Crisis on Earth-X, Part 1 [Supergirl S03E08]: Unite the Seven...teen

Supergirl, Season 3, Episode 8: Crisis on Earth-X, Part 1

Last year's big crossover event honestly only lasted for three episodes instead of four, since Supergirl's leg of the Invasion event merely has her episode be a prologue that isn't particularly important and has her just jump over to the Arrow/Flash/Legends world of Earth-1 at the end of her side of the episode. And another part of the crossover involved half of it revolving around an alternate dream-world... which was a well-done episode, but not particularly great for telling the story of the Dominator invasion. This time around, we're getting a more serialized and tighter storytelling as properly befits a crossover. Hell, we don't even get the Supergirl opening, but a brand-new Crisis on Earth-X opening sequence... hence, the title of this review. 

And, well, so much of this episode feels like a true crossover as a good chunk of the storyline actually involves characters from The Flash and Arrow, as opposed to how the previous crossover event went where each episode sort of did its own thing. 

One of the biggest weaknesses of the Justice League movie in my opinion (I still love it regardless) is how much it spends to introduce three new characters plus a villain plus all their backstories, plus juggling all the other older characters, whereas it was a problem that Marvel's the Avengers did not have (when Marvel actually tried to introduce three new characters while juggling multiple older ones in Age of Ultron, it ended in a pretty messy movie as well). Crisis on Earth-X, likewise, doesn't have that problem. As I mention in my last episode review of Arrow, it has a gigantic history behind its characters to draw from, that even a simple conversation between, say, Stein and Caitlin this episode feels like a pretty momentous occassion. Sure, anyone who's exclusively watching Supergirl will probably be confused as hell as to half of the things going on, but in honesty if we're going to slow down and properly introdump everything it'd be confusing as all hell.

So yeah, we start off with a montage of scenes. The opening scene in Earth-X involves a dark-suited archer in a world ruled by Nazis killing a bunch of people and facing off against the Guardian (with a fancy new America-themed costume) and straight-up killing him. Killing off alternate-universe heroes is a cheap way to build up your villains, but it's still a pretty cool action scene nonetheless, and since the only representation of the Supergirl cast at this point only seems to be Supergirl and Alex -- the rest of the cast show up briefly in the DEO base -- it's a neat way to sneak a Guardian action scene into the mix.

I really liked the little montage of what the four main shows are doing. Flash's fighting King Shark while arguing about RSVP's and his wedding with Iris over the radio. Green Arrow's fighting ninjas while arguing about attending Barry's wedding with Felicity over the radio. The Legends of Tomorrow are... pretending to be Robin Hood or some shit? Gratuitous action scene! Supergirl beats up a Dominator while the DEO cast make commentary. It's a great sequence. Perhaps less great is the sudden crash-landing and very intro-dumpy talk between Kara and Alex about how they've both broken up and in a flunk and decide to travel through worlds to attend Barry and Iris's wedding.

But after that, this episode does kind of slow down. Sure, there's a brief cryptic cutaway to Earth-X and the Nazi Green Arrow and Nazi Supergirl Overgirl, but a good majority is spend with our characters. And there's definitely the feeling of payoff as Barry and Iris talk with their friends about their upcoming wedding. Barry and Oliver meeting each other and having a bro talk about happy endings and shit, Iris girling out with Felicity, Caitlin and Kara, Barry and Kara discussing Kara's love-life and her embracing her alien side, Alex going on a drunken one-night stand with Sara, and even the brief talk between the Firestorm duo with Cisco and Harry Wells are all well done. 

And I'm definitely surprised that we're getting Barry and Iris's wedding here instead of in Flash's episode, and Joe's speech was definitely well done. It's so sugar-saccharine, but you can't say that it isn't earned.

The Legends team don't get to do much (Nate, Amaya and Ray sits almost the entire episode out) with Mick providing a lot of comedic beats and Sara fucking Alex... and it's clear that we're going to give Stein and Jefferson the majority of the screentime this time around. It's no secret that the characters (and the show) has been working Victor Garber's exit from the show, but is definitely far more interested in making the exit more elegant and well-written. Cisco and Wells develops a serum that will wipe both their superpowers out, turning back into humans, while Stein is tunnel-visioned into giving Jax superpowers because he knows how much Jax wants them... while still not being that properly emotionally astute. The Amazing Sticky-Man!

From the Arrow side of the story, we naturally stick with Oliver and Felicity, as they're really the only ones to interact a lot with Barry and Iris. (Diggle would probably be in on this, but he's hospitalized, last we see him) I'm not sure I'm a big fan of the sudden way that Oliver wants to commit and marry Felicity, who isn't particularly ready for that sort of commitment, but their storyline didn't really extend that much. It's more Olicity shipping stuff, but nowhere as painful as past crossovers were. Supergirl's cast members has Alex, to her horror, do a 'man thing' of sleeping with a random woman after a break-up, and we get some more exploration of Kara's character as she handles Mon-El's return-as-a-married-man poorly and resolves to go back to the bubble of being an invincible alien super-woman. Oh, and in addition to extending Firestorm's storyline from Legends of Tomorrow, we also get a neat moment of Stein bonding with Caitlin over Ronnie. That's sweet.

Oh, and Supergirl apparently sleep-floats. That's hilarious.

And as the marriage is about to happen, Barry is visited by a strange young lady (who looks mixed-race, by the way) for no real reason, and that's obviously Dawn Allen, his future daughter... but we don't really dwell on it too much because FUTURISTIC NAZIS ATTACK!

And, well, it's just fun stuff. The 'Dark Archer' and 'Overgirl' and 'Prometheus' are basic, simple slick evil-looking motherfuckers, and they lead an army of not-Stormtroopers, but they prove to be pretty cool fodder as our superheroes fight. And isn't that what I tune here for? The super-fights are awesome, even if our heroes dress in swanky suits and dresses. We've got Heat Wave blasting fools with his fire gun while laughing racuously. We've got Flash and Kid Flash zooming around catching bullets and flicking them back. We've got Vibe creating portals to drop his allies and help them teleport around the room. We've got Killer Frost stabbing people with a gigantic ice blade. We've got Green Arrow shooting arrows and deflecting the Dark Archer's arrows. We've got Supergirl (in a pretty pink dress!) and Overgirl duking it out with super punches and heat vision blasts. We've got Firestorm combining and blasting flames all over the place. We've got White Canary and Alex Danvers doing an amazing simultaneous dress rip and engaging Prometheus with that weird chain weapon. 

Perhaps the weakness of the episode is its attempted coyness in trying to delay the inevitable reveal that Overgirl is alternate-universe Supergirl and Dark Archer is alternate-universe Green Arrow. That was a bit over-extended, I think. (Rounding up the cast of villains is Harrison Wells Reverse-Flash and Prometheus, who the good guys capture) But I did like the show's focus on several characters at a time. It's a bit of a shame that the whole complex song and dance about what actor can appear on what show (which was a bit ridiculous in the 'Invasion' storyline) prevents us from actually having the full force of four shows' cast (J'onn is perhaps the biggest loss in my opinion) to join together in four episodes, but I'll take what I can get. 

And most of all? It's fun, and it features characters I love... so yeah, bring on the next three episodes.  

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Evil Supergirl is called Overgirl, an obvious reference to Overman, the evil Nazi-raised Superman of DC comics' Earth-X, and Overgirl even borrows a variation Overman's lightning-bolt symbol. The idea of a dystopian world where superheroes have taken over is often a topic done in DC comics alternate universes.
• King Shark returns to do battle with the Flash in the opening scene, after last being seen being held in an ARGUS facility at the end of Flash's third season. We also get another reappearance of the Dominator in Earth-38, where, after the Invasion crossover last year (Kara notes how Dominators are 'so last year' as a meta-reference) have made several appearances in Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow.
• When Stein tells him that he made a serum to give Jax superpowers, Jax name-drops Marvel superhero Spider-Man and rattles of the web-slinger's super-powers. 
• Winn and J'onn name-drop other alien names when asking Supergirl about the Dominator's species, notably the Hellgrammite (which was a species Supergirl fought in season 1) and Czarnian, a species that the Superman villain Lobo hails from. 
• Earth-X's Guardian borrows a lot of design motifs from Marvel's Captain America, specifically the original design where the shield actually was shield-shaped instead of circular. He also borrows a fair bit from other designs of older incarnations of Commander Steel.
• Barry makes a callback to his last crossover with Supergirl last season, where Mr. Mxyzptlk traps Barry and Kara in a magical musical world. Kara sings a rendition of Barry's proposal song from that episode.
• Heat Wave makes a call-back to his first appearance in The Flash where he kidnaps Caitlin Snow.
• The awkward waitress who notes how happy she is to be at the wedding is heavily implied to be a time-traveler, likely to be comics character Dawn Allen, Barry and Iris' daughter. It's not the first time that a Flash's child travels back in time to meet their parents, with both Barry and Wally being subjected to it.