Crisis on Infinite Earths: 5 most shocking moments from Part One

The highly anticipated Arrowverse crossover event ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ kicked off with several shocking deaths and more in Part One.

Ever since Elseworlds ended in 2018, Arrowverse fans have been giddy with excitement about the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover. The latest seasons of Arrow and The Flash have been directly affected by the Monitor and his premonitions for the heroes. Now the Arrowverse crossover is here, and despite the prolonged preamble that viewers have witnessed we were not prepared for the death toll or the blows.

Here we list five of the most shocking moments from the first part – Supergirl‘s ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part One’.

Beware, spoilers galore!

5. Lena the Frenemy

One of the bigger surprises in the first part of Crisis was Lena Luthor being brought into play. For those who have been following the dissolution of Lena’s friendship with Supergirl and her Super-friends, we weren’t expecting Lena to play much of a role in the Arrowverse crossover. But she is an integral piece of the puzzle, creating a portal large enough to allow hundreds of alien ships to teleport to Earth-1 and then coordinating the evacuation alongside the Super-friends.

Watching her work closely with Alex Danvers was like being back in old times. But the biggest shock was Lena’s unwillingness to forgive her friends for lying to her. Even with the apocalypse upon them, Lena stoically refuses to accept Alex’s friendship. It doesn’t seem like there is any way that Lena’s friendship will be won over again.

4. Argo City

A few seasons ago, Supergirl discovered Argo City – the last remnants of Krypton safely preserved on a nearby asteroid. Not only was Kara reunited with her people, but she also found her mother, Alura Zor-El, again. So, it was heartbreaking to see Argo City destroyed in the initial anti-matter wave. Kara and her friends didn’t even have a chance to attempt a rescue. The only people who seemingly escaped were Superman, Lois Lane and their son Jon.

There was a moment at the start of the episode which was deliberately reminiscent of both Kara and Clark’s own origins, when it seemed that even the Man of Steel and the reporter extraordinaire had been lost, but Harbinger retrieved them in time. But Kara lost her mother and her people yet again. If the writers wanted to assure viewers about just how devastating Crisis was going to be, they made their point loud and clear.

3. The Destruction of Earth-38

The majority of the Supergirl episode was spent in attempting to evacuate the people of Earth-38 from the incoming anti-matter wave. Despite the Monitor’s attempts to keep it at bay, and the heroes’ desperate efforts to fight off the shadow demons, they soon realized that the backup plan to send Earth-38’s survivors to Earth-1 was becoming plan A.

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The evacuation gave the cast of Supergirl some much-needed screen time and buoyed the episode with some added sense of hope. Near the end it almost seemed like the heroes had averted the Crisis, if only in one reality. But they hadn’t. The universe of Earth-38 is gone, and only 3 billion people made it to Earth-1.

With the heroes of Supergirl displaced, how will this affect their stories? The entire Leviathan arc has been left hanging with this new circumstance. Can we expect the characters to be absorbed into Earth-1’s stories, or will there be balance by the end of Crisis?

2. Earth-9

We expected several cameos and connections in this crossover. The creators have been teasing them for a year now. In Part One, we glimpsed Earth-89, which is the future of Tim Burton’s Batman film, as well as Earth-66, where Burt Ward reprised his role as an older Dick Grayson.

While we await the Smallville cast and Kevin Conroy to make their Arrowverse debuts, one of the more fun and pleasant surprises was Earth-9. Among the montage of Earths shown in the prologue, we see Alan Ritchson’s Hank Hall/Hawk and Curran Walters’ Jason Todd/Robin 2.0 from DC Universe’s Titans.

Since so many DC properties have been retroactively added to the Arrowverse, there were several rumors floating around that the Titans would appear in this crossover. While they didn’t play a part in the event, the crossover seemingly confirms that the Titans are in an alternate reality. Unfortunately, it seems to have been confirmed that Hank and Jason were witnessing the destruction of their Earth. What does this mean for the show’s third season?

1. A Hero Falls

We knew heroes would fall in Crisis on Infinite Earths. The whole Arrow and The Flash seasons have been dedicated to the potential end of Barry Allen and Oliver Queen. We still don’t know if Barry is safe, but Oliver Queen is dead. Yup, Oliver took his last breaths as the first part of Crisis ended.

No one expected Oliver to die in the very first episode of Crisis, especially not in the way he did. We knew something was happening when Oliver insisted on staying back and then ran out of arrows in his quiver. But we thought he’d go down in a blaze of glory in the Arrow episode of the crossover – most of his team and family weren’t by his side as he succumbed to his injuries. He died saving another Earth, not his own. To top it all off, the Monitor was shocked because this was not the end that he had foreseen for Oliver. What changed and does this really mean that Oliver is dead?

Some pictures from later episodes of the crossover seem to show an Oliver will be appearing in other installments, but is it Earth-1’s Green Arrow resurrected? We’ll find out more over the next four episodes.

What did you think of ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part One’? Which shocking moment still has you reeling?