Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part 2 [Batwoman S01E09] Review: I AM VENGEANCE

Batwoman, Season 1, Episode 9: Crisis on Infinite Earths, Hour Two

We continue with our journey through the five-part Crisis on Infinite Earths, and this time around we're mostly spending out time in Earth-1. Oliver's dead, Earth-38's destroyed, and we start the episode out with Sara, Kara and Kate pouring alcohol out for Oliver, and... I do kind of appreciate the show sort of lampshading how little Kate really knows most of these characters bar Kara. They're trying to really push Kate Kane hard, but with around slightly more than eight episodes under her belt and barely any interaction with the rest of the cast, poor Kate really does feel like the odd one out. Anyway, Kara refuses to pour one out, thinking that it'd feel too much like giving up and she wants to try and get everyone back, while Kate just wants to stop more deaths from happening to all the other Earths. Meanwhile, apparently enough of Lyla's human soul is left within the Harbinger that she hasn't told John Diggle yet because the actor isn't available until we get to Arrow. I mean, because she's trying to figure out how to break the bad news to him.

Anyway, after these two rather short and honestly quite abrupt scenes of mourning Oliver, the Monitor wants to borrow the Waverider's technology, but Sara apparently promised her crew that they won't do another crossover... which is a cheeky way of saying that they filming schedule for Legends of Tomorrow was kind of wacky this year. It's kind of a whiplash of moods, though, going from Sara morosely pouring a drink out for one of her longest friends straight to making gags about crossovers and stuff. To this end, they, uh... go to Earth-74 and borrow the Waverider there, which is ran by a Mick Rory whose crew had all died, and also the A.I. of Waverider-74 is the voice of Leonard Snart, implied to be installed by a lonely Mick.

And... and it's another one of the decisions that, like, Earth-16 last episode, made me shrug and go 'but why though'. Like, was there any reason for the how to not just pretend the rest of the regular Waverider crew is just off somewhere doing other stuff? Like, oh, I dunno, helping the Earth-38 evacuees with the suddenly-absent-and-I-think-they're-not-dead Supergirl supporting cast? Why need to bring in Earth-74 and Mick Rory of Earth-74, when Mick Rory of Earth-74 behaves identical to Mick Rory of Earth-1? It's bizarre.


Also bizarre is this random out-of-nowhere plotline where the Monitor gives a monologue about how they lost Oliver Queen, a hero... but not the right hero that should've been lost for the Crisis to go out the way he wanted to. And to this end, the Monitor tells them to... find the Seven Paragons of the Multiverse or whatever, because, yeah, we're randomly shoehorning in a fetch quest to find four representations of values that has, by the way, never been foreshadowed or hinted at in anything. Like, I complain about some of the new information randomly given to us in part one, but this one is just ridiculous, particularly how long it took and how much it seems like it's going to affect the rest of the crossover. Barry, very sensibly, is pretty damn pissed off that the Monitor has never ever mentioned this, and beyond some vague "well, the Monitor has been gathering and preparing people", this really is a plot point that really comes out of the writers' ass. Like, okay, I understand not everything could be just fighting Shadow Demons or whatever, but is this really the best alternative? Oh, by the way, Novu apparently read the Book of Destiny, last year's plot device, to learn of their existence. Y'know, it'd be nice to realize that the Book of Destiny was somehow going to be relevant, if any of the buildup or even the previous episode really indicated that it was relevant or that it's apparently actually something powerful and able to have powers beyond that of the Monitor? Or something? I'm not even opposed to the idea, but the execution and the exposition is honestly kind of dumb. Even a single line about the Pargaons in the first part between Novu and Harbinger would've gone a long way into at least giving us some foreshadowing.

I did love, though, the fact that baby Jonathan Kent kept interrupting Mar Novu's super serious Paragon speech by crying, and no one, not even Jonathan's parents, are able to keep him quiet. Instead it's Mick that's able to do that.

Anyway, because the Book of Destiny can only do whatever the fuck the plot needs it to do at the moment, we get a handwave about how its powers are tied to the Monitor, and it can't revive either Oliver or Earth-38 because the Monitor's powers are too weak at the moment while the Anti-Monitor's powers grow stronger. The Book of Destiny, however, can tell the Monitor about who the currently active paragons are -- Sara's the Paragon of Destiny, Kara's the Paragon of Hope, and apparently the Monitor has consulted with Felicity Smoak to figure out the locations of two other Paragons -- a Kryptonian that has suffered greater loss than most mortal men could endure; and a Bat of the Future, and what's built up to be Superman and Batman are apparently Truth and Courage.

We get the adorable bit of Ray Palmer being flabbergasted that Bruce Wayne is Batman. Little moments like this make me forgive the greater sins of clunky writing and exposition in this episode. Also pretty great is the bit of Kara just morosely looking at the destruction of Earth-38, all the while Lex Luthor shows up, having been freed from the pocket dimension the Monitor's shunted him into, and Luthor just kind of acts like a total dick, talks about their situation, is clearly eyeing the Book of Destiny and waltzes around while the Monitor insists that Luthor is totally necessary to their plans. Kara gets a pretty neat rant about how out of all the people she couldn't save, Lex somehow survives, and she gets into a neat bonding moment with Kate, who muses about the fucked-up situation her family is in at the moment. And then the two ladies go off to Earth-99 to hunt down the Bat of the Future.

While all of this is going on, Harbinger is confused as she starts hearing weird whispers and voices, while Barry and Iris share a brief moment of hopefulness, with Iris noting that maybe destiny and fate have changed and now Barry has cheated his death. But Barry's hyper-fixated in bringing his buddy Oliver back, and ends up trying to figure out which of the remaining Earths in the multiverse still has functional Lazarus Pits -- something that Mia is happy to help out with. It makes sense, and while Sara tries to warn them, Mia's blunt remark to Sara about how she should only share her opinion if her dead dad's involved definitely stung a lot. Iris, meanwhile, is tasked by the Monitor to find the Kryptionian-without-hope.

And, y'know, what they actually did with the character is kind of unfortunate. I understand why they did it, and I understand the narrative importance of Old Man Batman of Earth-99... but man, Earth-99 Gotham City made me geek the hell out. Sure, the scene starts off with some hilarious awkwardness as Luke Fox of Earth-99 greets Kara and Kate without a shirt and showing off all of the buff muscles beneath, and we get to see the Wayne Mansion and stuff. And then... the most familiar voice of Batman himself starts to fill the scene. It is the superhero voice of my childhood.

It's Kevin Conroy, the god-damned Batman.

As far as I'm concerned, live-action superhero has reached its peak when they cast Kevin Conroy as Batman. I'm sorry, all of the other fantastic actors who had portrayed my favourite fictional character -- I love all of you, but y'all simply ain't Kevin Conroy.

Anyway, yeah, Arrowverse Batman debut yadda yadda yadda, that's a bit less exciting.

Anyway, Old Batman finally shows up and he's a man with a mechanical harness and a badass baritone, making this a weird mixture of Dark Knight Returns and Batman Beyond as an older, ornery Bruce Wayne who's crippled and paranoid, and very much unhappy with the idea of his dead cousin Kate suddenly showing up. Old Man Bruce quickly rules out the likes of Clayface and Jane Doe, before finally accepting the alternate-Earth doppelganger theory.

But still, the sheer cool factor of casting Kevin Conroy as Batman!

Also, this means that hopefully, if (when!) nice Bruce Wayne shows up in Earth-1, it'll be Kevin Conroy, too?

BATMAN!

Anyway, that's the Batman side of things. What about the Superman side? Well, while Iris, and 'our' Clark and Lois head off to search for a version of Clark Kent who has lost a lot or whatever, Lex Luthor's stolen the Book of Destiny and his petty ass is going from universe to universe, killing off Supermen with the powers from the Book. Poor Superman-75.

Sara, meanwhile, realizes that she can't change Barry and Mia's minds, and brings in John Constantine as a known expert of Lazarus Pits and also to make sure that we don't get a repeat of Arrow season four and bring a corpse back with no soul. Y'know, if half of the cast of Legends of Tomorrow was going to show up anyway why even have the Waverider come from Earth-74 I really do not understand.

We make a brief stop on Earth-167, which is apparently the Smallville Earth... and I feel like I probably would've appreciated this a bit better if I was a bit more familiar with the Smallville TV show. Considering how much I kind of freaked out over B:TAS Batman, I'm happy with the fact that someone out there is a gigantic Smallville fan and seeing Tom Welling show up as a retired, happy married Clark Kent with kids is going to elicit more or less the same reaction that I made when seeing Batman show up.

Iris, as well as "our" Clark and Lois (henceforth Clark-38 and Lois-38) show up and talk a bit to Clark-167 (keep up with these numbers) and warn him about Lex Luthor coming to kill him, and Lex shows up and uses his Book of Destiny powers to... uh... send our heroes back to the Waverider. Wait, isn't your big beef with your own Superman? Luthor, you are an enigma wrapped up in inconsistent writing. Apparently despite having going around killing a bunch of Supermen, Lex Luthor is still not aware of Superman's identity, and is incredulous that in Earth-167, someone as doofy as Clark Kent is Superman. Y'know what? I can buy that. Apparently, though, Clark-167 is immune to Kryptonite, having given up his powers, and he just slaps the Kryptonite away, catches Lex's attempted punch and socks him in his stupid bald face. Lex gives a long rant about mediocrity, about how doomed everyone is, and then teleports away, while Clark-167 goes off to be with his beautiful wife.

Y'know, that was sweet. Kind of pointless as far as the narrative goes, sort of like Old Oliver of Earth-16 last episode, but at least this was a neat cameo and a sweet little scene. I just really wish Luthor wasn't so inconsistently written, though, because he really, really felt off in these series of scenes.

In Earth-99, the land of Old Man Bruce, we get a pretty cool scene between this Old Man Bruce and Kate, with Bruce-99 being pretty sad that Batman's reign of terror is over, and how he's a retired superhero. They really reveal the twist pretty quickly, but apparently this is an evil killer Batman, and the speech goes from a generic Batman speech into something a wee bit darker and more sinister. Bruce laments how he had started off with a code, hanging on to it with every self-righteous breath until he was forced to take a life, and talks about how Kate of Earth-99 also put on the cape only to get herself killed. Kate tries to continue recruiting Bruce-99, telling him that it's time for redemption, to save the whole dang universe.


We get a brief intermission of Mick reading to baby Jonathan. Reading smut. That was funny. We also get the actual Superman that matters -- Superman of Earth-96, a.k.a. the Superman Returns movie, where Superman, played by Brandon Routh, shows up and everyone immediately lampshades how he looks like Ray Palmer. Superman-38 and Superman-96 (Superman-Hoechlin and Superman-Routh?) sort of greet each other. We eventually get the revelation that in Earth-96, the Joker apparently gassed the Daily Planet building while Superman's away, killing everyone inside, and this is clearly a Superman that has lost more than a mortal man should, losing his wife, his best friend, his co-workers and so many others in a single day. We get a pretty cool bit as both Supermen transform into their super-suits, with uplifting music... and then Luthor shows up with his fucking book.

Back to Earth-99, where Kara is trying her best not to get distracted by Luke Fox's abs. But then as Kara starts looking at Batman's trophies, she realizes that it's not just mementos from battles. There's blood on them, there's a sign of brutality as we pan from a Joker card, to a snapped-off Riddler cane, to a smashed Mr. Freeze helmet... to a bloody, cracked and very familiar pair of glasses. Luke just nonchalantly shrugs off Kara's horrified realization that Batman-99 killed off his universe's Superman, who also put him in that exo-skeleton. (And, okay, Bruce-99's clearly a nutjob, but who's to say that Superman-99 isn't also a nutjob? These are alternate realities, Kara.)

In Earth-96, Luthor uses the Book of Destiny... not to kill any of the Supermen, but to turn Brandon Routh Superman evil and have him fight Tyler Hoechlin Superman. Why not turn them both crazy and evil, you stupid bald shit? Anyway, Superman-96 goes absolutely angry, growling about how none of them belong in this universe, and how he can't even save his own wife. And... and the setup is questionable, but I can't deny that it is an exciting fighty-fight between two Supermen above the Daily Planet. It genuinely is refreshing that the CW can so freely toss around things like the Bat-signal and Daily Planet and Batman and Superman after so long of dancing around the big name characters. Superman-96 rants about "what about what I need?" while they clash with each other, and is ranting about how he's going to teach Superman-38 about how losing his beloved.

Also, Lois just whacks Lex in the head while he is appreciating the Supermen fighting, knocking him out. And... y'know what? Lex was being a complete nincompoop throughout this episode. He deserves that. The fight between the Supermen continue with an amazing showcase of Superman-96's red heat vision. It's heat vision, it's supposed to be red, and I genuinely never understood why the crew of Supergirl thought it was a good idea to turn it blue. Superman-38 blocks the (awesome looking) heat vision, and Lois gives a long speech about Jimmy Olsen and Perry White and hope and how the truth means everything to Superman and how he should remember who he is... and, y'know what? It's cheesy as all hell, but it's Superman, so it really works.

In Earth-18, the Oliver Resurrection Squad shows up in a Lazarus Pit and we get a completely random cameo by Earth-18 Jonah Hex, who is an asshole who shows up and gets his ass beaten up by Sara, who gives him his scar. It's... it's really random, and while I appreciate the actor returning, this is also something that doesn't really add much to an already m'eh subplot.

Earth-99! The Bats are still arguing! Bruce-99 is a grumpy fatalist, ranting about how it's for the best that the world is destroyed, while Kara shows up all angry about the fact that Old Man Bruce had killed Superman, asking Bruce how Superman is a threat... and Bruce-99 rants about how Clark is soft, quick to bend the knee to anyone with a flag or a badge, giving them too much power, and how life only makes sense if you force it to or whatever... before punching Kara in the face with a goddamn Kryptonite gauntlet. We get some Emperor Palpatine shit going on and Bruce-99 tells Kate to kill a Kryptonian.

Kate, of course, rejects Old Man Bruce's ideology and stands in the way of the wounded Kara and Bruce-99, and despite Kate's ultimatum, Old Man Bruce is fully willing in wanting to murder the shit out of Kate to get to Kara. We get a relatively brief Batwoman-vs-Batman fight (compared to the Superman rumble) and eventually the fight ends with Bruce-99 being thrown into an electrified piece of machinery, zapping Bruce nearly to death, and before he dies, Bruce just mumbles about how there isn't any hope. 

And... and as much as I don't like what they did with all the effort they had put into getting Kevin Conroy as Batman, I do love this speech. I do love the portrayal that a Batman that kills is a failure of a Batman. That's something that never sat right with me about the psychotic DCEU Batman from Batman v. Superman, and as much as how its defenders talk about how it's a 'realistic' and 'gritty' vigilante, the whole point of Batman is that he has a code. And, sure, this episode is definitely doing a fair bit of shilling its title character Batwoman over (a) Batman, but I'd argue that this is Kate enforcing that her ideology, which is also shared by the real Batman of Earth-1, is far superior to the code-breaking, people-killing code of the Batman of Earth-99. And in that regard, Bruce-99 is written well.

I just... I just really really want Kevin Conroy's Batman to actually suit up and run around with the heroes. That's all I want. And the fact that the designers decided to instead cast him in an admittedly fantastic evil foil for Kate is just simply not what I want, y'know? As selfish as it is, I want my Kevin Conroy Batman to be Batman. The actual conversation and contents of the Kate/Bruce-99 scenes are great, for sure, but I kinda also want to have my Batman.

We're back in Earth-1, with the two Brandon Routh Supermen interacting with each other, and it's fun to see Routh's far more confident Superman interacting with Routh's huge doofball Atom. Oh, and Lex is stuck in a cage. Meanwhile, Kara and Kate return from Earth-99, and I absolutely love the bit where Kara does a bit of a double-take and talks about how jacked Ray Palmer looks and everyone just steps in and stops Kara before she starts lusting over her alternate-universe cousin. They try to break the bad news, but of course the Monitor reveals that the Paragon of Courage is Batwoman all along, she just needs to go through some character development by meeting Bruce-99 to become so.

In Earth-18, Oliver jumps out of the Lazarus Pit and starts attacking everyone. Constantine's gibberish Latin spells didn't work, because apparently antimatter fucks with his magic, so Oliver's well and truly dead for now. The episode sort of closes with Kate and Kara drinking together at last, noting that attitude sometimes trumps superpowers and time travel, and the two do bond a fair bit over the course of this episode, talking about destiny and whatnot, seemingly building up to Kara about to do something rash to bring Earth-38 back and Kate being resolved to stop her... while the final shot of the episode is Harbinger being summoned by all the whispers into the presence of our villain, the Anti-Monitor... who, uh, looks like a White Walker in a Star Wars suit. Like, I'm sorry, LaMonica Garrett is amazing as the Monitor. He looks like he just walked out of the pages of the comic book. The Anti-Monitor is a lot less impressive. Still, we have our villain.

Overall, this episode was... interesting. The way we move from Part 1 to Part 2 of the Crisis crossover is clunky as hell. The exposition about the Waverider and the Paragons are done pretty piss-poorly, Lex Luthor's actions are kinda hokey, and the resurrection of Oliver kind of takes a long time while also not really amounting to much beyond showing Mia and Barry crying a lot. I do enjoy both the Supermen fighting and the confrontation between the Bats, and while it doesn't really build up on anything relating to the actual Crisis plot which is essentially put on hold while we jump around from cameo to cameo, this is still ultimately a messy but enjoyable episode. I just really kind of wished it was structured a bit better. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Harbinger being vulnerable to the Anti-Monitor's influence, and slowly succumbing to it, is also a plot point in the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Monitor inexplicably keeping around a clearly-treacherous villain among the group of heroes he gathers is also a plot point in Crisis, only with Psycho-Pirate instead of Lex Luthor. Two Supermen are also prominently featured as part of the comic book Crisis's main team, except it's Earth-1 and Earth-2's Supermen. Lex Luthor driving superheroes crazy and getting them to fight each other while they should be dealing with the Crisis, is also very loosely adapted from the comics' version of the Crisis. 
• More alternate Earths!
• Earth-96 is technically based on the Superman Returns movie, which Brandon Routh stars in as the Man of Steel. However, its designation seems to be a homage to the Kingdom Come comic series, one of the most famous Elseworlds series that was originally published in 1996. Additionally, the concept of an alternate-universe Joker killing Lois Lane is explored in the Injustice: Gods Among Us video game and tie-in material, although Superman-96 clearly is coping a lot better than Injustice's Superman. 
• Earth-99, based on its designation, seems to be a homage to Batman Beyond, released in 1999. Kevin Conroy, the actor that plays Bruce Wayne of Earth-99, is the voice actor for Batman in numerous projects, most notably Batman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond, playing an old, cranky and retired Bruce Wayne in the latter. The idea that Batman would go crazy and fight Superman (plus the full-body harness) is a homage to The Dark Knight Returns graphic novel, although not even TDKR Bruce is as crazy as Batman-99.  
• Earth-167 is clearly Smallville, the TV show, with Tom Welling (Superman) and Erica Durance (Lois Lane; and also Alura in Supergirl) reprising their roles.
• Superman of Earth-75 is shown being cradled by his Earth's Lois Lane in a way that homages the iconic Death of Superman comic where Superman was killed by Doomsday, which happens in the 75th issue of its comic run. 
• Earth-18 is straight out of the New 52 comics, where it was originally designated for Wild West versions of the JLA, the Justice Riders.
• Earth-74... it's something. 
• Superman-96's black-bordered emblem, meanwhile, is a homage to the Kingdom Come miniseries.
• The events of Earth-167 is a distant future for Smallville, which reveals a couple of interesting details:
• Lex Luthor of Earth-167 is apparently the President. Lex Luthor actually became president of United States in a particularly long stretch of the comics, and this has been adopted into various other adaptations of Lex. 
• Clark Kent ripping apart his shirt from the Smallville series finale is featured on one of the Daily Planet newspapers hung on Clark-167's wall.
• The scene where Clark catches Lex's punch and punches him in the face is a reversal of a similar conflict in Smallville where Lex catches a de-powered Clark's punch and socks him in the face. 
• Clark giving up his powers to be a normal farmer dude is the ending of the original Silver Age Superman as explored in the iconic Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" series, which explored the final days and retirement of Superman.
• The events of Earth-96, being a homage to the Christopher Reeve/Brandon Routh Superman movies, contain a couple of specific references too. While there is some debate on whether Superman Returns is a sequel to the Reeve movies or not, as far as the Arrowverse is concerned they are.
• On the wall plaques we get to see the names of Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White and Ron Troupe, among others.  
• The iconic "I Spent a Night With Superman" Daily Planet paper from Superman: The Movie is shown on the Daily Planet wall. 
• Superman-96 notes that this isn't the first time he battled himself, referencing the plotline of Superman III. 
• Superman-96 compares Superman-38's son to his own, Jason -- which was featured in Superman Returns. 
• Kara calls Lex a 'poisonous snake', a quote from the end of Superman II used to describe Lex Luthor. 
• Ryan Choi is much better known as the third character to take up the mantle of "The Atom", being Ray Palmer's successor, a protege that took up Ray Palmer's mantle in Ivy Town's University when Ray disappeared. 
• Evil Old Man Bruce describes Kryptonite as "a little souvenir from the old home town", the same terminology used by Lex Luthor to describe Kryptonite in Superman: The Movie. 
• Bruce-99 mentions a couple of possible villains that could have impersonated Kate, name-dropping Batman villain mainstay Clayface, as well as the less-prominent character Jane Doe. Jane Doe was previously featured in Gotham, and a gender-flipped version of her is a recurring villain in Batwoman. 
• John William's theme for Superman is heard a couple of times during the scenes in Earth-96. Danny Elfman's Batman theme used for the 1989 movie and Batman: the Animated Series can be heard in the Earth-99 scenes as well.
• Bruce-99's Batmobile is the exact same one as 1989 movie's Batman. 
• The Monitor describes Bruce-99 as "Bat of the Future", which solidifies the (spiritual) Batman Beyond homage even further, since Batman Beyond was marketed as "Batman of the Future" in some countries.
• The way Oliver came back from the Lazarus Pit is relatively similar to how Sara and Thea came back during their own resurrections. John Constantine's first official appearance into the Arrowverse was, in fact, during Sara's resurrection when he's called in as an expert by Oliver to help return Sara's soul back to her body. 
• Oliver Queen's body being revived, sans soul, is exactly what happened in the comics when he died. Of course, he got better. 
• Earth-1's Jonah Hex has shown up multiple times as a guest star in Legends of Tomorrow, played by the same actor. He's a lot more polite and chivalrous than Earth-18's Jonah Hex, though. 
• Old Man Bruce refers to Superman as a 'Strange Visitor', one of his many titles in the comics.