Supergirl CW Crossover: Elseworlds

The annual CW crossover story for Arrow, Supergirl, and Flash has been officially named Elseworlds
and this comic fan couldn't be happier.

In 1989, DC Comics published Gotham by Gaslight, a story imagining Batman in the 1880's Gotham, hunting down Jack The Ripper. It is a great book, written by Brian Augustyn with art by Mike Mignola. Spurred by the success, DC began printing all sorts of books tagged with the logo 'Elseworlds', stories where familiar characters could be re-imagined or have their lives changed.

Let's face it, they were imaginary stories.

So you could see 'what if Superman was raised by the Waynes?' and 'What if Batman met Houdini and fought vamipires?' and 'what if Superman was around during the Civil War?' and 'What if Batman existed in a world where America was a Theocracy?'

Released in the wonderful Prestige Format, and usually with great creative teams, they were enticing. And as they existed 'outside continuity', as a reader you could pick and choose which stories intrigued you. I got a bunch of these and liked most of them.

So is the television Elseworlds going to be a similar take? Will there be new worlds? Changes in reality? Is Batwoman present because the idea of 'Batman' has been rewritten?

My guess is yes. But there is even more going on perhaps making this feel more like a certain Crisis.

Read on!

Around the time the 'Elseworlds' moniker was dropped that  LaMonica Garrett would be on the crossover as the Monitor. Here is link:
https://deadline.com/2018/09/warner-bros-tv-imports-dcs-elseworlds-and-the-monitor-to-the-cw-superhero-crossover-1202471716/

Now longtime readers know that The Monitor was a hero trying to save the multiverse in the Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series. In that series, we saw infinite Earths, perhaps one might say 'Elseworlds'?

So could the CW be doing what I have sort of hoped they do and merge their worlds into one? Is this a sort of COIE? Or is he simply there to bring the heroes to some Elseworlds to help them save those worlds? That would seem a bit of a repeat of last year's Crisis on Earth X but still would be cool.

Garrett certainly looks the part!

And then is was revealed that actor Jeremy Davies will also be in the Elseworld's story as Arkham Asylum physician John Deegan. Here is a link:
https://deadline.com/2018/09/arrowverse-crossover-jeremy-davies-arkham-asylum-dr-john-deegan-casting-1202468506/

One rumor I heard was that perhaps Deegan is more like John Dee, the name of Dr. Destiny. After all, Destiny had the Materioptikon, a machine that could make dreams come true. What simpler way could you have to explain the creation of crazy worlds?

I loved Davies in Solaris as the addled satellite scientist/Solaris creation. He showed a level of instability which I think would be perfect for Destiny.

Supergirl certainly has meandered through her own Elseworlds books.

I have never reviewed Elseworld's Finest but seems like this might push me to finally getting to it.

Of course, there was J.M. DeMatteis Wings, an Elseworlds look at the Linda Danvers angel story.

And maybe, just maybe, she plays a big role in another Elseworlds book that I'll probably review tomorrow.

I am very excited for this crossover.

Posted in: Reviews