'Crisis on Infinite Earths': Earth-Prime explained and here's what it means for the Arrowverse
This article contains spoilers for 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' Part 5.
The battle royale between the superheroes and the Anti-Monitor ended with the tragic, yet heroic death of Oliver Queen/Spectre (Stephen Amell). With his end began the rebirth of a new multiverse. The second half of the episode was all about the heroes realizing that their Earths had merged to form Earth-Prime. While there were a few surprise entrances and storylines, the conclusion of 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' adhered to the '85 comic storyline to a large extent. Both versions end with multiple Earths fusing to form a single, unified planet after the battle against the Anti-Monitor.
The comic version saw Earth-1 heroes joined by Earth-S, Earth-2's Justice Society and Earth-4. The events in the TV part saw Barry's Earth-1, Kara's Earth-38, Black Lightning's Earth-BL merge into one Earth and they realize they are the only ones who can remember the catastrophic events after their memories were restored by J'onn J'onzz.
For the rest, the old Earths didn't exist before. The final minutes of the episode show the existence of more parallel universes. Earth-Prime is joined by Earth-9 (Titans), Earth-21 (Doom Patrol), Earth-19 (Swamp Thing), Earth-12 (Green Lantern) and Earth-96 (Kingdom Come Superman's home). Earth-2 was destroyed by the anti-matter wave as shown in 'Arrow' Season 8. However, post 'Crisis', there is a newer version shown to be where the Star Girl series takes place.
What does this mean for the Arrowverse?
More crossovers
This is a start. We can see a lot more of the superhero team-ups to take down formidable foes. It pretty much started off with the rather short-lived return of the Anti-Monitor and the heroes united to take him down, perhaps permanently.
And the birth of Justice League...
Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) reveals the newly-formed Justice League in the final moments of the crossover. At the moment, a lot of it is still to be explained— what brings them together? How often will they link-up? Who will the Justice League face as its first major threat? Guess we'll know in due time.
'Crisis on Infinite Earths' is now available for streaming on The CW app.