It was the multiverse story to end all multiverse stories, but it was
written before the multiverse was the thing to obsess over. For comic readers in
the 1980s, it looked like DC’s attempt to copy the success of Marvel’s Secret
Wars, but it promised to simplify their numerous universes. Since then, it
has become a significant part of the DC universe lore. It was even adapted in
multiple Arrowverse episodes. It now joins the DC Animated Tomorrowverse, when
Jeff Wamester’s Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part One [out
of three] releases today on BluRay.
The
Barry Allen edition of The Flash has become unstuck in time, super-charged on cosmic
speed force. As he shifts between the various Earths, The Flash notices an
ominous looking wave of anti-matter bearing down on each alternate planet. The
ancient Monitor notices it too. Although he has vowed to never interfere in the
human matters he scrupulously observes (sort of like Marvel What If’s
The Watcher), the Monitor has made an exception, gathering the greatest heroes
and scientists from multiple Earths to hatch a plan to stop the anti-matter
wave.
Although
The Question is skeptical, The Flash can confirm the Monitor’s story, because
he has seen it for himself. He has also had to navigate multiple realities,
including his wedding on one Earth and the belated formation of the Justice League
on another. However, he is not prepared for the shock of the dystopian Earth-3,
ruled by a gang of supervillains headed by the evil Superman analog Ultraman
(not the Japanese Kyodai hero). It is quite telling how much this Ultraman
looks, acts, and sounds like The Boys’ Homelander, but the DC character
predates the caped psycho played by Anthony Starr, by about forty years.
DC
Animated has regularly been producing better superhero movies than anything
Marvel or DC has done recently in live-action. Crisis Part One is not as
inventive as Superman: Red Sun or Batman Ninja, but it is still
smartly executed film. In fact, the multiverse story is probably particularly
suited to animation, because it can more easily depict The Flash careening between
worlds.
One
of the charms of the original comic was the assembly of so many heroes, both
the iconic and the somewhat obscure. James Krieg’s adaptation of the Marv
Wolfman/George Perez limited series still does that too, but it is definitely
Flash-forward, so to speak. Matt Bomer’s voice-over performance as the Flash is
far superior to Ezra Miller’s disastrous film turn. Likewise, Darren Criss and
Jensen Ackles nicely differentiate the personalities of the various Supermen
and Batmen (but they only voice the “good ones”).
This isn't just a series finale. It is a universe finale, marking the end of
the interconnected Arrowverse shows on CW. Either Superman & Lois
or Gotham Knights might still eke out a renewal, but they are both
set in different DC universes. Logically, a lot of familiar faces come back for
the “final run,” which is fortunate, since Barry Allen will need plenty of help
saving the current timeline in “A New World, Part Four,” the final episode of The
Flash, airing tonight on the CW.
Obviously,
a lot has happened since “It’s My Party and I’ll Die If I Want to,” much of it
involving time and speed. It seems a lot of the Flash’s old nemeses, living and
dead, have been brought together, to combine their powers and harness the speed
equivalent of The Force to defeat Team Flash. It would be deemed a spoiler to
name names, but if you have only watched a few cherry-picked episodes this
season, they might not be immediately recognizable. Regardless, they are all
speedy.
Meanwhile,
Iris West-Allen is in the hospital poised to deliver Baby Nora. The
long-awaited arrival of babies is a staple of series finales. Frankly, “New
World, Part Four” includes pretty much each and every one you could think of,
except the Seinfeld-style clip-package trial. Honestly, The Flash’s finale
is more satisfying, for exactly that reason.
Barry Allen, a.k.a. The Flash, is literally much more mature and experienced
than his age would suggest. In addition to getting trapped in the time loop that
started the ninth and final season, he is also in the process of literally
reliving several years of his life. It is therefore not a vain euphemism when
he says he is celebrating his 30th birthday again. However, it is
the first time for “Team Flash,” so they throw him a birthday party. Of course,
a supervillain is bound to crash the bash in “It’s My Party and I’ll Die If I Want
to,” which airs Wednesday on the CW.
Allen
is still somewhat shaken by events of past seasons, so he really doesn’t feel
like partying, but he tries to get into the spirit anyway, for his friends’
sake. He will have to quickly revert to designated driver-mode when Dr. Ramsey
Rosso, the supervillain and aspiring collective hive mind, spikes the champagne
and cider with his mind-consuming spores. Only Allen and his wife Iris
West-Allen retain their free will, thanks to his speed healing ability, which is
also partly present in their unborn baby.
Before
things get better, they will get a whole lot worse—and also way more cosmic. When
Rosso starts to threaten the stability of the multiverse, it frees the hand of
the mysterious guardian now known as the Spectre to get involved. In doing so,
he reminds viewers how the Flash is connected to the so-called “Arrowverse.”
Like
the season nine premiere, “Wednesday Ever After,” “Its My Party” stands alone
to some extent, while simultaneously addressing some big sf concepts. On the
other hand, it is not as easy pick up all the references to intercharacter
relationships and backstories on-the-fly, if, hypothetically speaking, you only
watch The Flash when select episodes are offered to the media for review.
As a society, we are more diligent about vetting prospective Jeopardy hosts
and superhero actors than presidential candidates. Maybe if the media that has
spent so much time digging into Jeopardy’s Mike Richards and Ezra Miller
had devoted a little more attention to Biden’s Afghanistan plans (or lack thereof),
we could have avoided a humiliating debacle. So, what if the next movie Flash
will be played by a weirdo with legal problems? Still, moralizing fans have a
point: there already is a perfectly competent TV Flash. Season Nine might be
the end of the line for his series, but the season premiere happens to stand
alone relatively sturdily. It is time to do the time loop again in “Wednesday
Ever After,” which premieres tonight on the CW.
Evidently,
The Flash and his wife, Iris West-Allen, survived a lot of crazy time-related
chaos in the previous season, so they have just finished a week of recuperation.
Of course, the series’ new super-villain, Captain Boomerang, choses this
inopportune time to strike. However, his nuclear shenanigans inadvertently trap
The Flash and West-Allen together in a time loop.
There
have already been a whole heck of a lot of time loops in film and television, including
recently the “Leap, Die, Repeat” episode of Quantum Leap. However, “Wednesday”
still manages to come up with some fresh wrinkles. In fact, it rather
effectively uses the loop to contrast the married couple’s very different
approaches to the future. Allen has meticulously assembled all his notes from
the future into a blueprint for their lives together, whereas West-Allen
steadfastly insists on the right to make her own choices—sort of the super-heroic
time-travelling version of the free will versus predestination debate.
Before Wakanda, Angela Bassett had an early career appearance in one of the
various DC universes, playing true royalty: a jazz vocalist partly inspired by
Billie Holiday (judging by the flower she conspicuously wears in her hair). Linda
Lake is also presumed to be dead, murdered by her tenor player husband, Wayne
Cotrell. However, she is alive, secretly held captive by her brother-in-law
producer. Barry Allen, avid jazz listener, CSI tech, and secretly the Flash,
has less than an hour to find her before Cotrell’s execution, but fortunately
he is as speedy as ever in the “Beat the Clock” episode the original series The
Flash, worth revisiting in light of Bassett’s Oscar nomination and tomorrow night’s
season premiere of CW’s The Flash.
Allen
is the jazz fan, whereas his colleague Julio Mendez is not, but he knew Cotrell
from the old neighborhood, so he never accepted the guilty verdict. An hour
before his date with the electric chair, Allen takes a message from another
jazz musician, Dave Buell, asking him to tell Mendez he has a tape that will
prove Cotrell’s innocence. Unfortunately, the bad guys get to him while he is
still on the line. By the time the Flash gets there, Buell is gone, but he finds
the smashed tape, which their CSI colleague Christina McGee tries to
reconstruct.
As
The Flash snoops around Elliott Cotrell’s jazz club, he discovers the producer
has secretly held Lake doped-up, somewhat bringing her out of it from time to
time, so she can record “newly discovered” sessions. Unfortunately, Cotrell’s
muscle, a former vocalist known as “Whispers” might have the drop on the Flash’s
CSI team.
For
jazz fans, it has been amazing to see how many vintage recordings have been posthumously
discovered (like the Mingus Cornell 1964 concert, just as an example). “Beat
the Clock” offers a rather nefarious explanation for the proliferation of “new”
recordings from deceased artists. This episode never drops any real jazz names,
but it suggests a reasonable level of familiarity with the music. It also has a
very cool neon noir look going on, reminiscent of Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy
movie, which released about six months before this episode first aired.
