Nerd Processor

The DC Superhero TV Shows Are About to Trump Marvel’s Movies

How ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths,’ one of the most important comic crossover events ever, will work on TV

Rob Bricken
OneZero
Published in
7 min readSep 27, 2019

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Photo: CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images

AAvengers: Endgame and the end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s “Infinity Saga” may have gotten all the attention this year (and definitely earned all the money), but there’s another live-action superhero mega-event happening this December. It’s the annual crossover of The CW network’s stable of DC Comics series. The heroes of Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, and more will join forces this December to put one of comics’ most important and revered stories on-screen, creating an event that even Marvel, for all its billions, hasn’t pulled off.

To understand this achievement, you need to understand the original Crisis on Infinite Earths comics. Back in 1985, the DC universe — home to Batman, Superman, and more — was a mess. You know how the Marvel movies, despite the recent time travel shenanigans in Avengers: Endgame, have essentially told a single story with a unified continuity? DC Comics was doing the exact opposite. There were different continuities of characters existing simultaneously, some heroes had multiple origins that had never been addressed, and there were 50 years of…

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Rob Bricken
OneZero

The former editor of io9.com, Rob Bricken has been a professional nerd since 2001. He also often cries at children's cartoons.