episode. Fans clamored for your return. So you’re going to pull on some (censored) tights, you’re going to (censored) fly, and you’re going to punch a villain in the face with your cape blowing in the (censored) breeze!”

You have Kevin Conroy on the comms giving instructions to Kara, Kate, and the rest just like Batman Beyond Bruce did for Terry.

Nobody is asking for Endgame - We just as that you use the assets you have to make the fans happy.

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I mean, how much of a budget would it cost to have, in a fight, over a comm for Batman’s voice to say:

“Kara, go left! Kate! Take the center! Barry, come around from behind! Ok Clark’s! He’s open! Hit him with everything you’ve got!”

Cue Tyler, Tom, and Routh blasting the Antimonitor with simultaneous blasts of heat vision.

You don’t need billions of dollars to do fan service right.

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It’s about more than just fan service, though. It’s about telling the story right. And who knows. There’s still three more episodes, so maybe Conroy will play a different Batman that we just don’t know about yet. Marc Guggenheim has said that there’s still more surprises along the way.

And none of the official announcements said anything about Welling returning as Superman, only as Clark Kent. He also said that he had only filmed one or two scenes (well, at first he said he had a bunch, and then he went back on that. I don’t really know what that was about). Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved to see him as real Superman, but I guess it just wasn’t written to be in the Book of Destiny

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It depends on what you consider “fan service”. I don’t take issue with the choices so far. In fact, I think the use of Conroy was excellent.

Maybe, just maybe, Welling was ok or even wanted to do the Clark role and not don the cape & tights. Same with KC. Do you honestly think they didn’t know what they were signing up for? You don’t go to Welling or Conroy and say “hey, we’re booking you for two days worth of shooting. What, no. We haven’t decided what character you’ll play in what form. You just show up and do what your told.”

I don’t think you would have seen Routh do the character if he didn’t get to wear the suit again.

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Yeah, I mean, all of the decisions made so far have been made for the purpose of the story. They all fit well and add some nice stakes/situations that build up on top of each other well. Honestly, I’m not someone who likes blatant fan service, so it’s refreshing to see a show/crossover-event do something purely for the sake of telling the story. Just seeing Welling and Conroy on screen at all was a lot.

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What about that scene that Greg Berlanti teased with three Supermen on screen at the same time. And Jon Cryer AKA Lex Luthor said that there were filmed scenes that were unscripted. So maybe the Monitor gives Welling Superman his powers back and joins the final battle in order to protect his family. Just a theory.

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