The Arrowverse’s Crisis on Infinite Earths may have destroyed the entire Multiverse - but there’s the potential to bring it all back. The biggest event in the history of DCTV, Crisis on Infinite Earths has seen the entire Multiverse destroyed by a wave of antimatter. The Anti-Monitor has fulfilled his insane agenda, and all of creation has been annihilated. The last seven surviving beings - the Paragons - are stranded on the Vanishing Point, outside time and space.
The Arrowverse has been setting up Crisis since The Flash’s season 1 premiere all the way back in 2014, which unveiled a newspaper from the future that foretold Barry Allen’s death during some sort of cosmic crisis. But something has moved this forward in time, from 2024 to 2019, and now the entire Multiverse has been consumed. The Flash season 6, episode 2 revealed that the process has been going on for over a year now, with Jay Garrick running an algorithm that suggested every universe was in danger. His predictions turned out to be entirely correct.
The scale of the catastrophe is absolutely unimaginable, and it’s been made all the more shocking by the Arrowverse’s expansion to include Titans, Batman ‘66 and Tim Burton’s movies. But, fortunately, Crisis on Infinite Earths has been subtly hinting that what has happened can in fact be reversed.
The Earths Might Be Being Transformed - Not Destroyed
The Arrowverse has never cared too much about explaining its pseudoscience, and the Crisis is a perfect case in point. So far, the only account has been from the Monitor, who suggested that all of the Multiverse is being destroyed - completely erased from existence. Supergirl season 5, episode 9 presented viewers with their best look at what happens when an entire dimension is affected by the wave of antimatter, and on the face of it the Monitor’s words were accurate. First Argo City and then Supergirl’s entire dimension was apparently obliterated.
But it’s important to note that the Monitor didn’t have perfect knowledge. He didn’t correctly foresee Oliver Queen’s fate, he was wrong when he said that Barry Allen was destined to die, and he didn’t call Harbinger’s betrayal either. That means the heroes would be wiser not to take his word for it, but instead to try to understand the Anti-Monitor’s goals and objectives. Those became a lot clearer after The Flash season 6, episode 9, when the heroes penetrated the Anti-Monitor’s foothold on Earth-1 and when he spoke through Harbinger aboard the Waverider.
Just like the comics, Crisis on Infinite Earths seems to be obsessed with a sort of cosmic yin-and-yang. There is matter and antimatter, the Monitor and the Anti-Monitor. In The Flash season 6, episode 9, Pariah welcomed the Flash and his friends into what he called “the nexus between the antimatter universe and your own.” Later, speaking through Harbinger, the Anti-Monitor insisted that “soon only the antimatter universe will remain.” In other words, it looks as though the Anti-Monitor’s purpose is not destruction; rather, it is the expansion of the antimatter universe, at the expense of matter. The Multiverse has not truly been destroyed, but instead it has been converted to another state.
This Could Be The Source Of The Anti-Monitor’s Army
It’s easy to miss, but one detail in Supergirl season 5, episode 9 hinted that this may indeed be the case. The Monitor’s Quantum Tower briefly held the antimatter wave at bay on Earth-38, and in response the Anti-Monitor sent in an army of creatures to destroy it. These wraiths were identical in shape and form, and their origin was never explained. Fortunately for the heroes, they were easy to defeat, with even a strike from a Batarang causing them to spontaneously dissolve. It’s true that the Anti-Monitor’s army hasn’t been seen since, but that fact only makes their brief role all the more curious.
The logical conclusion is that these wraiths actually originate from the antimatter universe. If that is indeed the case, then they are the inhabitants of dimensions that have been consumed by the antimatter wave, converted into antimatter ghosts that are forced to obey the Anti-Monitor’s will. That neatly explains why each individual wraith was so easy to defeat; they weren’t in phase with the reality of matter any more. It’s unclear whether or not any of these creatures were truly destroyed upon impact, or whether they were instead merely jolted back to the Anti-Monitor’s domain.
What Is Done Could Be UNDONE - Could These Earths Be Saved?
This, then, suggests that the situation is not so bleak as the heroes believe. What is done can in fact be undone, and all the Earths that have been supposedly destroyed - all the people who have been lost - can be restored. Curiously, there is some evidence that the Monitor may have believed that such a thing could be possible. Arrow season 8, episode 5 saw the Monitor test Black Siren’s loyalty by attempting to persuade her to betray Oliver Queen, and as a reward he offered her the chance to restore Earth-2. That may well have just been a lie, of course, appealing to Black Siren’s grief in order to manipulate her. But it shouldn’t be discounted as a possibility, because all the best lies have a foundation in truth.
It should hardly come as a surprise that the Crisis can be reversed. The truth is that the scale of it all has become too massive for any other resolution; the entire Multiverse has ended, the bulk of the supporting characters have been killed, and there are literally only seven Paragons left. But we know that, while Arrow is ending, the bulk of the Arrowverse shows have been renewed and new ones have been approved by The CW. The inclusion of Titans’ world in the Crisis - destroyed in Supergirl season 5, episode 9 - supports this, simply because that show has already been renewed for season 3 as well. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean there will be no consequences; a cosmic event like this will undoubtedly result in the rewriting of all reality, giving the various creative teams a chance to enjoy themselves.
Next: Crisis On Infinite Earths Massive Cliffhanger Ending Explained
