First Look at Brandon Routh's Kingdom Come Superman Revealed For Crisis on Infinite Earths

The CW has released the first official look at Brandon Routh in the role of Superman from the forthcoming "Crisis on Infinite Earths" event. The image, which is just about the most comics-accurate costume ever seen on The CW, features Routh in the Kingdom Come Superman costume, and it makes Routh one of the only superheroes in the Arrowverse to actually be wearing skintight clothing rather than leather or armor. Other than a couple of specific textures on the suit, actually, this look is so dead-on that it looks almost exactly like pieces of fan art that you might have seen floating around on the internet in the last few years.

Routh, who first played the role of Superman in the 2006 theatrical release Superman Returns, will also be playing Ray Palmer, The Atom and Clark Kent in the crossover. There is no word on whether this will specifically tie to the continuity of his film, or whether (as in the comics) his Lois (played in the film by Kate Bosworth) will have died in his backstory. "Crisis on Infinite Earths" will also feature Tyler Hoechlin and Bitsie Tulloch as the Superman and Lois Lane of Earth-38 (where Supergirl takes place), and Tom Welling and Erica Durance reprising their roles as Clark Kent and Lois Lane from Smallville.

Routh teased yesterday that the first look at his new Superman would be coming soon.

"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.