The future has been a major component of The CW’s Arrowverse this season. While time travel is always a key element of Legends of Tomorrow — time travel is kind of their whole thing — for The Flash, Supergirl, and Arrow, the future has always been more of a supporting element.

But with all of these things going on it can be a little difficult to keep track. To that end, we here at ComicBook.com have come up with something of a master timeline of the Arrowverse to help make sense of the things we’ve seen over the various seasons of each of the shows, to plot out the hints of things we’re seeing now, and ultimately try to figure out how it all comes together — and if everything really is leading to the grim future first glimpsed in the Legends of Tomorrow episode “Star City 2046.”

Keep in mind that on The Flash and Arrow, events in the future have a lot of weight in the present. For The Flash, that means the presence of Nora West-Allen (Jessica Parker Kennedy) from the future has made things more complicated for Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) as Nora has revealed that the mysterious “crisis” foreshadowed in the series pilot is one Barry never comes back from. On Arrow, viewers get glimpses of a bleak, troubled future through flash forwards some 20 years from now one where Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) is dead, Green Arrow/Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) is nowhere to be found and things are just bad.

And if those things weren’t enough, we now know that the mysterious crisis coming for The Flash and the other heroes of the Arrowverse is the crisis — “Crisis on Infinite Earths“.

Before we jump into the timeline, a couple of things to note. First, Supergirl isn’t going to get many mentions here for the simple reason that Kara Danvers exists on Earth-38 and only hops over to Earth-1 to help out her friends now and again. In fact, Earth-1 is the only known Earth to not have a version of Kara. Second, while there are some dates that are specific as presented by the shows, we’ve estimated some others based off of the information the shows have provided as well as other factors — specifically, we’ve guessed the time for Arrow‘s current flash-forwards based off of what we know of Oliver’s son William in the present and the age of the actor playing the adult version. Third, and perhaps most importantly, we’re going to make the assumption for now that when “Crisis on Infinite Earths” comes to the Arrowverse this fall, there will either be a time jump to 2024, the year the crisis happens in The Flash‘s future newspaper, or it arrives earlier than anticipated.

Ready to break down the future of the Arrowverse? Read on!

Present day: 2018-2019

The present day in the Arrowverse gives us some interesting things to work from. Oliver Queen unmasked himself to the world as Green Arrow, went to prison, and was subsequently released during this time. In Central City, the villain Cicada has shown up earlier than expected and “meta objects” have emerged. Meanwhile, on Legends of Tomorrow, there hasn’t been too much that seems to be of potential future interest — save for Zari wistfully observing her mother and younger self in a park in Washington DC, seemingly just a short time before things began to grow bleak for the family and the world.

2020s

2021

The Flash: Barry Allen pays his future self a visit in 2021 looking for answers to help him defeat Savitar. The Central City of 2021 is in pretty rough shape, as is future Barry himself, as in this timeline they were unable to stop Savitar from killing Iris. Arguably, this future is no longer possible due to Savitar’s defeat.

Legends of Tomorrow: Thanks to anti-metahuman legislation, ARGUS begins rounding up and incarcerating metahumans.

2024

The Flash: This is the year when The Flash vanishes in the mysterious crisis we now know definitively is “Crisis on Infinite Earths”.

Arrow: Oliver is back to being a vigilante.

Other things worth noting is that sometime in this timeframe and going into the early 2030s: Nora West-Allen has her powers muted with some sort of power-dampening chip.

2030s

2031

Arrow/Legends of Tomorrow: According to the Legends episode “Star City 2046”, around this time Grant Wilson, aka Kane Wolfman, adopts his father’s alias of Deathstroke, gathers an army, and invades Star City during the uprising.

2032

The Flash: A young Nora Allen pays a visit to Central City’s The Flash Museum, where it is revealed that no one ever catches Cicada.

2038-2042

Arrow: Sometime in this timeframe, an adult Will goes to Lian Yu, finds Roy Harper, and ends up going back to Star City, which we discover is not a good place. We also find out that it is during this time frame that Felicity dies.

2040s

2042

Legends of Tomorrow: At this point we are deep into a dystopian future. We meet Zari in a militarized Seattle where ARGUS is capturing and incarcerating metahumans. Religion is also outlawed at this time, and it seems that the seeds for this future are planted in 2018.

2046

Legends of Tomorrow: Grant Wilson’s Deathstroke rules a violent, grim Star City. Oliver has lost an arm and is no longer working to save the city. Instead, Green Arrow Connor Hawke (who, by the way, is actually John Diggle Jr.) has taken up the mantle after the death of his father. Felicity is nowhere to be found. While Arrow‘s showrunner has said that the current flash-forwards on the series have nothing to do with this version of the future, it looks an awful lot like the Star City William returned to.

2049

The Flash: 25 years after the crisis, The Flash is still missing. Also, Eobard Thawne is imprisoned at Iron Heights and Nora is working with him for some unknown reason.

2050s

During the “Invasion!” crossover event, it’s revealed that at some point in 2056, a future Barry Allen leaves a message for Rip Hunter warning him that “a war is coming” — as well as not to trust him. While this warning, at the time, was prompted by the existence of Savitar and therefore the future it’s from likely erased when Savitar was defeated, it’s not impossible that the war future Barry was referring to could be the impending crisis — after all, we only know that Barry doesn’t return as of 2049. 

So, where is it all leading?

Arrow showrunner Beth Schwartz has said that the show — and its flash-forwards — has its own timeline not connected to the Star City 2046 glimpsed in Legends of Tomorrow. While we’ve previously argued that it certainly seems like the Arrowverse is heading that direction, when we step back and look at the larger timeline what’s more likely is that the shared universe is heading for a Star City 2046-like future.

All we know for sure is that there are some grim events coming. “Crisis on Infinite Earths” appears to be arriving earlier than originally believed, likely thanks to Nora West-Allen’s appearance in 2018. If the events of this crisis play out as they have in the current Arrowverse future timeline, we know that the world is saved but at great cost. Put the events and costs of the upcoming crisis together with some of the more cultural aspects of things — specifically the anti-vigilante and anti-metahuman laws — and you’ve got a future that may not be so bright, especially for Star City.

We should also note that Kane Wolfman is set to appear on Arrow this season. That probably also doesn’t help the future of Star City at all.

There’s also the possibility that “Crisis” may dramatically change everything for the Arrowverse. Near the end of the “Elseworlds” crossover, Oliver Queen confronts The Monitor, and while it’s not shown what exactly transpires between the two of them, many fans have theorized that Oliver made The Monitor a deal — one that could result in him dying or otherwise disappearing in the impending event. If that’s the case, it would likely change many of the future events that have been teased.

There’s also the possibility that the Legends could do something that will dramatically alter the future. They do travel across time, after all.

Wherever the Arrowverse is headed, what we know is that the stakes are high, and we likely won’t know too much more until “Crisis on Infinite Earths” makes its way to The CW this fall.

Where do you think the future of the Arrowverse is going? Let us know in the comments!