SERIES SATURDAY: ARROW (2012-2020)

This is a series about … well, series. I do so love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies. I’ve already got a list of series I’ve recently read, re-read, watched, or re-watched that I plan to blog about. I might even, down the line, open myself up to letting other people suggest titles I should read/watch and then comment on.

Just about two weeks ago (by the time this is posted), fans said “goodbye” to The CW’s Arrow, the flagship show in what has become an expansive, if not always consistent, television adaptation of the DC Comics Universe. Along the way, Arrow (and its spin-offs The Flash and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, and connected shows Supergirl and Black Lightning) have thrilled and sometimes infuriated comics fans. For every fan who loved a character appearance or storyline adaptation, there was an equal and opposite reaction from another fan – and I’m sure this will continue now that the “Arrowverse” has moved beyond the big “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover and united all of the CW shows (plus, one assumes, the short-lived live-action and cartoon Constantine and Vixen series) on a single Earth. I’m of the opinion that no live-action movie or series adaptation of a comic book is ever going to be perfect, that storyline and character alterations to make the story work in a live-action format are necessary and should be expected, and thus there’s always been more to like than to complain about in Arrow and the rest of the “Arrowverse.” Your mileage may vary, of course.

Now normally when I do a “Series Saturday” post, it’s for a series I’ve recently read or watched (or re-read/re-watched), and so my thoughts are fresher. But I’m not in a position right now to do an 8-season long rewatch in short enough order to get a post written while the series finale is fresh in people’s minds, so this post is going to be a bit more nostalgia-based. There may be things I don’t remember, episodes/seasons I think were better/worse than they really were, etc. Bear with me.

I maintain that when Arrow was good, it was really, really good. And when it was not good … well, every long running show has at least one season that is a slump compared to the others, and every season is bound to have a stinker episode or two. And, as I said, I think in the end the really-really-good outweighed the stinker-bad.

WARNING: FROM HERE ON OUT, HERE THERE BE SPOILERS! If you haven’t watched all eight seasons of Arrow and you continue reading, I cannot be held responsible for anything you learn that you didn’t want to!

I came to Arrow about a season late; friends had watched season one and recommended it. I was skeptical, wasn’t too thrilled that the show was a complete relaunch (as opposed to giving us Justin Hartley’s Green Arrow spinning off from Smallville (which turned out to be a good thing for everyone, given co-star Alison Mack’s issues and that Justin has gone on to greater success with This Is Us, a show I should probably watch eventually)), and wasn’t really looking to add another hour-long show to my already long list of shows to watch. So it was as season two was starting that I finally decided to watch season one on DVD. My friends were right that I’d like it. I was hooked.

I think season one was the most tightly-plotted, and perhaps best, season of the show. There was a clear through-line: the producers knew where they wanted to be at the end of season one and got there without too much meandering (given the 23-episode length of the season). John Barrowman was a great “big bad” as the Black Archer, and I loved the development of the relationship between Oliver and John Diggle. The addition/development of the Queen family took some getting used to, but I came to really like both Susannah Thompson and Willa Holland. I liked the nod to comics history in making future (or so we thought at the time) Black Canary Laurel Lance’s father a cop, although I wasn’t crazy about Paul Blackthorne’s accent as Quentin Lance (it always felt a bit forced to me). I liked the way Roy Harper was eventually introduced, and I enjoyed watching Felicity grow from a guest to a supporting character to a co-star. I even found the flashbacks intriguing and for the most part connected to the current-day goings on. If there was anything I didn’t like about season one, it was the way the writers leaned so heavily into Oliver killing everyone on his List, and that (similar to Smallville) Oliver was given the first of a ridiculous number of nicknames before finally becoming Green Arrow, “the Hood” being about the worst of them. I also didn’t really connect with Katie Cassidy as Laurel at all, and thought she was better suited romantically to Tommy than to Oliver.

Season two was, I thought, almost as strong as season one. The flashbacks still connected strongly to the present day material. Manu Bennett was brilliant as the pre- and post-Mirakuru versions of Slade; the addition of Caity Lotz as the not-as-dead-as-we-thought Sara Lance / Black Canary was one of the best decisions the creators of the show ever made; and the show made good use of returning villains/anti-heroes like Huntress, Deadshot, and Bronze Tiger. I enjoyed enough of the season that I was able to overlook the complete misuse of Brother Blood. (Okay, full disclosure: I’m looking at the Arrow pages on IMDB as I write this, and I had completely forgotten Sebastian Blood was even a part of this season; when I think of season two, I think of Deathstroke, Sara, and the introduction of Grant Gustin as Barry Allen.) Oh, and I enjoyed the addition of Bex Taylor-Klaus as Sin (a character significantly aged-up from the comics) and wish they’d done more with her in subsequent seasons. Downside to the season: Laurel’s alcoholism storyline just didn’t work.

Season three, I struggled with. Partly because R’as al-Ghul is one of my favorite Batman villains and I initially thought Matt Nable was badly mis-cast. Partly because I hated that the season started off by killing Sara. Yes, I know, she got better, but “let’s kill the bisexual just to motivate the hero” is not a good look in this day and age. Thankfully, the powers-that-be brought her back to lead the Legends of Tomorrow. Positives to the season: the additions of Charlotte Ross as Mama Smoak, Katrina Law as Nyssa, Brandon Routh as Ray Palmer, and Vinny Jones as Brick, and Alex Kingston’s brief turn as Dinah Lance; the first “crossover” between Arrow and Flash. Downsides: the mishandling of classic comics character Ted (Wildcat) Grant; Laurel’s time as an assistant district attorney; the Hong Kong flashbacks, which had fewer real connections to the current storyline (other than introducing Tatsu and Maseo) and which felt painfully slow.

Season four: I’m going to just admit it: I loved watching Neal McDonough chew the scenery as Damien Darkh. But they really dropped the ball on exploring his connection to the League of Assassins, which had been hinted at multiple times in the previous season. Positives: the Diggle Brothers storyline gave David Ramsay some great stuff to work with; we got Tom Amandes as the Calculator, Megalyn Echikunwoke as a live-action Vixen, and Echo Kellum as Curtis Holt. Negatives: the flashbacks started to feel like interminable space-fillers that the producers were including only because that’s what the show’s format demanded (a problem that started to plague LOST about this point in that show’s run). If there was one positive to the flashbacks this season, it’s that they brought Matt Ryan’s Constantine officially into the Arrowverse. Oh, and the first “big” crossover introduced us to Vandal Savage, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl as a lead-in to the mid-season debut of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. I liked Katie Cassidy’s work as Laurel in this season – just in time for them to kill her off, of course.

Season five: Possibly the tightest-plotted complete season since season two. The misdirect about who Adrian Chase is was set up and played out brilliantly (and Josh Segara was great as Chase). The flashbacks were more connected to the main goings-on again, bringing us full-circle to the pilot episode and giving us reasons for Oliver’s early bloodthirstiness. David Nykl, although not credited as such, was practically a full regular cast member as Anatoly, and became one of my favorite characters of the entire run. Dolph Lundgren as Kovar in the flashbacks was a credible threat and really fun. Katie Cassidy’s recurring appearances as Earth-Two’s Laurel (aka Black Siren) convinced me that my dislike of her in the earlier seasons was likely more due to bad writing. Willa Holland and John Barrowman got to do some wonderful work together exploring the Thea-Malcolm relationship. Joe Dinicol as Rory Regan/Ragman and Lexa Doig as Talia al-Ghul, both of whom I really liked, joined the cast, as well as Rick Gonzalez and Juliana Harkavy as Wild Dog and the newest Black Canary, who I was a bit ambivalent toward. And of course, we got the INVASION crossover, bringing Supergirl officially into the fold.

Season six: I had hopes for this, the first flashback-less season, after the overall solid season five. I was … disappointed. The Deathstroke-searches-for-his-son two-parter was strong. Roy coming back, Thea leaving, Quentin dying all had emotional impact. David Nykl and Katie Cassidy do great work as Anatoly and Black Siren throughout. The Earth-X crossover was possibly the best-written to date. But the glaring misuse/underuse of Michael Emerson as Cayden James, the unending and illogical “splitting of Team Arrow,” and the show’s sudden obsession with making Ricardo Diaz a much bigger bad than he really deserved to be all worked against the season as a whole.

Season seven: And that slump continued through at least the first half of this season: the Oliver-in-prison portion of the season just went on for way too long, Diaz’s continued billing as a “big bad” continued to irk me (I’m not sure I’ve ever cheered a villain’s death quite so loudly), Adrian Paul (like Michael Emerson the season before) is largely wasted, the reveal that Emiko Queen is the real “big bad” of the season was lackluster (This is not to say that Sea Shimooka didn’t do some wonderful work as Emiko; she did within the confines of a less-than-startling storyline), and the flashfowards felt like an unnecessary reversion to the format the show was supposed to be leaving behind. The flashforwards also didn’t really connect with the present day goings on, as we never got the big reveal of what “the vigilantes” did that turned Star City into a future crime-ridden hell-hole. That said, if anything good came out of the flashforwards, it has to be Ben Lewis as the adult William Clayton Queen. I’ve rarely seen such a good job of adult and teen actors matching each others’ mannerisms and vocal ticks as Lewis did matching Jack Moore. This was also the season of the Elseworlds crossover which was more notable for introducing Batwoman, The Monitor, and Lois Lane than for any real quality of storytelling.

Season eight: I’m glad Stephen Amell agreed to do one more short season and wrap things up, because I think the show went out mostly on a high note. The writers got a chance to revisit a number of old favorites (characters and locations). We got closure for a lot of characters, and the shortened episode order forced the writing to be tight and concise (despite the presence of the flash-forwards, which are redeemed only because The Monitor brings the kids back to the present, giving Amell and Lewis and Kat McNamara a chance to do play some wonderful scenes together – in particular William’s coming-out to the father he thought he’d lost long before coming out). We also got the “Crisis” crossover, followed by an embedded-pilot for a spin-off starring Mia Queen and the Canaries. And, of course, that final episode, which was about as good as it could have been: a flashback that actually told a complete story focused on Oliver and Diggle in season one, and graveside appearances by almost everyone who mattered to Oliver. My only complaint about the finale was the absence of Charlotte Ross as Mama Smoak, and Manu Bennett and Michael Jai White as Slade and Bronze Tiger (the two villains Oliver actually managed to help redeem themselves over the course of the series). I know scheduling and price-tags (and maybe the supposed bad blood between Bennett and the producers) kept these from happening, but I wish something could have been worked out.

The biggest complaint I have about the show as a whole (and pretty much all of the “Arrowverse” shows) is that the ostensible star of the show rarely got to be the capable independent hero that the comics version is. The CW seems, with the exception of Legends, to be stuck in this rut that the title character MUST have a team of voices telling him/her what to do and how to do it. The Flash and Supergirl are particularly affected by this, and even Batwoman and Black Lightning have someone talking into their ears (Lucas Fox and Peter Gambi, respectively). I wish all of the shows would do a little less of that.

But in the end, complaints aside, I’ve enjoyed my time with Arrow. Stephen Amell, David Ramsay and Emily Bett Rickards kept me engaged every week even when the writing was not so great or the storylines took ridiculous turns (don’t get me started on the idea of a nuclear missile wiping out a whole American city with almost no repercussions).

Series Saturday: The CW Crisis on Infinite Earths

This is a series about … well, series. I do so love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies. I’ve already got a list of series I’ve recently read, re-read, watched, or re-watched that I plan to blog about. I might even, down the line, open myself up to letting other people suggest titles I should read/watch and then comment on.

For this Series Saturday, instead of looking back at a series I’ve enjoyed, I thought I’d make some predictions about a series that starts tomorrow night (Sunday, December 8, 2019): this year’s big “Arrowverse” crossover on the CW. I’m doing this because quite a few friends have asked what I think will happen, so I thought instead of a dozen text messages I’d just post my thoughts here.

AND YES, IF YOU’RE BEHIND ON THE ARROWVERSE SHOWS, THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!

For those who haven’t heard, Crisis on Infinite Earths will span 5 hours, taking up episodes of 5 out of the CW’s 6 DC Comics-based shows: Supergirl, Batwoman and The Flash on December 8-10, and then Arrow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow in mid-January. (Black Lightning will also be appearing, but only as a guest-star; the series has always stayed separate from the rest of the DCCW shows.)

The tagline for the television event, as it was for the original DC Comics maxi-series in the mid-80s, is “Worlds Will Live. Worlds Will Die. And nothing will ever be the same.” For better or worse (and I’ll save my detailed thoughts on this for a different post), the maxi-series irrevocably changed the DC Universe. Pretty much every world but one did die; so did a lot of tertiary and secondary and several notable major DC characters (don’t worry; as is standard in comics now, most of them got better over the intervening decades).

I’m looking forward to seeing what beats and moments from the original comics Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and the individual show runners were able to adapt/incorporate and what they chose to leave out (either because characters have not yet debuted in the Arrowverse shows, or because the moments would make no sense in the context of that universe versus the original comics). I have absolutely NO expectations that five hours of television will rival twelve monthly comic issues, even with the half-season of set-ups done on The Flash and Arrow this fall. But I do have some thoughts and predictions.

WHO WILL LIVE, WHO WILL DIE?

Oliver Queen and Barry Allen: We’ve been told repeatedly over the past several months that in order for anyone else to survive the Crisis, Oliver Queen and Barry Allen must die. Interestingly, it’s The Monitor telling them this, and he hasn’t told either one about the fate of the other. (Ollie thinks he prevented both Barry and Kara’s deaths at the end of the Elseworlds crossover by striking a deal with The Monitor; I don’t think he’s been told Barry is destined to die anyway.) The fact that the other characters on each show only know Ollie and Barry are destined to die because Barry and Ollie have told them leads me to believe that neither one is actually going to die. Also, it’s pretty standard that if a show beats you over the head with a character’s destiny, they will in fact not experience that destiny without some kind of twist.

Arrow is ending for good two weeks after Crisis is over (and one of those episodes is an embedded pilot for a spin-off), but I’m predicting (as I’m sure many others have) that Oliver and Felicity will be given the same send-off that the comic gave to the Golden Age Superman and Lois Lane: living happily ever after (theoretically) in a pocket dimension from which they can never (or so they think) leave. I can’t imagine them outright killing “the one that started it all.”

And The Flash, of course, is not going off the air after Crisis. Barry’s been preparing his team for a “world without Flash,” but I don’t for a minute believe Grant Gustin is hanging up the cowl for more than a few episodes. He may, as they’ve done in a previous season, appear to be lost, but he will be back. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that some other speedster will take Barry’s place at the last minute: and since we’ve seen no evidence that Keiynan Lonsdale (Wally) or Violet Beane (Jessie Quick) will be appearing in Crisis, I’m going to say it will be one of John Wesley Shipp’s characters: either the Flash from Earth-90 or a re-powered Jay Garrick. (This will give Shipp the notoriety of having died on the Flash more times than Tom Cavanagh.)

Prior Minor Characters/Guest Stars: The original comic was well-known for the wholesale slaughter of secondary and lesser characters. Depending on when you started reading DC Comics and/or when you came to read Crisis for the first time, some of those deaths hit harder than others. (For me? The death of the original Dove, Don Hall, made me cry. The death of Mark Merlin / Prince Ra-Man? Not so much.) On the current Arrowverse shows, there aren’t quite as many “blink and you miss them” level characters to be slaughtered by the Anti-Monitor’s Shadow Demons. And the ones that are out there? Well, those actors would cost money to bring back in, if they were even available to reprise their roles. However, I can imagine scenes of carnage like the one that lead off last year’s “Elseworlds” crossover: dead costumed characters strewn across Earth-1’s landscape, with faces not visible so we can’t tell these are just extras. I won’t be surprised to see characters like The Pied Piper, Huntress, Red Tornado, The Ray, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl dead in the background of a shot since at this point those characters/actors are not likely to be brought back. Still, as recently as yesterday showrunner Mark Guggenheim said there were at least 6 cameos/guest-star appearances who had not yet been revealed/spoiled, so there is the possibility of an on-screen death for a former guest-star or two.

Major Characters From Other DC Shows/Movies: We already know we’re going to be seeing, in cameos and/or key scenes, Robert Wuhl (from the Tim Burton Batman), Burt Ward (Batman ’66), Ashley Scott (Birds of Prey tv show), Tom Welling and Erica Durance (Smallville), Kevin Conroy (a Kingdome Come-ish Bruce Wayne) and Brandon Routh (the Donnerverse/Kingdom Come Superman). There was a rumor Tom Ellis (Lucifer) was on set during filming, and I’m holding out hope that some of the unleaked cameos are Lynda Carter and Lyle Waggoner (Wonder Woman), Helen Slater (Supergirl), Dina Meyer (Oracle on Birds of Prey), David Mazouz or Sean Pertwee (Gotham) and/or Michael Grey/Jackson Bostwick/Garrett Craig (Billy Batson/Captain Marvel from the Shazam tv show). Showing any of these characters dying would have huge emotional impact on those of us who grew up on/watched those shows but possibly less-so on viewers only familiar with the current Arrowverse shows.

Major Characters from the Arrowverse Shows: Of course, what would pack the most emotional punch would be the deaths of one or more of the main casts. The title characters on each show are safe. The Flash, Supergirl, Black Lightning, and Batwoman are not suddenly going to become Frost and Friends, Adventures of The DEO, Thunder and Lightning, or Batwing. But if the producers want us to feel, after the fact, that this crossover actually resulted in a real shake-up of the status quo … somebody major is going to have to be killed off from one or more of the Big Three shows. My thoughts/expectations on who:

·         The Flash: Cisco Ramon. It’s fairly common on drama shows that if a character gets a happy ending and/or closure, they’re probably going to be written out or die (Lost took this to the level of an artform). Cisco has his happy ending: he got rid of the powers he didn’t really want to have, got closure on his relationship with Gypsy (and by extension, Breacher), and has a solid relationship with an understanding and loving girlfriend. But the show has also introduced another super-hacker/scientist type in Chester Runk. And there were rumors last season after Cisco was de-powered that he was leaving. His death would certainly pack the requisite punch for both viewers and fans – more so than Katie/Frost and Ralph, who have their powers and on-going sub-plots. Second Place Guess: Joe West.  There’s no indication Jesse L. Martin is ready to leave the show, and killing yet another of Barry’s father-figures (especially if Jay Garrick takes his place as The Flash Who Must Die) would just be cruel. But after two emotional “I’m not ready to say goodbye to my son” scenes in recent weeks, Joe’s death would be an even bigger gut-punch that Cisco.

·         Supergirl: J’Onn J’Onzz.  Here’s that closure thing again: in the past season or so, J’Onn has moved on from the DEO, gotten closure with the father he thought was dead and the brother he’d forgotten existed, and is in a good place. But we also saw The Monitor tell him that freeing himself of his past is what would make him a valuable part of the team fighting The Crisis. If that’s not a set-up for a heroic, self-sacrificing death, nothing is. Second Place Guess: Brainiac 5. He still has both romantic and a “am I man or machine” storylines going on, but we also know Jeremy Jordan is set to return for a few episodes as Win, which makes me think Brainy could be sacrificed.  Honestly, when it was announced Mechad Brooks was leaving the show, I was confident James Olsen would die during Crisis, but they wrote him out earlier.

·         Arrow: Wild Dog. We already know Black Canary and Black Siren are locked into the back-door pilot, so they’re not being killed off, while Rene has not been mentioned as part of that cast. Since the show seems intent this season on subverting their own future timeline (by having Roy come back to the fold sooner and lose an arm in the process, as well as having Dig and Lyla learn about their sons’ futures and work to prevent that), it would make sense for them to write out Rene before he has a chance to become Mayor and screw up Star City and the Glades. Second Place Guess: Roy Harper. It would be cruel, having Roy willingly lose an arm for the team only to then die for them as well, but they could go this route as a way to even further subvert the future timeline.

·         Legends of Tomorrow: I honestly don’t think they’re going to kill off any of the major cast. We already know Ray Palmer and Nora Darkh are being written out later in the season, so they’re safe. And most of the returning lead cast have on-going sub-plots. However, if they really want to start the new season off with a change in the status quo, killing Nate Heywood off would do it. Yeah, he’s got that whole “I don’t remember the woman I fell in love with” sub-plot brewing, but plots like that have been dropped on shows before when the showrunners wanted to shake things up (remember Ruby being promoted to series regular on Once Upon A Time only to appear in a handful of episodes and then virtually disappear because other storylines took precedent?). Second Place Guesses: either Gary or Mona, since fan reaction to both supporting characters has been less than favorable.

I’m pretty sure that we won’t see a major character death related to Crisis on Black Lightning simply because the show itself is not a part of the crossover. And Batwoman hasn’t been on the air long enough to lose a second main cast member in one season (after the death of Katherine Hamilton in the fall finale), so I think the remaining cast members there are safe.

WORLDS WILL LIVE, WORLDS WILL DIE?

The original comic ended with the Multiverse being destroyed and history being re-written so that there had always been only One Earth. This created a lot of issues for multiple-Earth dopplegangers and characters with the same names but different histories/powers/etc.  The CW shows don’t have that many characters who appear on more than one Earth (and most of those were killed off-camera when Earth-2 bit the dust in the Arrow season premiere) for that to be a storyline problem. (In fact, the only one I can think of that could be a real issue would be the Earth-1 counterpart of Alex Danvers.) But fans have long complained that Supergirl feels way too removed over there on Earth-38 given her great friendship/chemistry with Barry Allen and burgeoning friendship with Kate Kane. We’ve seen in the various trailers that The Monitor decides Earth-38 is where the Heroes need to make their stand, and evidence that first Argo City (home of Supergirl’s birth mother and the few remaining Kryptonians) and then possibly all of Earth-38 get destroyed. There’s also trailer evidence that they manage to evacuate Earth-38 before the anti-matter wave hits.

My prediction is that not all Earths will be destroyed. I think the number of Earths that survive will be small. Most of the Earths that get destroyed will be Earths we’ve either never seen or have only heard mentioned, or will be the Earths for those other DC live action properties outside of the Arrowverse that we know we’re going to be seeing guest-stars from. I’m not even confident Earth-38 will really be destroyed; trailers are notoriously misleading on things like this for dramatic effect. I think we’ll end up with Earth-1 (for Flash, Legends, Batwoman, and the possible Arrow spinoff), Earth-38 (for Supergirl and the possible Superman show), Earth-BL (I don’t think Black Lightning’s Earth has ever been given a numeric designation), possibly Earth-X (just in case they ever want to use evil dopplegangers and The Ray again), and then an Earth-whatever that accounts for the other on-going DC TV shows on other networks (Titans, Doom Patrol, Swamp Thing, the upcoming Stargirl) and maybe one that accounts for the current “Movieverse.” Although I’m willing to second-guess myself about Earth-38’s destruction. It would definitely shake things up if Earth-1 and -38 were combined, but would also be a storyline logistical nightmare.

KINGDOM COME

We’ve already been told that Brandon Routh’s “Donnerverse” Superman is the Supes from DC’s mini-series Kingdom Come, and photographic evidence that Kevin Conroy’s Bruce Wayne is from that same Earth. My prediction? With the cameo appearance of Robert Wuhl’s “Burtonverse” Batman character Alexander Knox, I’m betting we’ll get at least a line of dialogue or two telling us that Conroy is the Burton Batman and that those movies (and sequels), the 1970s Wonder Woman and Shazam shows, and maybe the Birds of Prey show all took place on that same Earth, even if we don’t get to see Lynda Carter and Helen Slater in their iconic costumes. And of course, that Earth will go out in spectacular fashion after Bruce and Clark are recruited as two of the “Seven” The Monitor mentions need to be found in a recent trailer.

OTHER MINOR PREDICTIONS

·         History will at least slightly be rearranged, through either The Monitor’s doing or the Legends, and after the Crisis is over, Diggle and Lyla (who I predict will both survive) will joyously welcome baby Sara back into the family alongside her twin brother JJ and older adopted brother Connor. And yes, I think Dig and Lyla will remember that they had a daughter, then they didn’t, and now they do again.

·         The Council of Wellses will be completely destroyed, limiting Tom Cavanagh to playing only Reverse Flash, Nash Wells/Pariah (who I think will also survive) and the Earth-2 Wells if he was actually on Earth-3 this whole time, as has been rumored.

·         The West-Allens will find out Iris is pregnant thanks to that little island-hopping vacation they took a few episodes ago – but early next season, they’ll have twins who they’ll name Donald Henry and Dawn Nora. (In the comics, Barry and Iris’s twins were Don and Dawn Allen.)

·         Kevin Conroy will eventually make an appearance as the Earth-1 Bruce Wayne (sans exoskeleton) because like Clark, they can’t avoid the issue of where Bruce has been forever.

I could be completely wrong about all of this. But hey, when it was announced before Season 1 of The Flash that John Wesley Shipp would be playing an important mystery character, I predicted it would be Jay Garrick – and I was only two seasons off! I’ll do a “let’s see how I did post” after the final two hours of the crossover air in mid-January.