Carrying on the tradition of the late Stan Lee, comic book writer and editor Marv Wolfman appeared in tonight’s final chapter of “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” the five-part TV event based on a comic book series he wrote. Published in the ’80s with art by George Perez, Crisis on Infinite Earths set the standard for event comics as we know them now and completely rewrote DC’s continuity, setting the stage for a new universe going forward. Wolfman, who wrote the Arrow episode of the story with executive producer Marc Guggenheim (the two also collaborated on a tie-in comic available at Walmart stores), appears briefly in the episode, but he does get to deliver a line.
Videos by ComicBook.com
There’s a bit of a spoiler here, we guess, in the sense that the last time we saw our heroes, there were six paragons and Lex Luthor trapped together at the Vanishing Point with the rest of the universe completely wiped out. So…what role does Marv Wolfman play?
Spoilers ahead for “Crisis on Infinite Earths.”
In the final chapter of the crossover, after the multiverse has been re-established (with a few changes, of course), Wolfman shows up holding a photo of The Flash (Grant Gustin) and Supergirl (Melissa Benoist). He asks them to sign the photo, and to make it out “to Marv,” as he is a big fan of their work.
This is a nice cameo, of course, but it’s kind of doubly heartwarming when you consider that Barry Allen and Kara Zor-El were the two major fatalities of Wolfman and Perez’s Crisis on Infinite Earths comics — so he is getting to express his admiration for two characters whose publishing history he altered in a profound way.
“We never expected Crisis would be remembered,” Wolfman told ComicBook.com during a recent interview. “I’m not being humble there. We thought Crisis was the roadway that was going to take you to the new DC Universe, so everyone would just be talking about the new DC Universe, rather than the way we got there.”
That said, over the years, Wolfman said that he has come to appreciate what the event means to readers, and each time he has revisited it, he has felt the pressure.
“It’s very important to me that whatever we do with Crisis, if we’re doing Crisis, that it be as good as the original, which is always hard to do but it’s the thing that I strive for,” Wolfman said.
Besides writing “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” Wolfman is best known for his time with Perez on The New Teen Titans, which serves as the primary inspiration behind DC Universe’s Titans series. The pair also co-created Deathstroke, who has appeared on Arrow and Titans as well as in the Justice League movie.
