Warning: The following feature contains SPOILERS for Crisis on Infinite Earths.
The finale of the Arrowverse Crisis on Infinite Earths adaptation is closely based on the ending of the comic books that inspired it. The final two chapters of the long-awaited crossover event largely correspond to the final three issues of the 12-part miniseries that forever redefined the DC Comics multiverse.
Despite being the most extensive superhero-themed reality in television history, the Arrowverse has a reputation among comic readers for taking a lot of liberties in bringing the classic comics to life. Yet the Arrowverse has largely remained true to the spirit of the characters from the comics, even if the exact details of their stories rarely matched the source material. For instance, the Arrowverse has three different heroines in the modern era who have lain claim to a canary-based moniker, and the one who most closely resembles the modern comic book Black Canary in terms of training and personality is the only one who hasn’t used the Black Canary name.
Despite this, both versions of Crisis on Infinite Earths have more similarities than differences. Both stories end with a reality reborn and a promise of a better tomorrow. The basic steps taken in getting to the conclusion are largely the same, for all the little details that are different.
How The Arrowverse’s Battle At The Dawn Of Time Is Different From The Comics
“Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part 4” opened with the positive matter multiverse destroyed and the Paragons forced into hiding in Vanishing Point, a dimension outside of time and space. After being stranded for several months, the Paragons were contacted by the spirit of Oliver Queen, who had bonded with The Spectre and gained the power needed to confront the Anti-Monitor. Traveling through the Speed Force to the dawn of time, the Paragons battled an army of shadow demons while The Spectre fought the Anti-Monitor directly. With the cosmic titans’ attention occupied, the Paragons focused their minds on shaping the newly-forming multiverse, using a page from the Book of Destiny that Lex Luthor had stolen.
The same rough sequence of events occurred in Crisis on Infinite Earths #10. In the original Crisis comics, the Anti-Monitor didn’t succeed in destroying the whole positive-matter multiverse, with five Earths surviving the onslaught of the anti-matter cannon that was destroyed by The Flash. As the Lex Luthor of Earth-1 led an army of all the supervillains to start robbing the remaining Earths blind in the confusion, The Spectre appeared and informed the heroes and villains that the Anti-Monitor was going to the dawn of time to stop the multiverse from ever having existed and they must join together to save all reality.
The villains were dispatched to the planet Oa billions of years in the past, where they were meant to stop an experiment conducted by the scientist Krona that would go on to create the Anti-Matter Universe (and the Anti-Monitor) as a side-effect. They failed, leaving it to the heroes of five worlds, led by The Spectre, to confront the Anti-Monitor and his shadow demons at the dawn of time and stop them from destroying the multiverse before it could be born. Backed by the magical energies of the sorcerers of five worlds, the Spectre was able to battle the Anti-Monitor long enough to allow the universe to form without interference.
How The Reborn Arrowverse Is Different From The Reborn DC Comics Universe
“Crisis On Infinite Earths – Part 5” opened with Supergirl waking up in her apartment in National City and everything seemingly returned to normal. She quickly realized this wasn’t the case upon going to work and discovering that the Noble Peace Prize ceremony she was covering for CatCo Worldwide Media was devoted to Lex Luthor. Worse yet, Luthor now owned and operated the government agency she worked for and her closest friends (including her sister, Alex) all thought Luthor was a good guy.
Eventually Supergirl met up with Martian Manhunter, who confirmed that she wasn’t going crazy and that he remembered how their world used to be as well. As best as he could guess, only the Paragons remembered how the world was and the changes to their Earth had been wrought by Luthor while they were imagining the multiverse into being. Another oddity arose when Supergirl flew off to fight a villain called Weather Witch who seemed to recognize her, but whom Supergirl couldn’t remember having fought before. The truth became apparent once The Flash arrived and asked what Supergirl was doing on his Earth fighting one of his villains; somehow, Earth-38 and Earth-1 had merged together.
Something similar occurred in Crisis on Infinite Earths #11, though the point-of-view characters of that story were the Supermen of Earth-1 and Earth-2, Jay Garrick (The Flash of Earth-2) and Wally “Kid Flash” West of Earth-1. The confusion started when the Superman of Earth-2 walked into The Daily Planet and sat down in the Editor-In-Chief’s office, only to be confronted by a flabbergasted Perry White. The younger Superman heard the commotion and quickly explained away the other Superman as his Uncle Clark (the one he was named after) coming to visit and getting confused as to where to find him.
The two Supermen took to the air and quickly determined they seemed to be on Earth-1, before finding Jay Garrick’s home in Keystone City – a city that didn’t exist on Earth-1 originally. The two found Jay and Wally West in Jay’s home laboratory, where Jay revealed that they had made some similarly unsettling discoveries. Their conclusion: all the surviving Earths had been merged together into a single reality and only those heroes who had journeyed to the dawn of time remembered the multiverse.
The biggest difference between the reborn Arrowverse and the post-Crisis universe is that the latter is a singular universe. The intent of Crisis on Infinite Earths had been to reduce DC Comics’ many alternate realities into a single setting that would be easily accessible to new readers. By contrast, the new Arrowverse is still made up of multiple Earths, though all of the superhero shows on The CW are now contained within a single world, dubbed Earth-Prime.
How The Arrowverse’s Final Battle With The Anti-Monitor Is Different From The Comics
The climax of “Crisis of Infinite Earths – Part 5” was devoted to the final battle with the Anti-Monitor. Realizing that they couldn’t truly destroy the Anti-Monitor, Ray Palmer suggested they intentionally set off a chain reaction like the ones he created accidentally while perfecting his shrinking technology. This would leave the Anti-Monitor continually shrinking, eventually becoming trapped in a sub-atomic realm and unable to affect reality at all. As the scientists among the heroes scrambled to assemble Ray’s shrinking bomb at STAR Labs, the rest of them fought the Anti-Monitor and a newly forged army of shadow demons at Gardner Pier in Star City.
Crisis on Infinite Earths #12 saw the heroes of Earth joining together for one final battle against the Anti-Monitor, but the fight largely took place on the planet Qward in the Anti-Matter universe. After the Anti-Monitor sent his shadow demons to destroy the new Earth, most of Earth’s heroes battled the demons as the magic-based heroes met at the Tower of Fate and pooled their power to work a spell that would send the shadow demons back to their master. Meanwhile, Harbinger gathered a specific group of Earth’s mightiest heroes to fight the Anti-Monitor directly on his home-turf in the Anti-Matter universe.
The battle against the Anti-Monitor depended on a coordinated effort, with some heroes draining his power while others turned their own considerable might upon the cosmic giant. The sorcerers also got a hit in, having tainted the shadow demons they trapped so that the Anti-Monitor poisoned himself when he tried to reabsorb their essence into himself as he became weaker. Even Darkseid of the New Gods joined in the fight, using his Omega Effect to destroy the Anti-Monitor’s physical form and send him flying into the heart of a star. The final deathblow was struck by the Superman of Earth-2, who punched what remained of the Anti-Monitor’s essence into submission.
