Warning: The following feature contains SPOILERS for Crisis on Infinite Earths.
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The Arrowverse adaptation of Crisis on Infinite Earths presented a different origin for its multiverse than the original comic book mini-series did for the DC Comics’ multiverse. The two stories were broadly the same, yet the specific details may have been changed for the adaptation because of the upcoming Green Lantern series on HBO Max.
The prologue of “Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part 4” revealed the origins of the Arrowverse and the role that Mar Novu, the alien scientist who would become The Monitor, played in causing the Crisis that he sought to avert. The scene opened on the planet Maltus, some 10 thousand years in the past. It was here that Mar Novu and his wife, Xneen, were conducting an experiment that would send Mar Novu back to the dawn of time, allowing him to witness the creation of the universe. They did this in spite of the objections of a group called The Ancients, who believed that their experiments would bring about the destruction of their world.
Donning a special suit of armor designed by Xneen, Mar Novu opened up a breach to the beginning of time and entered into the Temporal Zone; the void the Legends of Tomorrow routinely traverse in their time ship. Unfortunately, Mar Novu’s presence somehow corrupted the Temporal Zone and caused it to begin generating what he later realized was anti-matter. Mar Novu suddenly found himself standing in a barren wasteland, having accidentally opened the way into a newly created anti-matter universe. It was then that he met his equal and opposite number; an equally ambitious being who sought to destroy everything Mar Novu had hoped to explore; the Anti-Monitor!
The story detailing the creation of the multiverse in the original Crisis on Infinite Earths is largely the same, but with a few names and dates changed. In the original story, the scientist who accidentally created the anti-matter universe was named Krona and he had existed on the planet Oa several billion years ago, long before the people of Oa evolved to become the Guardians of the Universe and established the Green Lantern Corps.
The Oans had a ban on trying to observe the creation of the universe, similar to the prohibition of the Ancients, which Krona ignored to his eventual dismay. Krona was later said to have introduced evil into the fabric of the universe with his arrogance and his observance of the creation of the universe created a quantum fracture that turned what was meant to be a singular universe into a multiverse, including an anti-matter universe ruled by a cruel being known as the Anti-Monitor.
So why did the Arrowverse Crisis switch out Krona for Mar Novu? The most likely reason is they may not have been able to make use of Oa and Krona to avoid conflict with the upcoming Green Lantern show. Krona was developed into a more notorious figure during Geoff Johns’ run on the Green Lantern comic decades after Crisis on Infinite Earths. With Johns working on the show and reportedly adapting some of his comics for it, there’s a chance Krona might be one of the chief villains of the upcoming space opera.
More: How Arrowverse’s Crisis on Infinite Earths Ending Is Different To The Comics
