In today’s Crisis on Inifnite Earths 100-Page Giant #1, Arrowverse fans got their first official look at some of the DC characters who have long been off the table for shows like Arrow, The Flash, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. The issue not only brought the red skies of the Crisis to an all-too-familiar world from the comics and one from the world of animation, but to Earth-76, where a character who is unmistakably the ’70s TV Wonder Woman — yes, the version played by Lynda Carter form 1975 until 1979 — appears. The character makes her appearance, transforming from Diana Prince into Wonder Woman in the same way she would have done on TV — in the heat of battle.
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As a group of heroes headed up by Pariah chase down Outkast — Pariah’s antimatter-universe doppelganger — through the multiverse, Earth-76 is just one of their stops along the way. Wonder Woman suits up and heads into action, saving a group of innocent bystanders endangered by the battle between Pariah and Outkast as well as the red skies that spell doom for their world.
Of course, it’s “Crisis,” and so neither she nor Earth-76 last very long, and they are blinked out of existence as a wall of antimatter erodes their reality to nothing. Still, for the first real appearance by Wonder Woman in the Arrowverse to be Carter’s is a kick.
She isn’t the only Wonder Woman seen in the issue — there’s a picture of the New 52 Justice League on a Metropolis jumbotron on the comic’s first page, and later fans can spot the Wonder Woman of Earth-D — but Carter’s is the one that has something to do with the plot.
Carter’s Wonder Woman has already come back once — in a series of digital-first comics by creators like Cat Staggs, Amanda Deibert, and Marc Andreyko — in the comics. Carter herself appeared as the President of the United States — later revealed to be a shapeshifting alien — on Supergirl.
The “Crisis” event brings together the heroes from multiple Earths to battle against the Anti-Monitor (LaMonica Garrett), a godlike villain who threatens to destroy all reality. In the comics, the story ended with the deaths of The Flash and Supergirl, and the destruction of DC’s multiverse, leading to a single Earth with a complex history packed with hundreds of heroes. The battle brings together together characters from all six of the current DC Comics adaptations on The CW (Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman, and Black Lightning), along with characters and actors from Titans, the 1990 version of The Flash, the short-lived Birds of Prey, Smallville, Superman Returns, Tim Burton’s Batman, and the iconic 1966 Batman series.
The first three episodes are available now, for free, on The CW app and CW Seed. “Crisis on Infinite Earths” will conclude on January 14.