I Think the Arrowverse’s Best Team-Up Didn’t Happen in a Crossover

A massive appeal of The CW’s Arrowverse is its crossovers. In nearly every season of its shows, the franchise puts on an event that brings together its heroes. At the beginning, the crossovers are little more than The Flash and Green Arrow working together to bring down a rogue metahuman or two, but it doesn’t take long for them to grow into something else. The Arrowverse’s final major event, “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” pits the heroes against the Anti-Monitor, who is working to destroy the multiverse. There are shocking cameos in every episode, and it feels like the entire Arrowverse is present for the fight. However, despite having so much going for it, “Crisis on Infinite Earths” doesn’t feature the franchise’s best team-up.

The best Arrowverse moment to feature multiple heroes happens pretty early on, taking place in The Flash Season 1. It’s not as epic or fun as a crossover, but it proves that the big screen isn’t the only place that a shared universe can flourish.

Barry Allen Calls in Some Friends in The Flash Season 1

There are countless connections between The Flash and the Arrowverse’s flagship show, Arrow. Barry Allen makes his franchise debut in Arrow, with his arc in Season 2 serving as a backdoor pilot for his solo series. Once he learns all he can in Starling City, he returns home to Central City, where he’s struck by lightning during the particle accelerator explosion and given superpowers. Like his friend Oliver Queen, Barry decides to clean up Central City’s streets and rid his home of the evil metahumans that are causing harm. Before long, the Arrow shows up in town and helps The Flash take down a villain who makes people a bit too aggressive. It doesn’t take long for Barry to return the favor, as he travels to Starling City shortly after to aid in the fight with Captain Boomerang.

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The Arrowverse’s first crossover is a major success, demonstrating that two superhero shows can coexist in the same universe and work in tandem seamlessly without missing a beat. However, The CW takes a risk by doing a team-up later in The Flash Season 1 that it doesn’t lay the groundwork for. In Episode 22, “Rogue Air,” Team Flash is trying to figure out what to do about Harrison Wells, the Reverse-Flash. He knows everything about them and is much faster than Barry. When the villain shows up at S.T.A.R. Labs at the end of the episode, it’s clear The Flash doesn’t stand a chance, and the hero knows it, which is why he calls in backup. Arrow (Stephen Amell) and Firestorm (Robbie Amell) arrive on the scene and work together with the titular hero to take Revere-Flash down. Oliver even uses Ray Palmer’s nanites to keep the villain in place so he can get a few blows in. The team-up is a massive success, a great meta-moment for the Amells, and creates the precedent that the Arrowverse’s heroes don’t need pomp and circumstance to help out their friends.

The Flash Returns the Favor in Arrow Season 3

Oliver doesn’t look like his usual self in “Rogue Air,” donning an all-black look given to him by Ra’s al Ghul. Barry makes note of it, but instead of explaining, his friend just mentions that he may need some help soon. Being a man of his word, Barry runs to Nanda Parbat, home of the League of Assassins, in Arrow Season 3, Episode 23, “My Name is Oliver Queen,” and frees all of Oliver’s allies. Unfortunately, he can’t stick around because the Reverse-Flash is still a major concern, but he does everything he can to help Team Arrow defeat the League of Assassins.

The brief cameos that the Arrowverse utilizes at the end of Arrow Season 3 and The Flash Season 1 truly make the franchise feel like a series of live-action comic books. In the source material, there’s always a good chance that heroes will team up because it doesn’t take a lot of effort to throw them on a page. It takes quite a bit more work to get an actor on a set and in costume, but the Arrowverse shows don’t care. They want the franchise to feel small despite being able to pull from a multiverse full of characters, and they do a great job from the start.

The Arrowverse shows are streaming on Netflix.

Did you enjoy seeing Oliver Queen help Barry Allen in The Flash Season 1? What’s your favorite Arrowverse team-up moment? Let us know in the comments below!