“Elseworlds: Part Three” – Here’s Our List of Easter Eggs and References

It’s finally here, DCTV fans! “Elseworlds” aired its third and final installment on Tuesday tonight, and it was chock full of Easter eggs.

So many, in fact, that after the massive Crisis on Infinite Earths announcement shook the fanbase, we did not have time to jump right on top of this story like we did for parts one and two.

Last season, “Crisis on Earth-X” was very much a movie that had to fit into a TV format. This season, it seems more like each installment of “Elseworlds” will be a very special episode of the show in question, leaving the writers and producers a lot of room to have fun with the Easter eggs and references.

There were a lot, and we had cable issues pretty much throughout our staff (yay, living on the East coast in winter time), so we’re gonna run them down here and hope we got at least most of them.

We are going to avoid repeating things that we wrote about in the first two installments. Read this story to get our thoughts on night #1, and here’s our look at night #2. Even if it was cute that they repeated the same Freaky Friday/Quantum Leap joke.

So…check out what we spotted, let us know what we missed, and feel free to argue semantics with @russburlingame on Twitter!

John Deegan’s Intro

In the second installment of “Elseworlds,” Grant Gustin took point on the introductory monologue, speaking as Oliver Queen and delivering a brand-new monologue that Stephen Amell will likely be using throughout the rest of season 7.

Tonight, the trend continued, with “Superman” — actually John Deegan (Jeremy Davies) using the physical form of Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) via the Book of Destiny.

Given that Superman was from a different Earth, and was not documented in the Book of Destiny (at least when Deegan looked into it), he was unable to figure out Clark’s secret identity or anything like that, so in spite of being a “Superman” introduction, it still gives Deegan’s own backstory.

“Stop us or save those people” trope

Since Deegan rewrote reality to make himself the hero he imagines himself to be, Oliver has a solution for their quick getaway: endanger civilians, and force “Superman” to choose between protecting his image, or stopping Oliver and Barry. 

Deegan chooses to save the civilians, allowing Barry and Oliver to get away and putting them face to face with The Monitor.

Gary Green

“You’re my heroes!…Well, not heroes. Legends.”

That’s what Gary Green says to the Trigger Twins (Oliver and Barry’s criminal identities from Deegan’s darkest timeline), and it is, of course, a wink and a nod to Gary’s origins as a character who was created for, and appears on, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.

In the correct timeline, Gary works for the Time Bureau — which he still might in the one ruled by Deegan’s Superman, since one of the buttons on his bartender shirt appears to be a Time Bureau pin. 

…Maybe he’s undercover?

Superman’s Worst Pal

Jimmy Olsen, before he starts stomping on the Trigger Twins, jokes that they don’t “call me Superman’s worst pal for nothin’.” 

That is, of course, a riff on Jimmy’s long run as Superman’s best pal.

Heck, he even had a long-running comic called Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen.

Cosmic anvil

Fans wondered what exactly that Jack Kirby-looking hammer was that Lois was holding onto in the promotional shots — and if you could not solve the riddle yourself, it did not actually give you the answer outright in the episode.

Later, fans on social media asked Elizabeth Tulloch, who played Lois Lane, what the weapon was, and she deferred to the producers:

The Cosmic Anvil appeared in All-Star Superman; it existed in the Fortress of Solitude and allowed Superman to actually forge tiny suns, with which he would feed a Sun-Eater he had captured.

Superman’s neck snap

It is basically impossible to watch “Superman” threaten to snap someone’s neck without assuming that it plays into the controversy surrounding the way he killed General Zod in Man of Steel.

Interestingly, a previous episode of Supergirl implied that Clark killed Zod on Earth-38 as well.

Flying around the world

If you didn’t get the gag about stopping time by flying around the world and changing the speed of its rotation, you probably have not watched Superman: The Movie anytime soon.

That is, of course, how the Man of Steel manages to reverse time in that film and save Lois Lane from imminent death. How, exactly, that works given that time is not actually tied to the planet’s rotation is anybody’s guess, but in a crossover where reality was already pretty warped on a number of occasions, that little bit of pseudoscience from The Flash and Supergirl is small potatoes.

Barry and Kara’s deaths

Barry Allen and Kara Zor-El died in Crisis on Infinite Earths in the comics.

Since this story is setting up Crisis on Infinite Earths as next year’s CW event, it is not particularly surprising that Oliver’s decision to rewrite destiny has something to do with changing the fates of those characters.

But even the “death” foreseen by Clark in the Book of Destiny kind of resembles what actually happened to Barry during Crisis in the comics…

Music

The music in the scene between Oliver and The Monitor is a blending of the Arrow, Supergirl, and The Flash themes to create a unique and ethereal music beat.

Ma Kent

Apparently, Martha “Ma” Kent is alive and well on Earth-38.

That is a nice change of pace, since the tendency in recent years has been to kill off Superman’s parents. It is something that they changed during The New 52 and which has played a key role in Doomsday Clock.

But Ma Kent’s being around (even if Pa isn’t) is another thing to help ground Clark to Earth.

And it means that he and Lois cannot stay gone too long, since Martha has a grandchild she will have to meet.

Lois in purple

Lois Lane is frequently depicted as wearing purple, and that is something that is carried over into the final scenes in Smallville…

…but it almost wasn’t.

According to Tulloch, fans calling her attention to Lois’s penchant for wearing purple created a last-minute wardrobe scramble.

Jon Kent

Lois Lane is pregnant, which (unless they pull a misdirect like The Flash did with Nora) means Jonathan Kent is likely on his way.

We would give you pretty good odds that Lois will end up in labor during Crisis on Infinite Earths, so that the writers can do a whole death-and-rebirth metaphor, a la Power Girl in Zero Hour: A Crisis in Time. 

Extra points if the baby is born and then a minute later we see a teenage version of him show up with the Legion of Super-Heroes from the future.

The proposal

We also get to see Superman propose — which is a cute sequence that really sells the chemistry between Tulloch and Hoechlin.

It also suggests that this is the first time that we know of that Superman got Lois pregnant before they were married.

Psycho-Pirate

The Psycho-Pirate, who had a minor role in “Elseworlds” part two, showed up again in the final moments of this episode to tell John Deegan that “Worlds will live, worlds will die, and the universe will never be the same.”

That was the marketing tagline for the Crisis on Infinite Earths comic book maxi-series, in which Psycho-Pirate played a significant role.