Monday, January 20, 2020

NOT SO FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE "CRISIS" CROSSOVERS



So the CW mega-crossover of their DC Comics’ super-hero shows, “Crisis On Infinite Earths” is over and the over-riding maxim held true; “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

After all the sturm and drang about how this might affect the Toobworld Dynamic, even though none of those (current) shows took place in the fictional TV dimension of which I’m most concerned, that of Earth Prime-Time, the main Toobworld, by the end the Multiverse was returned.

There were a few changes of course.  All of the CW shows now exist on one world which they call Earth Prime.  (That’s from their perspective.  Forgive them, they don’t know any better.  LOL)  So ‘Black Lightning’ and ‘Supergirl’ no longer exist on their separate worlds but will now be able to cross over with ‘The Flash’ and ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ (and even ‘Arrow’ until this final season is officially over) without all of that metaphysical hoo-hah of dealing with dimensional vortexes.

But during the winter break, I was ready to hang up my spurs as the Caretaker of Toobworld because of the implications from the destruction of the Multiverse.  My feeble splainin that the Anti-Monitor was not that powerful and only destroyed a relatively small portion of all those dimensions wasn’t that strong.

I was however ready to claim that even if they came back with just the one Earth (one that might include the shows from the DCU streaming service – ‘The Doom Patrol’ and ‘The Teen Titans’ and the upcoming ‘Stargirl’ – even if they never crossed over), they weren’t so all-knowing.  They would have no idea that Toobworld was out there and that’s why they felt secure in dubbing their own world “Earth Prime”.  I’m sure all of the other Earths see themselves as being Numero Uno as well.

Here’s what I wrote in response to my Crossoverist friends in the FB page about the Television Crossover Universe:

Well for me, Earth Prime is our world and Earth Prime-Time is the main Toobworld where almost all TV shows take place, including the original ‘Flash’, ‘The Adventures of Superman’, ‘Wonder Woman’, and ‘Batman’ ‘66 took place. If there has to be a numbering system, that’s Earth 1.

But I can be “diplomatic” - they can continue to think of their Earth Prime as Earth 1 (means the same thing) while my Earth Prime-Time is Earth A.

Sound familiar? I call it the Bender Solution. LOL

As for all those movie worlds that were brought in, I’m leaving them in their various incarnations of the Cineverse. Not my bailiwick. But obviously there must be a greater mosaic bringing in all of those other universes where they could cross over.

Otherwise I had no problem with their distribution/numbering of worlds. Let their Dick Grayson be on Earth 66; he’s still just a döppelganger for the original on Earth Prime-Time.

So Toobworld still exists… not that I will be probably doing too much with it anymore.

The output of new TV shows has grown exponentially with all of these new streaming services and cable networks, more than I can handle.  It would probably have been more than I could have handled when the flame of enthusiasm burned bright for my work as a telly archivist and crossoverist.

I see myself more as a Sherlock Holmes in that it’s time for me to retire from those duties and move to my version of Sussex.  In my case, “Sussex” is my fictional “realm” of the Connecticut village of Wayside and the other villages within Midwich County.  There I have total control over the characters. (Well, almost total control; I have brought in a few literary fictionals from other sources… mostly free from copyright concerns.)

At least with Wayside, Connecticut, I won’t have to bend over backwards to come up with those pesky “splainins” to make the TV Universe’s cohesiveness logical… at least to me.

Hmmm....  Holmes retired to Sussex to tend to his bees.  I think that's what Wayside needs... a beekeeper.

I’ll still be posting here on occasion.  I don’t plan to give up adding new members into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame every Friday with a dozen big monthly showcases every year.  And when something strikes my fancy otherwise, I’ll dash something off.

And I still have O'Bservations to make about the "Crisis on Infinite Earths".  I'll get around to them eventually.....

BCnU….

PS:
If you're interested, I've been putting the first drafts of my Wayside stories on Facebook in the "Wayside, Connecticut" page.  Like I said, they're just the first drafts and you may find discrepancies in other stories as you go along because I've since changed various aspects like names, dates, etc.

If you enjoy them, thank you.  I hope you'll hit the Like button often.  If you don't, feel free to send me a message with your observations and critiques.  I'm sure it will hurt, but I want to improve my experience in writing them as well as yours in reading them.

And hopefully, you'll like the entire page so that my base of Wayside tourists continues to grow.

Which reminds me.  I need a good collective term for the base.  I was using "Tourists", but that's a bit meh.  "Waysiders"?  "Side-Seers"?

Any ideas?  Let me know!


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It always seemed hard juggling all the shows around. But maybe all those multiverses in Arrow were really no more than baubles in a Men in Black collection of marbles, with the real multiverses outside.

I was a bit disappointed there wasn't an Earth-77 for Wonder Woman, given her lack of appearances, but c'est la vie. Good luck with Wayside!