Sara is the Paragon of Destiny now. Maybe it’s her book.
Of course I meant this guy, but you already knew that.
I was actually wondering exactly which Destiny you were referring to. It couldn’t have been Doctor Destiny, because we already saw him as John Deegan in the Elseworlds crossover. Anyway it just occurred to me that Sara could be involved with the book as the Paragon of Destiny.
…the introduction of Jim Corrigan to pass on the power of the Spectre was…not good.
It could have been brilliant. They had the entire season of Arrow where they could have teased the character, made his introduction more seamless than they did. But he literally appeared in a burst of exposition and a couple of minutes later Oliver agrees to take over the mantle. Seriously, WTF was up with that? I thought the actual idea of Oliver-as-Spectre is really freaking brilliant. I just wish it was executed better than it was.
Maybe I missed a quick line of exposition, but I kept wondering (and, now, am still wondering): why hasn’t Barry gone back in time to make changes?
He once did it and saved the city from a weather manipulator, which, okay, got him a finger-wag warning about possible consequences; later, Barry went back in time and took steps to reform Hartley Rathaway, which apparently worked great and made the guy a useful team player. Barry later went back and saved his own mom’s life, and lived in that timeline for months; he later went back and undid that change, causing yet other changes (Cisco’s brother, John’s kid) that he’s lived with ever since. And then Barry’s daughter from the future later showed up and kicked off some changes to the history she’d lived through, which she helpfully explained to him.
And so on.
So, yeah, it’s not his Plan A; again, he wound up replacing John Diggle’s daughter with a son, and, gosh, that sort of thing could sure make a guy reluctant about this sort of stuff, y’know? But: once John’s kid, and billions of other people, are dead? Once the Earth is staring down the barrel of a gun that’s shot all other Earths dead? Just how bad do things have to get before Barry thinks, hey, could going back in time make it so various events would occur in a less-bad way?
I don’t watch most of the shows these days, so many of the characters were unfamiliar to me. Still, I’ve been enjoying it. The Lucifer cameo was fun.
I did like the Black Lightning episode best. For me, it’s the best of the Berlantiverse and I loved how they literally had a red skies crossover that was relevant to the characters of the show. But it rose above the usual plot coupons to say things about the characters.
Huh. You know, that made me realize something else about the time-travel bit I was just yammering on about: how did Ray Palmer and Sara Lance get introduced in this crossover, so the audience gets quick exposition about who they are? They’re killing it at bar trivia — until they miss a question about a Janis Joplin song, prompting them to realize that, oh, yeah, Ray went back in time and had a brief chat with her, and she must have recorded another hit single as a result.
Because they can do that. We’re getting told, right here in this crossover, that they can go back in time and make changes to history.
Fanwank:
It’s all timey-wimey, but the Anti-Matter Wave happens simultaneously across all time for a given alternate Earth. So, if the AMW is one hour away for an Earth, it is always one hour away, regardless of when in that Earth’s history you are. Once the AMW destroys an Earth, that Earth is destroyed in all times. It has no future, but also no past to travel to. Even time travel can’t give you access to an Earth after it’s been destroyed.
Also, I think Legends of Tomorrow established that there are “soft” and “hard” points in time. “Hard” points, like the death of Barry Allen’s mother, can’t be changed, and if you try, it has catastrophic consequences for the timestream. “Soft” points, like Nora Allen’s trip to her past, and basically all of the Legends’ adventures, can be changed more or less safely. Presumably, everything having to do with the Monitor, the Anti-Monitor, and the Anti-Matter Wave are “hard” points. Any attempt to go back in time and interfere with them will only result in even worse consequences.
Once the Anti-Matter Wave began, it had always begun, and there is no timeframe in which it hadn’t begun yet. Time travel can’t change it, because, like the Vanishing Point, the Anti-Matter Wave is beyond space and time.
Like I said, it’s timey-wimey.
That was the weakest part of the whole episode, indeed of the three episodes broadcast so far. “Hey guys, I’m some random dude you’ve never heard of before. I’m called Spectre, by the way. And now, Oliver” - TAG - “you’re it.”
The weakest episode overall, however, was the first one. The battle with the shadow demons just super chintzy. More importantly, it was saddled with too much overhead addressing the Lena situation. In contrast, the second episode was probably the strongest one. The Superman vs Superman battle was super awesome, plus all the fanservice with Kevin Conroy, Tom Welling, and Brandon Routh’s Superman. There was also no overhead with unresolved plot points from the Batwoman show. Kate just had take down some mooks and then she’s traveling time and space.
The third episode was almost as strong as the second one, despite its weak sauce with Oliver/Spectre. We all knew it was leading up to Flash vanishing, because they spent the entire front half of the season building anticipation. And then the twist of Barry-90 vanishing, not Barry-1. And then Lyla killed Monitor. And then the Paragons transported to the Vanishing Point. And Clark-96 being replaced by that mofo Lex Luthor. There were also all the Kara/Kate interactions. Plus it had freaking Black Lightning in it!
Is anyone else watching the Kevin Smith aftershows? He’s obviously a huge fan, but he’s seriously annoying. 
It seems that the people involved are mostly fans too, and feel like they’re doing something special.
I’m a Kevin Smith fan and I had to turn it off quickly. The aftershow has no interest for me I guess.
It looks like you’re right about this. At the cliffhanger, there were seven Paragons left in the entire multiverse, or rather six Paragons plus Lex Luthor, who are exactly those shown in the preview if you count the unknown guy as Ryan Choi. The beard may be an indication that they’ve been there a while, maybe five weeks, after which things start happening again.
This was totally what happened in the graphic novel. The Crisis occurred simultaneously throughout the entire timeline. Quantum towers were also set up throughout the timeline (or perhaps it was the same one) and the Monitor (or rather Harbinger) sent different groups of heroes to different time periods to defend the towers from shadow demons. We haven’t seen any evidence of this on the show, however I have an alternative explanation that fits with what we’ve already seen.
While Barry is the poster child for screwing up the timeline, the Legends time travel far more frequently and have far more experience with changing history. Contrary to their reputation for being screw-ups, the Legends actually try to completely assess the historical anomaly before going back to fix it. They’ll try to minimize any further damage to the timeline, but don’t sweat the small stuff. (Mick Rory’s status as a Founding Father comes to mind.)
Now the Crisis, and Barry’s death, would take place in the future so Barry couldn’t very well assess any historical anomalies to figure out what to change. Hence Barry attempted to travel to the day after the day he was supposed to vanish (S06E02 “A Flash of the Lightning”), but was stopped by a wall of anti-matter (probably due to, you know, the universe being destroyed). And so he traveled to Earth-3 to use Jay Garrick’s helmet, pull a Doctor Strange, and see all the possible futures, only one of which resulted in Earth-1 not being destroyed - the one where Flash vanishes.
Here’s the thing: Barry saw himself (Barry-1) vanishing. He didn’t see Barry-90 vanishing. So what they thought was a loophole in the Monitor’s prediction really wasn’t. When Barry-90 replaced Barry-1 on the cosmic treadmill in the Anti-Monitor’s lair, they actually screwed up the proper timeline. If one Barry Allen can screw up the timeline to cause Flashpoint, two Barry Allens can screw up the timeline by an order of magnitude and cause the destruction of the entire multiverse.
I really only watch Flash and Legends though these crossovers get me to watch a couple of episodes of the others so I can understand things they are referencing. I watched my first episode of Black Lightning ever just to get a feel for the characters and the angst killed me. I’m hoping that by collapsing the multiverse everyone on that show dies and they can start over. Otherwise I doubt I’ll watch another one. I did like how they integrated the red skies into the story line and that felt authentic.
On the other side of that coin the trailer for Star Girl looked fun and hopefully it stays that way. Batgirl was way too dark for me and I didn’t even make it two episodes. I worry that Legends will get canceled since its the best out of the bunch and then there won’t be enough CW content to keep me coming back and I enjoy their super world.
I’m starting to wonder if Barry-90’s death might be a double fake-out. If The Flash were truly going to die to save Earth, you figure Iris would write something like “The Flash Sacrifices Himself,” not “The Flash Vanishes.” Maybe whatever the paragons do at the Vanishing Point will result in Barry disappearing when the universe is restored (only to be saved by Cisco after a couple episodes).
I think that at the very end that newspaper will read “Green Arrow Vanishes in Crisis”.
Here’s a list of all the new alternate Earths that appeared in the crossover, who showed up, and why that Earth had that number. I put them in the order that they appeared.
Earth-89 Gotham City - Alexander Knox - Batman 1989 movie
Earth-9 San Fransisco - Hawk and Jason Todd/Robin (Titans) - ???
Earth-66 Gotham City - Dick Grayson - Batman 1966 TV series
Earth-16 Star City 2046 - old Oliver Queen - Legends of Tomorrow Episode 106 “Star City 2046”
Earth-74 - alternate Mick Rory and Leonard Snart as Gideon - ???
Earth-75 Metropolis - death of Superman - Superman comic vol. 2 #75 “The Death of Superman”
Earth-99 Gotham City - old Bruce Wayne in exosuit - Batman Beyond 1999 TV series
Earth-167 Smallville - Smallville Clark & Lois - Smallville showrunner Alfred Gough born in 1967
Earth-96 Metropolis - Superman Returns/Kingdom Come Superman - Kingdom Come 1996 comics
Earth-18 North Dakota - Jonah Hex - ???
Earth-203 New Gotham - Huntress - Birds of Prey TV series 2002-2003
Earth-666 Los Angeles - Lucifer Morningstar - you figure it out
Black Lightning’s Earth was never mentioned.
It was mentioned that Earth-90 was where the original Barry Allen came from… the original series started in 1990.
Anyone else disappointed we didn’t get to meet Terry McGinnis?
Earth-1800s?