Crisis On Infinite Earths Episode One Review

WARNING: This article was dipped in Heavy Spoiler Sauce before being posted. If you don’t want spoilers, stop now and come back after the series is done.

The highly-anticipated CW Arrowvere Crossover finally premiered tonight in Supergirl’s timeslot of 8 PM ET. As expected, there were several bombshells dropped right out of the gate that changed the landscape all of the shows.

First off, the opening act saw Superman and Lois Lane repeat the act of Kal’s parents by sending their newborn son away before their adopted home of Argo is destroyed by an anti-matter wave. Fortunately for them, Harbinger, aka Lyla Michaels, managed to whisk them away at the last second.

Second, the team desperately worked to evacuate as many people as possible from Earth 38 before it too was destroyed. This means billions of people had to be relocated to Earth 1. While this does solve the problem of the Supergirl Cast being on a separate Earth than the rest of the Arrowverse, it does put a huge damper on their lives. Presumably, unless the entire Arrowverse gets remade like the DC Universe was in the comics, this means Kara and company will simply take up residence on Earth 1.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly of all, Oliver Queen seemingly gave his life to protect what The Monitor estimated was a billion people while they evacuated Earth. Oliver said his last words to his daughter Mia and died in the care of his friends.

All of this happened in only the first of five episodes.

That already brings up several questions. And some we may even have solutions to.

Is Earth 38 really destroyed?

Unless there is some massive reversal of time or unraveling of history, it looks like Kara, Kal, and the rest of the Supergirl characters will indeed be living on Earth 1.

Is Oliver really dead?

As we speculated in our crash course of Crisis On Infinite Earths podcast, Oliver always seems to have a trick up his sleeve. And if Oliver has proven anything, it’s that he is very good at keeping secrets. It is possible Ollie worked something out with The Monitor before making his ultimate sacrifice. It certainly would explain why we effectively handed over the role of Green Arrow to his daughter Mia.

There are even fan-theories out there suggesting that Ollie could become The Spectre before the crossover is done. If that turns out to be true, then dying would be the first step in that happening.

That said, there are two episodes of Arrow remaining this season after Crisis concludes in January. That means Ollie is the most likely character to meet his end during this story. Either way, looking a god-like being in the face and defiantly telling him off was a very Ollie thing to do.

The death of Oliver Queen in Green Arrow vol. 2 #101

Were all those cameos really just for a sentence or two?

It certainly looks that way. The size of Burt Ward’s role was never revealed, and the only sneak peek we got was him walking his dog. By looking at the automobiles, it seems the destruction happened closer to 1966 than present day. Robert Wuhl was clearly acting like his 1989 Batman character Alexander Knox. as for Titans, they were only visible for a few seconds. And really, most of those cameos were for comedic purposes.

As for tomorrow’s episode, Batman’s entry was teased and Clark/Kal’s role will be established at The Daily Planet. If episode 2 is anything like the first, we have a lot more bombshells to wade through.

What did you think of Crisis On Infinite Earths’ first episode? Sound off below!