'Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths' Trailer Released For Animated 3-Part Film Saga

Worlds will live, worlds will die and nothing will ever be the same in animated form!

While DC’s theatrical movies and small screen live-action TV series transition to a new universe, their direct-to-video Tomorrowverse faces a crisis that those universes have already faced: the Crisis on Infinite Earths. For the first time, the legendary 1985-1986 comic book saga by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez that invented event comics and infamously killed Supergirl and Barry Allen will be told through animation, as originally announced this past July at San Diego Comic-Con. DC and WB released the trailer for Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths, on Wednesday. A story too big to condense into 80 or 90 minutes, it will get to tell the story in three parts.

DC's heroes, several of whom were warned by the Harbinger at the end of Justice League: Warworld, have been brought together by the Monitor, who introduces them to the Multiverse. We see the Tomorrowverse's Superman with another Man of Steel with visible age from a parallel world. The Monitor also tells Supergirl that she is needed. The horrors of world upon world being destroyed are on full display here. As the original story goes, all this destruction is the work of antimatter from the Anti-Monitor, expanding his domain and weakening the Monitor’s.

The culmination of the original 12-part story saw timelines shift, origins change, and characters cease to exist entirely in DC’s first major reboot. Considering the Tomorrowverse only began in 2020 with Superman: Man of Tomorrow and continued through Justice Society: World War II, Legion of Super-Heroes, Green Lantern: Beware My Power, and Batman: The Long Halloween, it might seem a little soon to be putting together a universe-reshaping story. Regardless, this three-parter is a first for the DC Universe Animated Original Movies, as they had already allotted two-parters for The Long Halloween and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.

Of course, while the mess of the DCEU meant it couldn’t reach an adaptation of the story, it was the Arrowverse that managed to pull it off over December 8-10, 2019 and January 14, 2020 on The CW. It was arguably the peak of the Arrowverse before it was ravaged by COVID, mergers and a network sale. It continued the path to the end of Arrow, with the death(s) of Oliver Queen, and while Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen was still prophesied to “disappear” during these events from the very beginning of The Flash series, it instead gave closure to John Wesley Shipp’s version of the character instead. Not only did it include Shipp’s Flash, but brought Legends of Tomorrow’s Brandon Routh back into the role of Superman for the first time since Superman Returns, to the delight of many. It had Smallville’s Tom Welling and Erica Durance return as they’re Clark and Lois, and paid respects to animation by giving Kevin Conroy what was ultimately his only live action Bruce Wayne role. With other cameos including Burt Ward as his Robin, Tom Ellis as Lucifer Morningstar, Ashley Scott as Helena Kyle aka Huntress from the short-lived Birds of Prey series, and even Wolfman himself, it managed to pull off a huge surprise when Grant Gustin’s Flash shared a scene with Ezra Miller’s Flash from the DCEU in part 4. The reconstruction of the multiverse saw characters come back into existence. It very much has not been made clear whether this telling will take an identical or similar approach celebrating DC media adaptations, or even just animated ones, cameos included.

While the DCEU never reached the story, it was very much in DC Films President Walter Hamada’s plans, which were obviously scrapped when DC pivoted to the new DC Universe under James Gunn and Peter Safran’s leadership. The trailer served the whole trilogy, so considering Warner Bros. has been able to pump out more than three DC Universe Animated Original Movies in a year, whether in the continuity of the time or not, it’s likely the 2024 release date that’s been given will encompass the entire trilogy.

Source: Collider