This episode kicks off with a bang as Ollie and Barry have to contend with a fully deranged John Deegan, now Earth-1’s Superman, black suit and all! It’s a pretty terrifying prospect but he also nicks the opening monologue! THE FIEND!

The whole thing has shades of the Injustice video game about it, or the flashforward/dream sequence in Batman v Superman which also ripped off the Injustice aesthetic, but it’s an effective way to show how boned Ollie and Barry are, especially when they learn that everyone they could rely on isn’t going to help them. Unless they do, like Cisco because they kinda need him to jump dimensions so sure, he’ll help them.

Speaking of dimension-hopping, Ollie and Barry come face-to-face with The Monitor and his whole demeanour is great. LaMonica Garrett has been fantastic any time he showed up. Enigmatic to a fault, The Monitor still has a playful lilt to his voice that indicates that this test isn’t meant in malice and he is genuinely surprised at how our heroes adapt.

So much so that he appears to offer Ollie a deal in order to keep Barry and Kara from not dying, as foretold in the Book of Destiny. What that actually means will remain to be seen but I can see it as a way for Stephen Amell to leave Arrow should he wish to.

Can I just give some love to Tyler Hoechlin? Because he’s a great Superman. And a great Clark Kent. And a great Evil Superman. He’s just a really good actor who gets the character and that chin is chiselled as FUCK! What a handsome lad. But yeah, he’s got great bits throughout the 3 nights but his best spots are in this Supergirl episode, where he finally proposes to Lois after learning they’re going to have a child. Good for them!

The Super Friends continue to have a really fun chemistry and it’s gonna be sad when they go back to their own shows and I have to listen to the same tired shit from The Flash again but that’s 2019 Sharp-O’s problem and that bastard deserves it. He knows what he did…

Deegan is defeated, even gaining a brand new skello-face to match his comic book counterpart; Doctor Destiny. Yeah, I didn’t mention that before because he’s kind of a jobber villain, mostly known for his appearances in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics and the two times he was voiced by William Atherton in the New Batman Adventures and Justice League cartoons.

We also get some parting words from Batwoman about Deegan being incarcerated in Arkham and her concern about his new friend; Psycho-Pirate.

Words have power and there are few words in the DC Universe that inspire both awe and terror like those above. I’ve thrown the word ‘Crisis’ around a lot during this crossover, even capitalised it, that’s how important it is, because Psycho-Pirate’s final words are a portent of doom in the DC universe and foreshadowing for next year’s event which may mean the end for more than one of our heroes.

A Crisis is coming and universes will collide. Worlds will live, worlds will die, and nothing will ever be the same again.

And that’s Elseworlds! A thoroughly enjoyable romp over three nights and probably my favourite of the CW crossovers up to this point. It was funny, intriguing, and set the stage for the biggest name in DC events which will no doubt see Black Lightning come into the fold. And if you’re wondering where the Legends were during this whole escapade; let’s just say there was an incident involving Constantine, a cat, the Puppets of Tomorrow, and time being repeatedly shattered. So that’s why they had to cash in a rain check.

That’s all from Flash Facts until mid-January 2019 so I hope you all have a very merry holiday season and I’ll catch you guys next year!

Welcome back to the second night of Elseworlds everyone and hot damn, this is an episode chock full of easter eggs and references to the wider DCU and I can’t wait to dig in!

First up is the Super Friends throwing shade at Gotham because of course they will. Gotham’s like a shittier Star City but it does have a generally better calibre of bad guy!

Naturally, spending a significant amount of time in Gotham means a trip to Arkham Asylum and that means a whole host of characters that we’re not allowed to show on-screen due to a competing television show; like Oswald Cobblepot, Pamela Isley, Basil Karlo, and Edward Nigma! We also get visual confirmation of the Psycho-Pirate, a character previously referenced in Nora in the article about Barry’s disappearance. More on him later.

There’s also an assortment of villain-themed trinkets scattered around in John Deegan’s office and we get a surprise appearance from nora Fries, somehow not on ice, attacking Caitlin with her husband’s ice cannon.

Not to mention an awesome action scene triggered by Jonathan Crane aka Scarecrow’s fear toxin, which gives us the prerequisiste hero vs. hero fight as Barry and Ollie see each other as their hero identities’ biggest bads; namely Malcolm Merlyn and Eobard Thawne.

There’s a lot of talk about Bruce Wayne and Batman and, naturally, we don’t see even a bat ear of him but I do love this exchange from the Super Friends. Ollie’s already tried to out-alpha Superman and now he’s doing the same with Batman, much to the amusement of Barry and Kara.

This episode is also kind of a backdoor pilot for Ruby Rose’s Kate Kane aka Bat-Woman and I’m digging her performance. She’s a no nonsense, extremely capable fighter in the cape and cowl and strikes a nice balance between business and pleasure in civvies when she flirts with Kara. I hope the proposed series proves successful because I like what I’ve seen of the character so far…

And the prospect of this team-up almost gets me as excited for it as I am for this crossover!

Also, somebody pick-up that phone because I FUCKING CALLED IT! John Diggle is Green Lantern John Stewart! Granted, only on Earth-90 but that’s a hard confirm for me and I am taking the win! BOOSH!

With Deegan’s plan exposed and the mysterious book taken from him, the Super Friends plus Earth-90’s Flash face down The Monitor and are so out-classed, it’s not even funny. They’re nowhere near his level and he, surprisingly, congratulates them for getting the book, a feat not managed by another other world he’s tested.

Yup, my theory on The Monitor testing the various universes is spot-on. He’s handing the Book of Destiny to random people in a given reality to simulate the chaos brought on by a ‘crisis’. The original Crisis on Infinite Earths comic series had the Psycho-Pirate (told you we’d come back to him) become a willing henchman to the Anti-Monitor, a being of immense power that The Monitor alludes to. Given the red skies, the presence of The Monitor and the Psycho-Pirate, and the threat of an oncoming Crisis means bad news for Barry Allen, specifically. We may finally see that headline come to pass, after all.

The episode ends with reality being rewritten again; Barry and Oliver being remade as a criminal pair known as the Trigger Twins, Ollie’s greatest enemies as Central City cops and, worst of all, a black-clad Superman intent on arresting them. Tha’s no’ good.

The second part of Elseworlds is a fantastic middle chapter, giving us more humour but also expanding on the ultimate threat while teasing tougher times to come. I truly can’t wait for the third and final act of this story tomorrow on Supergirl so I hope to see you all then!

Seriously, it’s been a rough week and it’s probably going to get worse so when I say this was the most I’ve smiled in a week, I mean it. Elseworlds Part 1 is an utter delight in every way and a fantastic set-up for what’s to come.

This year’s crossover event kicks off with a bang as it repeats the Earth-90 stinger from the previous week’s shows but at the top to quickly establish The Monitor before jumping to Earth-1, where The Monitor hands the mysterious glow-y book to one John Deegan (you may recognise actor Jeremy Davies from his role as Ritchie Simpson on Constantine).

Deegan appears to be a struggling scientist with ideas that some would brand ‘mad’, which happens during a lecture. For reasons unknown, The Monitor hands the book to Deegan and tells him to remake the world. I guess this is some sort of test, given what happened to Earth-90 and how he said that “You did this to yourself” to that world’s Flash. The mystery thickens but from here on out, I’ll just be telling you about how much fun I had with this episode.

Flash Fact: The Monitor is a character closely associated to DC’s various Crisis events, which also have red skies as a motif. Both are present here and that bodes ill.

Like Ollie not adapting well to being the Flash and screaming old faithful at criminals (and earlier assuming Barry fucked up time again).

We finally have an AMAZO! And he’s just as cool as I could hope! AMAZO is one of those great villains to use for a character-driven story because his schtick is to steal powers and that is it. No monologuing, no hidden agenda, just a big out-of-control robot to punch until it falls down. I also liked how it affectionately nodded at the existing Arrow lore of Anthony Ivo, his ship The Amazo, and Mirakuru.

Meanwhile, on Earth-38, shenanigans are afoot and it’s always a pleasure to see Stephen, Grant, and Melissa onscreen together. Grant and Stephen’s banter is pitch-perfect and is often the best part of any crossover. Ollie trying to be more alpha around the perfectly nice Clark is hilarious. Additionally, Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch as Clark and Lois are a great match, they have brilliant chemistry.

SOMEBODY SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE ME from these Smallville references! The Remy song kicked in before the Earth-38 title card and for a split second I was audibly screaming “WHAT?!” at the idea of a Smallville universe being shown but holy crap, it’s the Smallville farm! That’s so cool! It’s been just long enough for this place to be nostalgic and I’m happy to see out new Superman hanging out.

Flash Fact: The Smallville Green Arrow costume makes a sneaky cameo in the Earth-90 segment.

This scene. I had to pause I was laughing so hard and then I played it again. Perfection.

This is also a damn good scene, despite being the obligatory ‘serious talk’ for the episode. Barry has always been Ollie’s opposite number and the idea of him becoming Ollie is indeed a scary prospect. Expect Ollie wouldn’t erase children from existence. Himself, sure. Loved ones, probably. Children? Only a monster like Barry Allen would do that.

Once AMAZO is dealt with, Cisco talks to Ollie, Barry, and Kara about The Monitor, who appeared to Cisco earlier, and is visibly shaken when The Monitor notices Cisco vibing him again and gives a dire warning. Ollie, though, picks up on a subtle clue and that leads us directly into Part 2 on Arrow tomorrow!

I loved this episode and I have high hopes for the next episode! What are your thoughts on this episode? Be sure to share them on our Facebook and Twitter and I’ll see you all tomorrow for another Elseworlds episode!

Gotham is a prequel series, not tying into any future cinematic universe DC is trying to build but as a general mythos builder. Kinda sounds like Smallville, and there are a fair few similarities in that respect but hopefully we won’t have anything nearly that rubbish.

“I moustache you a question.”

Ben McKenzie (best known for his lead role in The O.C.) is playing a fresh-faced Jim Gordon, assigned to the high profile murder case of Thomas and Martha Wayne. From what little we see, this Jim is a bit rough and tumble, a war veteran and shows the makings of the Jim Gordon we know.

A load of Bullocks

Donal Logue (Sons of Anarchy, Vikings) is Harvey Bullock, Jim’s new partner and seeming mentor as he’s got a couple years on him at least.

Something fishy about her…

Jada Pinkett Smith (Yes, Will Smith’s wife) plays Fish Mooney, a rather oddly named original character, as far as I can tell. Never heard the name before and if she is a DC character, she is VERY obscure. Mooney is a sadistic crime boss.

“Why do we fall, Master Bruce?”

What could be the biggest flaw in this show is the introduction of younger versions of established DC characters. Most importantly, a young Bruce Wayne. The young actor is David Mazouz and, unfortunately, I’ve never seen anything he’s been in but he seems to get what a young Bruce Wayne would sound like. We don’t see him in the trailer but apparently Sean Pertwee will play Alfred and after Michael Caine’s performance, I’m looking forward to more funny British butlers.

Muppet Babies

This is where I start to worry about these younger characters. A young Oswald Cobblepot? Sure, I can buy that. Edward Nygma as a GCPD forensic scientist? Ehhhhh, okay… Tween Selina Kyle in a psuedo-Catwoman attire sneaking around Wayne Manor? Hey, that’s a little on the nose there, pal. Baby Poison Ivy?

No, fuck right off, that’s stupid. She wasn’t even shown in any other part of the trailer just “Before Posion Ivy” and cut to a little blond girl watering plants. Even JL8 has more subtlety than that.

Overall, I’ll give Gotham a shot. If Arrow has taught me anything, it’s that DC shows can work out and be really damn good. This could be the closest thing we’ll get to seeing a Gotham Central TV show and I know a fair few DOOM staffers would love to see that happen. Then again, this is Fox so we’re all expecting this to get cancelled, right? Gotham should be hitting our screens later this year.

The guys over at Rocksteady set this franchise up to be sex in a deep black cowl. They spent half a decade making guys like me feel like a billionaire ass-kicking vigilante. They’re off working on some secret project, ostensibly next gen, potentially Justice League related—likely to kick the doors down from fifty feet away and make us beg for mercy—or more.

So, for now, the Batman franchise remains rooted in the death throes of the dying console generation, and  strangled at the hands of Warner Bros. Montreal. Yes, I’m being melodramatic—just like the unkempt dialogue, and the way I wanted to throw my computer after my save file corrupted—but man this game went wrong.

Full disclosure: I didn’t finish Arkham Origins before I started this review. I probably got about 20% of the way into the game before I lost my save file—but it’s enough to know that the game was more mess than promising. When I still had a save file I often had to walk away for a few hours, cleanse the nasty taste in my mouth, forget about the clumsy design, the bugs, the dialogue.

But, to the credit of the foundation the game was built upon—I always wanted to come back. Even when I was kicked out of my game without warning because I lost my internet connection for 10 seconds, even when I fell through a place where a texture existed, but BSP/collision did not (and fell forever), and even when I got caught in a fast-travel screen for 10 minutes, gave up, and lost my progress, I’d take a deep breath, pace my apartment, and come back for more.  The same thing that keeps the institutionalized criminal in their cycle of crime and incarceration is what kept me going back for more: the inside was easier to understand than the outside—and on the outside I just dropped 50 bucks on a game that refused to be worth it.

The technical issues aren’t even the worst parts. The game looks better than ever, the game even feels good a lot of the time—it’s not as if they broke the engine into its component parts and then reconstructed it—but the world they built around Batman is loose, lazy and the wrong kind of effortless.

Gamers have grown accustomed to waist-high cover as an automatic cue that combat is about to start, but Origins replaces that with unrealistic open lobbies. It got to the point that if I saw a big empty space, apropos of nothing, I knew the game was about to throw 20 guys at me at once. It’s uninspired stuff too. Where previous iterations of the game let you spend a lot of time feeling like a predator, using the shadows, quietly disabling your opponents, Arkham Origins takes the opposite tact: attrition and lots of it.

The city is devoid of life, the streets are empty of cars, people or any sign that this game is more than an Alpha build that never quite took the next step. With the snow covering the ground and the near lack of personality, it’s too poignant a pun to call this game a whitebox hub that leads to corridor action sequences.

Collision boxes are drawn in mid-air. Sometimes, if you zip-line in the right places, you can watch Batman hit these invisible barriers and scrape along them in mid air. Batman, trooper that he is, still slingshots to his destination.

At another point, the collision around the ice floes near a boat in the harbor was several feet above the textures.

Other times, ledges allow Batman to climb on top from one direction, but not the other, or to grapple from one side, but not the other. It is possible that this is a glitch, but the scarier notion is that it was a deliberate game design choice. Often, these moments where the game refuses to let you grapple up to an obvious ledge correspond with a time when it would give Batman a combat advantage in a room of 16 enemies.

The “real” Batman uses these strategic advantages as his bread and butter—so do quality gamers—but Arkham Origins makes the mistake of demanding that the player eschew all paths but those the designers deemed “critical.” It’s their way, or nothing, and so I pace some more.

I hear the developer is very apologetic about these problems. I hear they’ve already patched the game with ferocity. I hear that these issues are being taken very seriously. But, even if they hammer out the technical issues, it would take a miracle to remedy the condescending way this Batman game presents itself. Batman, world’s greatest detective, held by the hand, dragged through a mundane world, and punished for improvisation.

But hey, at least they found a way to bring the Joker back, right?