By now you know the drill: a major movie or TV event comes around, and the trailers get scrutinized in painstaking detail.
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It hasn’t happened much yet with The CW’s four-way Invasion! crossover, coming to your TV next week, for the simple fact that they’ve been remarkably stingy so far with the footage that’s been released.
That’s a double-edged sword, of course: it means that very few of the big moments are blown, but it also means it’s hard for fans to get a handle on just what the story might be about or what to expect beyond “heroes vs. aliens.”
Nevertheless, it seemed like with less than a week to go now before the cast of Supergirl meets Cisco Ramon and the Maid of Might heads to Earth-1, it seemed like a decent time to look things over.
Also, at this point, we’re not sure we’ll see any more teasers until Monday!
So what are the handful of things we’ve noticed so far? And what might we have missed?
Read on, and comment below.
“EVERYBODY, THIS IS SUPERGIRL”
In the trailer embedded above, Barry Allen introduces Kara Danvers to the group for the first time. There’s very little here, but there are at least a couple of things worth a look.
First of all, you’ve the the team dressed down, as it were. No clue why that is — if they’re planning superhero stuff, why not be in costume? — but one possibility is that they’re staying under the radar.
In the comics, the Dominators invade Earth becuase they want Earth’s metahumans. In the hands of a race as unpredictable as humanity, super powers are a liability to the rest of the universe, they argue. In reality, they want to experiment on supers so they can try to make their own race of indomitable super-Dominators.
There is a point in the story where the Dominators and their alien allies stage an overwhelming show of strength, killing lots of innocent people and taking over a major land mass. They use their shock and awe campaign to demand the surrender of Earth’s metahuman protectors, and while the governments of the world ultimately decide to literally tell the invaders to “drop dead,” there is a moment of decision that has to happen.
The giant hangar area is marked with STAR Labs signage, which is an interesting thing since it doesn’t look like any part of the STAR Labs we’ve seen in the first two seasons-and-change of The Flash. There’s a reason for that we’ll get to in the next screen, but first let’s note the fact that there’s a “52” (or rather “WT-052) hidden on one of those far-off STAR Labs tarps:
That’s a neat one, since it’s been a while since we saw a 52 on these shows, outside of Arrow‘s ever-present Channel 52.
It’s likely safe to assume this is a scene from The Flash, since that’s where the heroes will first meet. Having so many of them together at once seems like something that happens either before or after Team Arrow apparently splits up as Oliver deals with an alternate timeline in the hundredth episode of Arrow, and the odds are good this is not from the final episode of the crossover. So: The Flash.
Of course, we’ll see a lengthier version of this scene later. One has to wonder whether this initial “hey everybody, this is Supergirl” is actually an alternate take shot just for the teaser, a la what The CW did with the first trailer for DC’s Legends of Tomorrow before it aired, since it doesn’t seem to match with the “what’s so super about her?” stuff from a later teaser.
After the initial meet-up, there was a rapid-fire mish-mash of shots of heroes in costume — but it’s hard to tell whether those were just stock footage or actually something from the episodes. Certainly prior to last week’s Legends of Tomorrow, it was more interesting to see Ray referring to himself as “The Atom” and popping up in the suit…but it wasn’t a shock to anyone since he appeared in the suit on the cover of Entertainment Weekly to advertise the crossover.
ALIENS!
Not long after we got the first teaser for the crossover, there came the first look at the Dominators. You can see that above.
For the most part, we’ll be taking more than one slide to look at each of the subsequent trailers, as they generally have more than just a quick observation or two to be made.
First off, the “aliens!” teaser starts off with Barry standing near the wreckage of a Dominion ship:
…which doesn’t really look much like the ships the Dominators used in the comics. Rather, as seen in the image above, it looks a bit like the one the shape-shifting Durlans used in the Invasion! storyline, in which they were working for the Dominion.
That isn’t to say that the Durlans will necessarily appear — althoguh in a story where the Dominators are utilizing mind-control, shapeshifters would certainly be handy allies. It’s more likely that of the various cool ship designs in the comics, the creative staff approximated one that fit the interior look of the Dominator HQ and/or was just the most visually striking onscreen.
(And the most visually distinct. Many of the ships in the Invasion! comics were basically very similar in design to the escape pod on board the Waverider.)
ALL OVER THE MAP
In one of the first big group shots from this trailer, the heroes all line up, apparently to hear a pep talk from The Flash (who isn’t among those pictured here).
The map, pictured behind them, gives a pretty bleak picture of the world, and one that’s a touch different from what things were like back when the Invasion! comics happened in 1988.
In what’s likely a good sign for Joe West, Cuba is no longer a major theater in the war with the Dominators — but just about everywhere else is seemingly worse off on TV than in the comics, if you compare the TV map (inset) to the map above, taken from a special, commemorative Invasion! issue of the Daily Planet.
Incidentally, it’s worth noting that the “heroes gather together” scenes largely seem to take place in a single, shared location. The building, a huge space that feels a little like an airplane hangar, also has STAR Labs branding just about everywhere.
The odds seem good that’s the Hall of Justice-looking building featured on promotional posters for the crossover.
How they end up there or why the “regular” STAR Labs setting from The Flash isn’t used is a question that might have an interesting answer…!
WORLD WAR Z
We’re going to go ahead and guess that Barry’s comments that the Dominators are “like World War Z zombies” is probably less about story and more about apeparance, since the zombies in that film took on a mottled, veiny appearance not dissimilar to the unpleasant skin condition that TV’s Dominators have.
Of course, the fact that the Dominators use mind control here could put the decision to use “zombies” in the descriptor under some scrutiny.
Another thing about this shot? It appears as though the Dominator is standing on Earth, but next to some kind of alien tech (see all that glowy red stuff?).
He’s looking down at Supergirl, The Flash, and Team Arrow — perhaps suggesting that this part of the story takes place during the Arrow episode, when Oliver is somehow being subjected to an alternate reality while his team takes on aliens.
You might also notice that, while in the comics the Dominators were not physically that impressive and sent other, more “tough-guy” races like the Khunds and Daxamites to do their dirty work, here they seem to be going toe to toe with superheroes.
Maybe that’s related to the gauntlet things that they’re wearing on their right arms? You can see one in each of the images above. And whle that could just be one specific Dominator, there’s reason to suspect there’s more to it than that…!
WHO’S THAT LADY?
After a few cool shots of the Waverider moving through a city and The Flash running over water (both look new, but various people online have speculated that the footage is reused from last season…and since there’s plenty of recycled footage in these teasers, we’re going to believe it rather than analyzing that), we get a number of shots of Supergirl and The Flash fighting wht appears to be a human woman at first glance.
…she does, however, have a silver bracelet/gauntlet on her arm.
It’s her left arm, not her right, and it doesn’t look EXACTLY like the gauntlets worn by the Dominators in the previous shots, but “random wrist gauntlet” is definitely a weird kind of thing to have going on in this crossover.
Also, it looks in some shots like this woman has roughly the same percentage of her face covered in cyborg parts as did Hank Henshaw on last night’s Supergirl. Look close at the image directly above and you’ll see what appears to be a cyborg eye.
A theory: in the comics, the Dominators were trying to not only stem the “threat” of Earth’s metahumans, but also experimenting on them to try and create their own super-breed.
One result of this experimentation was The Blasters, a team of ethnically-diverse superheroes created by the Dominators (by accident) as they studied the human metagene.
Could this woman — and possibly others like her — be a distorted version of the Blasters idea made for TV?
WILD DOG
Here, Wild Dog tells…somebody…that the world is lucky to have them.
That’s probably a big part of his character arc in the episode. While it seems a bit like filler in the teaser, actor Rick Gonzalez told ComicBook.com that Wild Dog doesn’t particularly like metahumans, so this is likely a key moment in the Arrow episode.
“I can’t speak on that, but what I can say is that Wild Dog will be in the crossover, and he has a huge dislike for metahumans,” Gonzalez said. “So we’ll definitely see him not exactly rub well with The Flash and Supergirl and that’s just another glimpse into his psyche and his ideas and thinking about the world and the idea that there are people out there who have these sort of powers and who they are. Instead of saying ‘Wow, these people can do these things,’ he says, ‘no, I don’t like you because this is what you bring to the table. This is what you represent to me.’”
STAR Labs
Here, we see Team Arrow defending STAR Labs, and things look pretty bleak.
Maybe THIS is why they’re working out of a secondary STAR location at various points in the story? Could STAR Labs be under siege?
THE ALLIANCE
This is a minor thing, but in a nice nod to the comics, the iconography of the Dominators’ alien alliance is pretty spot-on in the signage on board their Mothership or whatever this is.
ALL THE WAY TO STAR CITY
In the latest teaser (above — and we know there’s a trailer now, too, but that’s huge and will get its own entry), Felicity reveals that Barry ran to Star City, so maybe that’s what the shot of his running across the water was?
Either way, he encounters aliens and apparently his first instinct is to run to the guy with the bow and arrow for help. Solid superheroing, Barry.
IT’S STUPID
Apparently, Heat Wave’s persona is going to throw quite a few people off — which makes sense. There are going to be people in this crossover who have never worked with him before, including Supergirl, whose moral compass is way, way different from his.
He’s not all that impressed with her, either, saying the name “Supergirl” is “stupid.”
Speaking of Heat Wave, anybody else notice that he seems to be roasting Dominators at the scene of that battle from the “found footage” teaser posted yesterday? A lot of people assumed that attack took place in the past — and while it would be amazing for the JSA to get a cameo fighting aliens, too, we’re wondering if that’s actually the case now.
Since there’s not much else to say about that teaser — seen directly above — let’s also break this down: if it does indeed turn out that this footage was taken in the past, it seems likely Nate will know all about the cover-up, just like he knew about the JSA even though that information was classified.
…wait, what if this was the mission that killed the JSA in the ’50s?!
INVASION!
In the actual Invasion! comics, there were a number of lovingly-rendered shots of the alien armada closing in on Earth. We’ll see plenty in the course of the crossover, surely, but we got our first glimpse of one here.
TEAM ARROW PLUS
Going with the theory we had earlier, this team — with Speedy heading it up, and Oliver missing — seems to be a pretty perfect search party for Oliver.
A shot or two later is when we get Vixen saying that “none of us” are going to survive very long, in what looks like a holding room.
In the comics, The Dominators wanted to get their hands on superheroes and supervillains so they could test the metagene. Perhaps at this point int he story, some of the characters have been taken?
BEST TEAM-UP EVER
There’s a bit of humor to these spots: Felicity’s “best team-up ever!” has appeared in every teaser for the event, and the “What a fine mess you’ve gotten us into!” dialogue between Barry and Oliver in the “Aliens!” teaser is pretty light, too — especially for something being delivered by Stephen Amell.
…and just a short time ago, new footage dropped from a new teaser. So you know what that means.
developing…
