Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for The Flash
Summary
- DC's new adaptation of Crisis On Infinite Earths offers a reset point and a chance to clean up the DC Animated Universe's continuity.
- DC originally planned to make a live-action Crisis On Infinite Earths movie event, which could have fixed the DCEU's disparate tones and multiple ongoing continuities.
- The Flash missed the opportunity to set up the DCEU's Crisis On Infinite Earths and unify the various DC timelines, resulting in a failed reset for the franchise.
As The Flash's cinematic run came to an end, its box office disappointment confirmed, DC announced the Justice League movie it should have set up. In an otherwise silent Comic Con 2023 weekend, DC unveiled plans to finally adapt Crisis On Infinite Earths, the huge crossover event previously brought to screens by The Arrowverse. The animated project will land in 2024, presumably cleaning up the DC Animated Universe continuity and offering its own reset point ahead of James Gunn and Peter Safran's DC Universe reboot.
While live-action DC movies have had their glorious ups and crashing downs, Warner Bros' DC Animated Movie slate has largely been well-received and comparatively successful, adapting a far broader spectrum of DC comics events and storylines than the relatively narrow scope of the big screen movies. Gunn and Safran's ongoing DCU plans include merging animation and live-action, and it makes little sense to continue that separate continuity. And though the live-action DCEU movies never a got a true reset, thanks to The Flash's confusing ending, Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths can function as one for the animations at least. And of course, the crossover event is a sorry reminder of what The Flash and the DCEU was supposed to be heading towards.
The DCEU's Canceled Crisis On Infinite Earths Plans
Back before Warner Bros and Discovery merged in a now controversial deal, the DCEU would have culminated in a live-action Crisis on Infinite Earths movie event. Former DC Films president Walter Hamada planned the huge Justice League event in the wake of the 2017 Justice League disaster that the DCEU ultimately never recovered from. Hamada's plans took time to fall into place, but before the DCEU was even able to pull the trigger on a 3 or 4 movie a year schedule, the WB Discovery merger led to the 10-year reboot plan under incoming new DC bosses Gunn and Safran.
In the wake of Justice League, Crisis On Infinite Earths would have given the DCEU an opportunity to bring in the kind of eye-catching DC cameos The Flash ultimately failed to deliver on. The messy fallout of the cancelation of the Snyderverse and Warner Bros' attempts to course correct left the MCU-like shared universe plan in tatters, with disparate tones across every individual movie, and the introduction of Elseworlds movies, and three separate ongoing continuities with the original timeline, Matt Reeves' Batman universe and James Gunn's Suicide Squad/Peacemaker thread. Four if you count Zack Snyder's pocket universe, really. Crisis could have resolved them all and given DC fans a singular vision.
The Flash Should Have Set Up The DCEU's Crisis On Infinite Earths
Andy Muschietti's The Flash was and is a sort-of adaptation of Flashpoint, with Ezra Miller's Barry Allen the architect of multiversal chaos - and near catastophe - because of his desire to reset his own story and save his mother from her murder. In the final movie, Barry's tinkering with time leads to The Flash's DC cameo-heavy multiverse sequence, in which separate universes crash into one another, revealing other universes where Nicolas Cage was Superman, and retrofitting older DC properties into new distinct universes. The Crisis in this case is averted in a matter of moments as Barry is faced with the multiverse-changing impact of his own selfishness. It's a poor replacement for the true Crisis On Infinite Earths.
In another strand of the DCU multiverse, The Flash could have set up the canceled Crisis On Infinite Earths movie, having revealed the existence of the other universes, their relationship to the DCEU's Earth, and a means to access them. Rather than having to resurrect dead actors, cast FX editors as alternate Golden Age Flash, and create a CG Nic Cage as Superman, The Flash could have used actual cameos from existing (and previous) DC timelines, including the DCAU, The Arrowverse, Reeves' Batman-Verse, Burton and Schumacher's movies, the Snyderverse, the Peacemaker timeline, Joaquin Phoenix's Joker-Verse... The impact of those and the chance to unify them on one Earth would have been incredible.
Imagine a world where The Flash's revelation of those alternate universes then led to an actual event - perhaps split into two movies, since Hollywood loves a double-header - with Barry's "Flashpoint" shenanigans leading to the rise of the Anti-Monitor. Not only would The Flash not be able to rely on the horrible CG-rendered cameos (because the characters would return in fully-fleshed-out forms), but the audience could have spent some time with them, addressing the biggest issue with those cameos. None of it would have been throw-away, and there would have been a Justice League level event that could genuinely rival Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame.
DC's New Animated Crisis Movie Is An Awkward Reminder Of The Flash's Reset Failure
Ultimately, DC now adapting Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths stands as a reminder of where the DCEU went wrong and what could have been. Announced so close to The Flash's final box office failure, it also feels a little like an insult to that movie: almost like a palate-cleansing replacement for the failed reset point that the DCEU was completely robbed off. Because frankly, The Flash could still have functioned the same way Crisis On Infinite Earths did in the comics: as a consolidation of the DC timeline and a chance to start again from the ashes. Instead, The Flash seemed oddly intent on an impossible future where The Flash 2 could have happened, tagged on a discombobulating Aquaman post-credits scene and singularly failed to reset anything for Gunn and Safran's new future.
Crucially, DC and Warner Bros could have picked the ongoing characters to bring to their new Earth-One (while even still keeping some things off under the Elseworlds banner) after the rest. The Flash could have justified the already confusing New DCU continuity that is both a reset and a continuation simultaneously. The studio could still have recast outgoing actors, given the Snyderverse a proper send-off, and rebooted all at once, rather than The Flash's ending suggesting an ongoing universe with George Clooney as Batman that left most of the audience perplexed.
