For the first time since the Smallville season finale in 2011, Superman will wear his iconic red trunks in live action. Brandon Routh’s version of the Man of Steel, wearing the costume created by Alex Ross in Kingdom Come, is coming to “Crisis on Infinite Earths” this winter, and when he does, he will be wearing a comics-accurate costume that includes tights, a black belt, and red trunks. This is notable because in 2011, the comics abandoned the trunks as part of DC’s line-wide “New 52” relaunch, and the first two Superman costumes to be designed after that — Henry Cavill’s suit from Man of Steel and Tyler Hoechlin’s from Supergirl — both eschewed the “underwear on the outside” look as well.
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The comics brought the trunks back with DC’s Rebirth publishing initiative in 2016, as well as re-establishing Superman’s marriage to Lois Lane, which had been removed from continuity as part of The New 52. The Lois and Clark relationship appears it will play a prominent role in “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” since both Tyler Hoechlin and Tom Welling will be joined by their respective Lois Lanes (Bitsie Tulloch and Erica Durance, respectively). That might end up being something that resonates with this version of the character, since there has been no such announcement for Kate Bosworth, who played Lois Lane opposite Routh in Superman Returns — or anyone else who might take up the role of his partner.
In Kingdom Come, part of Superman’s backstory was that Lois had been murdered, so it is possible that Routh’s Superman will have that sadness in his past. In Superman Returns, Lois did not die but rather married someone else while Superman was off-planet and did not leave him to reunite with Superman after the Man of Steel’s return to Earth. It could be, then, that Lois is alive and well…but never ended up with Superman in the world inhabited by Routh’s character.
The same costume Routh wore in 2006’s Superman Returns would reappear in the series finale of Smallville, worn by Tom Welling — but only from the waist up, for an iconic “shirt rip” moment. The Superman action sequences in the finale were shot from a distance and used CG, as Welling never fully suited up. That means that the last live-action Superman to wear the trunks before Brandon Routh in “Crisis” was…Brandon Routh, in Superman Returns.
“Crisis on Infinite Earths” has loomed over the Arrowverse for years. The series premiere of The Flash featured an allusion to the hero disappearing amid red skies in the year 2024. During the original comics event, red skies were a sign of doom to come to a world during the Crisis. At the end of last season, a couple of things happened: The Monitor (LaMonica Garrett), who had appeared in “Elseworlds,” reappeared and revealed that Oliver Queen was destined to die in the Crisis…and the future newspaper at STAR Labs rolled back the expected date of the Crisis from 2024 to 2019.
In the comics, Crisis on Infinite Earths centered on a battle between the combined superheroes (and even some villains) of the DC multiverse and an immortal, cosmic threat known as the Anti-Monitor. Like The Monitor, the Anti-Monitor will be played by LaMonica Garrett in the Arrowverse. As the Anti-Monitor destroys realities, he replaces their positive matter energy with antimatter, growing his own power and sphere of influence. He was eventually stopped by the sacrifices of several heroes, including The Flash and Supergirl, as well as the merging of multiple universes to save reality by becoming a single, unified timeline. Fans have long wondered whether the events of “Crisis on Infinite Earths” might bring Supergirl and even Black Lightning to Earth-1, where the rest of the series take place. The crossover will also feature guest appearances by Tom Welling as Clark Kent, Erica Durance as Lois Lane, John Wesley Shipp as the Flash of Earth-90, Johnathon Schaech as Jonah Hex, Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne, and Ashley Scott as The Huntress.
“Crisis on Infinite Earths” kicks off on Sunday, December 8 on Supergirl, runs through a Monday episode of Batwoman and that Tuesday’s episode of The Flash. That will be the midseason cliffhanger, as the shows go on hiatus for the holidays and return on January 14 to finish out the event with the midseason premiere of Arrow and a “special episode” of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, which launches as a midseason series this year and so will not have an episode on the air before the Crisis.
