It is well known how liberating the animated medium is when it comes to adapting comic-book-oriented storylines, as proven by a significant number of DC’s animated ventures. For an incredibly important story like Crisis on Infinite Earths, an animated adaptation was necessary to translate the scope of the series for a wider audience. Having the adaptation divided into three parts was a good creative decision as well, as with a vast area to cover, dividing the story into segments helps to focus on distinct portions without making things too confusing for the audience. The first part of the Crisis on Infinite Earths movie trilogy was released earlier this year, and the emotional anchor of the story through Barry Allen’s, aka Prime Earth’s Flash’s, life contributed an interesting, comics accurate angle to the adaptation. However, with the recently released second part, it seems the makers have dropped the ball big time, as the story itself has turned out to be all over the place, and the possibility of having a decent Crisis adaptation has just ceased to exist—at least for the time being, that is.
Spoilers Ahead
What Happens in Part Two?
The first part of the Tomorrowverse’s adaptation of Crisis on Infinite Earths focused on the buildup of the titular calamity—a multiversal threat in the form of an anti-matter wave that threatened all of existence—and to prevent if from coming to pass by coming up with a plan, a member of the ancient overseer beings known as the Monitors, Mar Novu, gathered super-powered beings from different universes in his satellite. To protect the multiverse from the anti-matter wave, a plan involving creating multiple cosmic tuning forks across different earths was conceptualized, and Barry Allen and Iris West from prime earth spent their lifetimes in a time bubble to allow the multiverse a chance to implement the idea. By the end of the first part, the cosmic tuning fork worked perfectly and saved the multiverse. In the process, a much older Barry vanished into the Speed Force, while the super-team of the future, “Legion of the Superheroes,” got erased from existence.
In the second part, it is revealed that the anti-matter wave was merely the beginning of a series of similar, unpredictable waves of varying intensity that continue to crash on the earth, further emphasizing the sentient origin of the waves. In the second part, the narrative unfolds in two major sections, the first being Prime Universe’s Kara Zor El and her relationship as an adopted daughter of the Monitor, Mar Novu, who rescued her as Krypton’s last survivor (except Kal El) and eventually gave his powers to turn her into Harbinger. The second strand of narrative progression concerns Chris Halstead, aka the powerful hyper-empath supervillain, Psycho Pirate’s seminal role in the overarching crisis, as he gets empowered by both Dr. Fate and the Monitor to help the others to keep their emotional balance in check.
Is Monitor Alive Or Dead?
However, Chris’ villainous tendencies are manipulated by the sentient source of the anti-matter wave, referred to by him as the Anti-monitor. The cosmic super-being unleashed its lackeys, the shadow demon, upon the protectors of the multiverse, all the while using Psycho Pirate to unleash conflict within the ranks of the heroes themselves. By the end, Psycho Pirate was able to control Kara’s negative emotions, and playing on her insecurity led to events that resulted in the Monitor Mar Novu’s death by Kara’s hands.
In Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 2’s ending, Anti-Monitor manifests himself and directly challenges the defenders of the multiverse. With the Monitor gone, the protectors are at an extreme disadvantage, and we will try to speculate on the events that are going to take place in the final chapter of this trilogy. We will try to shape our speculations according to the hints provided in the first two parts and draw allusions to the source material itself, so it goes beyond saying that a spoiler warning is issued.
Is Anti-Monitor Going to End All of Existence?
In the absence of Monitor, the role of protecting and guiding the defenders of the multiverse falls upon the shoulders of empowered cosmic entities like Spectre, whose future role has been teased through the first two movies. In fact, the mention of DC’s prime creator being the Presence makes it seem that in the third part, an appearance by the character is likely to happen as well, just like how the “Hand of Creator” appeared in Justice League Unlimited and Green Lantern: The Animated Series. In the comics, Spectre warned the defenders about Anti-Monitor’s plans to go back in time to undo the creation of the multiverse, and with the concept of time so heavily involved in this adaptation as well, it is possible that the final part will follow the same route. Also, John Constantine as Pariah suggests a connection with the previous DC animated movie universe (DCAMU), and it will be interesting to see how that is handled in the final part.
Speaking of time, Flash’s disappearance by the end of the first part will be addressed in the final part of the movie, as it might be the interference of Anti-Monitor that took Barry out of the entire equation in the first place. With the powers to manipulate time through his speed, Flash is an overpowered character to begin with, and in comics, Anti-Monitor has taken him captive to ensure the success of his own plan. Barry Allen will return for a final showdown and might have to pay the ultimate price to protect the existence of the multiverse.
A key focus of the comics Crisis storyline was to streamline the myriad characters, stories, and lore of the DC universe, which had spiraled out of control over the course of several decades. In Crisis on Infinite Earths, the characters from different universes come together, and by the end, the survivors live in one shared universe (which was undone in later Crises). In the second part of the animated movie adaptation, Mr. Terrific suggests moving the surviving universes into the conceptual world of Netherspace, which might indicate the movie following the same route as well.
Two key players who still haven’t appeared in the storyline, Alexander Luthor Jr. and Superboy Prime (a meta-reality version of Superboy), played integral roles in Crisis on Infinite Earths and also in Infinite Crisis. Without these two characters, the interconnectivity of DC lore in Crises lacks cohesion, so our guess is that the final part of the trilogy will try to portray these two characters, or at least will try to rework them into the narrative through other characters in the end.
Lastly, no crisis can ever be resolved without sacrifices, and in the comics, a number of iconic characters lost their lives to protect the multiverse from the evil clutches of the Anti-Monitor. Viewers will witness a similar scenario in the final part of the Crisis on Infinite Earths animated movie adaptation as well, especially because this marks the end of DC’s Tomorrowverse. Unfortunately, the true extent of DC’s multiverse hasn’t been captured by the first two movies, with only a handful of characters appearing in random order. For example, in the second part, Will Friedle appeared in his iconic role of Batman Beyond from the much-loved series of the same name, and Matt Ryan reprised his role as John Constantine from DCAMU, but neither of the characters was given the least amount of screen time or had any major impact on the narrative. With the entire DC universe roster consisting of past versions of classic animated adaptations at their disposal, the makers need to justify the title of the ambitious project in the final act; it doesn’t make much sense otherwise. Let us hope that the final installment manages to pack a stronger punch than its predecessors; otherwise, DC fans will have to wait for a decent Crisis adaptation for a lifetime.
