Over two action-packed nights of television, “Crisis on Earth-X” made its way through the Arrowverse. So now that the evil has been defeated and our heroes have returned back to their (relatively) normal lives… what’s next?
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Spoilers for “Crisis on Earth-X” below! Only look if you want to know.
The epic event saw the casts of Supergirl, The Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow come together, to see Barry Allen/The Flash (Grant Gustin) and Iris West (Candice Patton) get married. But, in true comic book fashion, things didn’t go exactly as planned. A group of villains from Earth-X crashed the wedding, with the goal of taking over Earth-1 while stealing the heart of Kara Danvers/Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) in the process.
New relationships were formed, tears were shed, and plenty of characters were impacted in the process. So how could “Crisis on Earth-X” end up affecting each of the upcoming Arrowverse shows?
‘Freedom Fighters: The Ray’
The show that will be the most notably affected by “Crisis on Earth-X” is Freedom Fighters: The Ray, the upcoming CW Seed animated series. As the name suggests, the show will follow Ray Terrill/The Ray (Russell Tovey), who fans were first introduced to within “Crisis on Earth-X”.
Now that the events of the crossover have happened, how exactly Freedom Fighters will feed into the larger Arrowverse timeline is a bit of a mystery.
The first teaser for the series, which made its debut at San Diego Comic-Con earlier this year, gave fans a look at what to expect. But in the process, it seemed to establish Freedom Fighters as a sort of prequel to “Crisis on Earth-X”, namely with the presence of Kara Zor-El/Overgirl, Oliver Queen/Dark Arrow (Stephen Amell), and an evil version of Barry.
But the teaser poster for Freedom Fighters seems to suggest the show following a completely different point in time altogether. While the poster carries over some of the heroes seen in the teaser, such as Phantom Lady and Black Condor, it also includes a cameo from The Flash‘s Cisco Ramon/Vibe (Carlos Valdes).
Maybe Freedom Fighters bounces back and forth between both points and time, all while showing how The Ray got to Earth-X and fell in love with Leonard “Leo” Snart/Citizen Cold (Wentworth Miller) in the process. Hopefully fans won’t have to wait too long to find out.
‘Supergirl’
Supergirl might not be the most directly affected by the crossover, considering the fact that the show is set on a completely separate Earth. But it still gave some pretty significant revelations — and a possible hint at what’s to come.
As Kara called out within the crossover’s fourth portion, dealing with the serious threat of Nazi dopplegangers and world domination helps put things in perspective. This could easily carry over into Kara’s arc on Supergirl, and how she handles the recent revelations surrounding Mon-El (Chris Wood) and the Legion of Super-Heroes.
The events of “Crisis” will also have a pretty profound impact on Alex Danvers (Chyler Leigh), who accompanied Kara to the wedding. Aside from gaining a few new superpowered friends, Alex also hooked up with Sara Lance/White Canary (Caity Lotz). As Alex realized throughout the crossover, this rebound was totally healthy, and helped her get over her break-up with Maggie Sawyer (Floriana Lima) in the process.
And in a pretty sly piece of dialogue, fans got a hint at what could be next for one of Supergirl‘s standouts. Eobard Thawne/Reverse Flash (Tom Cavanagh) told Kara that he had faced off against her cousin, Clark Kent/Superman, in the future. Could this be a sign that we’ll eventually get the Arrowverse version of Time Masters: Vanishing Point? Fans will just have to stay tuned.
‘Arrow’
As Arrow fans will know, the biggest impact for the show happened in the closing minutes of “Crisis on Earth-X”.
After years since their previous engagement, and a half-season of watching them reconnect, Oliver and Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) spontaneously decided to get married. It was something that Arrow fans had seen coming for a while, after Arrow EP Wendy Mericle hinted that the crossover would be “Oliver’s story of true love.”
So aside from Oliver and Felicity figuring out married life, what’s next for Team Arrow? Well, there’s still the threat of quite a lot of villains, including Ricardo Diaz (Kirk Acevedo), Cayden James (Michael Emerson), and Laurel Lance/Black Siren (Katie Cassidy) on the horizon. Maybe facing off against the Earth-Xers will give the team a new grasp on how to handle those feuds.
‘The Flash’
The Flash probably had the biggest stake in the beginning of the crossover, considering Act One centered around Barry and Iris’ wedding.
Obviously, the ceremony didn’t go exactly as planned. But Barry and Iris did ultimately get married, in the closing minutes of the crossover. This puts the pair – and the recent of Team Flash – in sort of uncharted territory, seeing as the entire season so far has built up to the wedding.
But still, The Flash will have Clifford DeVoe/The Thinker (Neil Sandilands) and his “bus metas” to deal with, something that “Crisis” might give them a new perspective on.
And throughout the crossover, Flash fans got multiple hints of what to come. After Reverse Flash made his unwelcome return in “Crisis”, Barry ultimately chose to let him walk away instead of killing him. When he did, Eobard hinted that he would cross paths with Barry again — and that his overall appearance would be a mystery.
And speaking of future interactions, the first part of “Crisis” could have hinted at something in Barry and Iris’ future. Before the wedding ceremony began, an unnamed waitress (Jessica Parker Kennedy) struck up a conversation with Barry. The interaction was delightfully awkward, with her admitting that she was excited to be there.
Could she be the adult version of Dawn Allen or Jenni Ognats? Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long to find out.
‘Legends of Tomorrow’
And finally, The CW’s time-traveling band of heroes will have a lot to process in a post-“Crisis” landscape.
Obviously, the biggest impact is the death of Martin Stein (Victor Garber), who has been a part of the Legends since their inception.
As Legends went on, Stein began to accumulate more of a life back in the present day, both with the arrival of his daughter Lily (Christina Brucato) and the recent birth of Lily’s son Ronnie. Stein began to ponder if he should remain on the Waverider, something he discussed over and over again with his Firestorm partner, Jax Jackson (Franz Drameh).
It’s certain that Stein’s death will affect Jax the most, but it’s sure to affect the rest of the team as well. How will that impact the team’s hunt for anachronisms, and the emerging threat from Mallus (John Noble) and his team of villains? Fans will just have to stay tuned.
