Since there is no where else for me to discuss this here we go. And yes spoilers ahead if you have not seen any of these episodes but I wont spoil everything.
This year all four DC TV universe shows, well the one’s on CW anyway, all crossed over in one mega crossover event. It started in Supergirl and went right through Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow.This was pretty ambitious and was eagerly awaited. It finally aired this past week. So what did I think that crossover?
It was freaking AWESOME!! I don’t think I have ever seen anything like that so well put together. I mean the characters all blended well, the action was amazing, and it was a pretty good story. There was no one focus, ok maybe Flash, with all of them having good character moments. Course it wasn’t perfect. Yeah you could argue Supergirl was underused but it makes sense, since this wasn’t “her” Earth she didn’t really have anyone to confide in. Would have liked more with her and Barry but her exchanges with Oliver were interesting. Also since this jumped over shows the supporting characters from Flash and Arrow appeared and then vanished never to be seen again. I get why you couldn’t have all of them (and I’ve seen that before in crossover’s) but it is noticeable. Finally, in the Legends part another bad guy is suddenly added (I can’t explain without giving the plot away) and I do think this should have been foreshadowed more.
The story was taken from a comic book crossover event back in 1988 called Invasion! I remember that very well, it was Ok. Not my favorite but there was nothing wrong with it either. The focus in that story was Dominators attacking because they wanted to figure out why there were so many meta humans on Earth. And the crossover pretty much takes the same plot, and their version of the Dominators were pretty cool.
Let’s run down this by series :
Supergirl-Yeah lets be honest, this show was barely involved in the crossover. Except for the end when Barry and Cisco appeared to recruit her. And they re-showed the scene during the Flash episode which means you can skip this episode entirely and miss nothing. I get why they labeled it a crossover episode, so that people who didn’t watch the show regularly would tune in and have some idea who she was in the other series. But couldn’t they have done a little more? Ah well.
Flash-The best episode honestly. This is where the crossover kicks off as the aliens arrive and Barry recruits Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, and even Supergirl to help out. The cool thing was that while we continued the running story line in Flash we also picked up on the story lines in Legends, in fact you kind of had to see this episode to follow it. That doesn’t happen very often. What about the storyline in Arrow? That was put on hold for reasons I will make clear in the next section. This episode was a little rushed in places and some things felt like they were filler. What was the point of having the heroes mind controlled? Except that it made an awesome action scene. The episode ends with Oliver, Sarah, Ray, and Diggle being kidnapped. Nice cliffhanger!
Arrow-I am of two minds on this one. While the simulated reality was kind of boring, I get that it was really intended to celebrate the show’s 100th episode. It was for the fans, which I am not. So I can forgive it. And I can even respect it, it was quite a love letter to the fans. It was great to see Laurel again. On the other hand, Flash and Supergirl were in the episode but pretty much just to prove hat they were still there. We didn’t even get to explore how Barry felt losing the group or anything. And this episode did almost nothing to advance the main story, it just resolved a plot point. However despite that the best part had to be the end, when the four escape the alien ship only to be rescued by the ship Waverider from Legends. Man, that last five minutes was simply fantastic! It was a great space scene and the reveal of Waverider….I was on the edge of my seat! I loved it! So much so that I have re watched it three times now. So the four got rescued and then for all intents and purposes it suddenly became a Legends of Tomorrow episode as Ray gives some plot details, and we see that the aliens are ready attack!
Legends of Tomorrow-This is more of a continuation of the main story than Arrow to be honest. It picks up the story where Flash left off. The cool thing is that they do use time travel in the episode. As if they realized that this is an episode of Legends so they had to have time travel in there! And not only does the time travel work into the plot, it resolves a running story regarding a character from Flash. Yeah the first part was a little rushed but it was pretty cool. It just amazes me how the creators weren’t afraid to let these series fully blend, and it really felt like one continuous story (and world). I won’t spoil the ending but the last action scene was pretty epic and the thing I loved is that the final resolution gives a moment of glory to a character who had very little to do in the whole event. That is one thing a good crossover should do, give all the characters at least one moment to shine. And this one did that, very well. To be fair as a standalone episode this had flaws, it almost felt like a backdoor pilot with the main characters pushed into supporting roles. But when combined with the even as a whole it was a fantastic way to end it. Especially that last scene where they all hang out together as a group.
There is just so much to love in thee episode, including Supergirl’s interactions with the characters like Heat Wave, some very clever inside jokes including a reference to the Hall of Justice from Superfriends, and some very well paced action scenes. As I already noted everyone got something to do, no one felt wasted. Ok Supergirl came close, I wish we could have also seen someone else from her supporting cast even a lame cameo where they talk over a monitor screen. Maybe next year.
I think I’ve said all I can without giving the whole thing away. This deserves a thorough analysis. But I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a DC show this much since Smallville’s final episode. It was simply epic and very well done. I loved every second of it. So if you watched it let me know what you thought. If you didn’t watch it then it’s totally worth your time. If they released a special DVD on just this crossover, I’d probably get it in a second.
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