Well this is a party that I am SUPER late to, and I apologize for that, but it seems that I am glad I waited because there were so many great things to get caught up in that I feel watching this event back when it was happening would have completely derailed my vibe. I say this because I want it to be known that I feel that Crisis on Earth X is a repugnant and awful crossover, and if it weren't for the time I have invested in Arrow and Flash, this crossover would have derailed my support for any of the CW properties (let it be known that I have sworn off Legends of Tomorrow, which wasn't hard because I already found the show to be awful and that it should be replaced with a Booster Gold and Blue Beetle time traveling show, and most of all I have sworn off Supergirl). Let's get started.
To start off I am first going to laud the only things that this crossover did RIGHT. First off, I really enjoyed the Ray. This is how you write an LGBTQ character. His romance with Snart of Earth X isn't forced and completely takes you by surprise in the best way possible, the focus of the character isn't "Hey, I'm gay," (although it is mentioned when they address why he's in a concentration camp), it's "Hey I'm a superhero, and the fact that I am gay shouldn't matter." The reason why it's important to do that, before I get yelled at by someone who is going to misinterpret this and call me a homophobe, is because in the struggle of the LGBTQ community ACCEPTANCE is the most important thing. That being gay is just as normal as being straight. Anyone can be gay, and by having this play out naturally, unlike a certain romance that was incredibly forced into one of the shows in this crossover, we get a character that audiences can actually relate to. The second and final thing I want to praise was the send off to Victor Garber as Martin Stein. Victor Garber, along with his copilot of Firestorm Franz Drameh, have been pretty much the sole silver lining of the train wreck that is Legends of Tomorrow. Seeing Martin Stein die to save Jefferson, and then Jefferson telling his family and standing with Martin's family during his funeral not just as Martin's partner as Firestorm, but as a surrogate son, was easily the best part about this crossover, and almost redeems just how infinitesimally awful everything else is.
(The scene above does showcase Ray and Snart's Romance, but is not the first revel)
Now let's dive in and start wading through this sewage of an arc. The whole premise of this story is that Barry and Iris' wedding gets crashed by these big bads from another earth. Apparently they come from another Earth, and that in the multiverse there this Earth is so bad that it didn't receive a number, it receives a letter, it's Earth X (evidentally roman numerals aren't a thing in any of the multiverses of the show as X means 10). In this Earth, the Nazis won WWII and conquered the world. While there are small pockets of resistance, it might as well have been Nazi Germany on a global scale. Why people didn't want to complain about this the way they did about the show The Confederates, is beyond me, but let's not get hung up on this. On this Earth there's a Nazi Arrow, a Nazi Prometheus, Supergirl, and Flash. Now this could have been an AMAZING opportunity to switch up things, make some MASSIVE returns of all these shows rogues' galleries, and for the Flash, that's exactly what they did. Tom Cavanaugh returns as the Harrison Wells version of Eobard Thawne, Reverse Flash who is also from Earth 1. This would be REALLY exciting if he played this part with even half the charisma that he did in the first season of The Flash. The rest of these people are complete wastes, Nazi Supergirl (whom I am going to have a gargantuan tangent about here in the next few paragraphs) is just Kara Danvers who grew up on this earth, and despite 16 years of solid parenting on Krypton before it's destroyed, decided that subjugating the oppressed was a better use of her time than setting a good example for the cousin she's supposed to protect. Arrow is just evil version of Oliver Queen, who by the way, is also the Hitler of that universe which makes for one helluva disappointing reveal when you could have had a glorious return of John Barrowman's Malcolm Merlyn who had realized goals like the undertaking as the supreme leader of a Nazi regime. Tommy Merlyn ends up being the Nazi Prometheus, which is again disappointing as it would have had CONSIDERABLY more of an impact if Malcolm Merlyn had played a part in this story.
/ |
| The story was bad enough, but look at these horrifically distasteful costumes, like I get why, but... WHY?! |
Before I can talk about why Supergirl's story in this crossover was horrific, I have to do a bit of a backtrack. In a list of Superman stories, there is one that I hold dear far above all the rest: All Star Superman. The story in question is that during a rescue mission near the son, Superman's combined exposure to kryptonite and the massive exposure to Yellow sunlight radiation, overload his cells so that he is at his most powerful, however, while he is becoming more and more powerful, the overload in radiation is causing his cells to deteriorate and so he is simultaneously dying. Throughout this arc he reveals his true identity to Lois, and accomplishes all these great and marvelous things to conclude his business on Earth before he dies. It's an amazing story that is a pure homage to Golden and Silver Age Superman. So now you are probably thinking, okay why is this relevant? And the answer is that after they adapted Superman's iconic story For the Man who has Everything by Alan Moore in the first season of Supergril, I had always expected the show to adapt this arc at some point. Crisis on Earth X is evidently that adaptation, and it's not only in a very unexpected way, it's disgusting.
You may have been wondering why exactly these Nazi Earth X doppelgangers were after our heroes in Earth 1. Well, here's the reason: Nazi Supergirl's blood cells have been over exposed to radiation from their star, which while has made her more powerful, it's also killing her. When she dies there will be a supernova type event, and so they have come to this earth to kidnap this Earth's Supergirl (which is a real funny plot hole because she's not from that Earth or universe) and cut out her heart for a transplant, because evidently an organ transplant will fix the problem of essentially blood cancer. Kara and her doppelganger have many conversations that in a way are kind of meant to parallel Clark's conversations with Lex in All Star Superman, except while one is uplifting and has the villain realize the error of their ways, the other ends up with the hero realizing: "you're right, I should care about me more." I'll let you take a guess as to which is which. What's the absolute worst thing is that this reveal doesn't come into play until like the 3rd episode of this 4 episode arc, so by the time I watched it I had already invested 2 and a half hours of my time, and as much as it pissed me off to see, it would have been worse if I didn't see if they at least used this arc for something good. But no, instead they continued to drag All Star Superman kicking and screaming to a guillotine and cut off it's head in a grizzly manner that allows for the story to lose it's life and essence.
What's even sad is that the characters that get the most focus aren't even the characters I wanted to give a shit about. Sarah Lance, Alex Danvers, Felicity Smoak, and Iris West are the characters with the most screen time and ironically the one of the things that all these characters have in common is that they are easily my least favorite characters in all of their respective shows! Barry does nothing, Oliver just broods and wishes that Felicity will marry him the whole time, and Kara is strapped to a table for most of it. This crossover proves one thing to me, that TV shows are NOT the way to facilitate a giant superhero crossover, because it was very clear that the reason why they couldn't do much of anything is because it would take WAY more money than their budget would ever allow for. It's sad that critics and casuals think that this abomination is better than Justice League. Justice League may have had it's flaws, but it at least allowed for me to love the heroes and make them all enjoyable. I had to finish this crossover out of spite for the amount of time I had wasted on it. If you enjoyed Crisis on Earth X, that's fine, this isn't meant to tell you that you are wrong. I greatly disagree with you, and these are my reasons. If you liked it, GREAT! I'm glad for you! I am glad you didn't feel like your time was utterly wasted as I did.
Anyways, this has been another edition of Comic Relief! I hope you enjoyed, and we will see you again soon!
