Crisis Aftermath (2019–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Episode #1.2 - full transcript
Did you see what I just saw?
Everything changes right now, folks.
Resurrections, evil heroes,
the death of the Flash,
but not that Flash.
We're gonna talk about all of it
right here on "Crisis Aftermath".
Come on!
Welcome to "Crisis Aftermath", man.
It's a good thing that this show
exists outside of time and space,
because things are looking
pretty bad for our heroes.
So much to cover.
Where do we even begin?
How about introducing the panel, man?
Executive producer Marc
Guggenheim is with us again.
Universally recognized
nerd Dani Fernandez is back.
And look at this. The
baddest of the bad, man.
And the baldest of the bald.
Lex Luthor himself, Jon Cryer is here!
- Captain, how are you, man?
- Thank you, thank you.
I am very well. Very well. And you?
So damn good. I have been enjoying
what you've been doing with Luthor.
Look, I'll get into it later,
but I think it's the best
interpretation of Luthor
that's ever been done.
We'll talk about it in a second.
- Wow, okay.
- The Multiverse is kaput,
Superman is dead,
and Anti-Monitor's evil plan
is centered around God's
cruelest invention a treadmill.
Jon, here's a question
from Twitter, man.
They're asking... Orphansteph says...
_
Ah, well, we shot a
huge scene in a quarry.
And it hasn't actually played yet,
but it is the huge shadow demon battle.
And we shot it in an
actual working quarry...
- Mm-hmm.
- ... so there was actual
huge explosions of dynamite
going on as we were shooting.
So it was pouring rain,
there were stunts...
it was crazy stunts, and
we had stunt explosions
and real explosions with,
like, small avalanches.
The thing was, they were pulling
out the stops for the crossover.
And, honestly, when I had done
three episodes of "Supergirl" last year
and they told me they were doing Crisis,
I said, "Okay, that might
be something I have to do".
So, let me ask... that was
something I wanted to know.
Were you only gonna do Luthor for just
that little bit and then never again?
And then you heard about this,
and you were like, "I wanna still play"?
Yeah, well, the idea was
that Luthor was only
gonna do three episodes.
- Yeah.
- And that was... the whole point was
we were just gonna have some
fun in this particular universe
and that was gonna be it.
But, obviously, the character
caught fire a little bit,
and I knew Crisis was coming up
and I really wanted
to participate in that.
And now you inherited the mantle,
and your take on the character,
to me, as a comic book reader,
is the closest to the
books that I've ever seen,
except within the animated series, man.
Like, live action? That is Luthor.
I remember reading something about you,
and I don't know if
it was tongue in cheek.
But you were like, "I gotta make up for,
like, the 'Superman' that I was in".
Which I assume was more
humor than anything else.
But you're a guy that's
known for being funny,
for playing funny.
Was it exciting to be offered,
like, the ultimate villain?
Yes, it was.
It was a little odd
because the way it came
about was very strange.
I got a call from an old friend
of mine from summer camp,
who said, "You know,
I think the producers
of 'Supergirl' are trying
to get in touch with you".
I'm like, "What?" And then Bill Prady,
who was a producer of "Big Bang Theory",
wrote me an email saying,
"Somebody wants to ask you
about playing Mex Muthor".
And I said, "Wait,
what is happening here?"
And then I got the call.
And at first I just thought, "Why me?"
You know, in a million
years, I wouldn't think...
but then the second I started really
going through the iterations
of who this guy is,
I was like, "Oh, my God,
I wanna do this guy".
And that I had the
history with, you know,
obviously, working with Gene.
But, yeah, that interview
was not really a joke.
It was that "Superman IV" was
a very emotional thing for me.
Being a part of the Superman
universe was really important to me.
And, unfortunately, that movie...
they ran out of money on it.
I don't know if you've
seen "Superman IV",
- but it is not the most...
- A couple times.
It is not the most polished
of the Superman franchise.
And I'd always been very
disappointed in that.
I had always felt
like... and it was also
sort of the end of the
Christopher Reeve Superman.
And that broke my heart,
because I loved it as a kid.
In 1978, when I saw
"Superman: The Movie",
- I believed a man could fly.
- You believed a man could fly.
Exactly. And so being a part
of that was important to me,
and I felt like we let
down the legacy of it.
And so when the producers of "Supergirl"
told me what they wanted to do with Lex,
I was like, "Oh".
'Cause I haven't seen
a comics-accurate Lex.
You're absolutely right.
Did you go to the
material? Are you a fan?
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
I collect Jack Kirby comic art.
I go to Comic-Con on purpose.
And just by myself for fun.
I grew up kind of immersed
in the Marvel universe,
and only actually came
later to understand
all the great stuff
that was going on in DC.
But a part of my youth...
and "Crisis" itself
was a part of my youth,
because it was so ambitious.
As an '80s kid, I never could've
envisioned Ducky as Luthor.
You are absolutely pulling it off.
- You're nailing it, man.
- Oh, thank you.
I also love that everyone
tried to get a hold of you.
It's, like, dude, check your DMs.
- I know. You're right.
- You know? Like...
Hours two and three of Crisis
were all about the Paragons, man.
The search for those seven
extra-special do-gooders
set this whole adventure in motion.
So, Mark, what do the
Paragons represent?
Well, you know, they represent
different aspects of humanity.
You know, hope and love
and courage and truth.
But what they really represented
for us as writers was
we needed a McGuffin.
We needed our heroes to
be looking for something.
And every year prior to
"Crisis On Infinite Earths",
they did an annual crossover
between "The Justice League of America"
and "The Justice Society of America".
And the last one before "Crisis",
written by Jerry Conway
and drawn George Price,
who drew "Crisis", was about the idea
that there were these
special characters that...
in the comic, if you remove
them from the universe,
basically all superheroes
would disappear.
But the idea that there
are these special heroes
that are out in the multiverse,
that was worth appropriating.
- And appropriating...
- Stealing.
Yeah, there we go.
Just call it what it is.
Fancy writer talk over there.
Let's talk about Batwoman,
the Paragon of Courage.
Dani, what makes Batwoman
courageous in your estimation?
Well, she was not someone
that originally even
planned to be a vigilante.
And she's also fighting alongside
people that have superpowers,
so that takes a lot
of courage, to be like,
"Oh, I might be the
first one to die here".
But she also has tremendous PTSD.
She's dealing with
discrimination for her sexuality.
There's so many things that
she is going up against,
so many obstacles that she's had.
And yet she still is fighting
for us for some reason.
So that... I mean, that
takes a lot of courage.
- Absolutely.
- She stands up against Supergirl, you know?
Yeah, she's got some
kryptonite in her pocket,
but she's got a lot of courage
there in that moment.
They do have a nice "World's
Finest" dynamic going on,
with Kara being like,
"Hey, we're friends",
and Batwoman being like, "I don't know".
I think in the years to come,
we will see that the relationship
between Kate and Kara
is the replacement for the relationship
between Barry and Oliver.
Ooh, nice, man. Inside dirt right there.
Jon, Lex Luthor seems to
have taken Superman's place
as a Paragon of Truth
thanks to the Bookmark of Destiny.
Yes.
Let's take another look
at how he got there.
- We have to go back right now.
- Barry, we can't.
They're gone.
No.
- Something's wrong.
- Kal? Kal?
- Something's wrong.
- No.
- I can't...
- Hey, hey, hey.
I can't... Kara, please.
Fix it...
Fix it.
What do I do?
No, no!
Oh, I am so happy that worked.
Lex, what did you do?
Well, I held the Book of Destiny
and I saw you seven
Paragons due to be stranded
at the Vanishing Point.
And I thought destiny
could use a little rewrite.
So...
what do we do now?
You're in a scene like that.
Are you like, "Get me a costume!"
I get some very nice suits.
- You do.
- They're beautifully tailored.
Uh, yeah, you know, it was...
it was me and a bunch of capes.
You look like the one guy at the house
that everybody's trick-or-treating at.
Yeah, it was fun, though.
You know, it was...
and also a great sort of
gut punch part of the show,
'cause, you know...
'cause that was my holy...
holy moment,
was going, "Oh, no".
You know, 'cause Brandon as Superman
is just a great Superman.
And it's something they've
been teasing the whole time.
- The whole time.
- Like, "You're gonna see him in the suit! He's back!"
- And then you take him away.
- Oh, God!
It's like in "Aliens"
when the captain...
or rather "Alien",
when the captain dies.
You know, it's like, "Oh, no.
- Things are not gonna go well from here".
- Anything can happen.
What is it like playing Lex Luthor?
How does one approach the character?
Because it's... you know, it's...
one would be tempted to
play him as just a villain,
but he doesn't see himself as a villain.
He sees himself as a world savior.
Oh, absolutely.
- He's a bit of a sociopath...
- Yeah.
... in this one. They've
allowed that layer to come in.
Whereas he's been a little
more clownish in the films
- and stuff like that.
- Right.
But even the worst sociopath...
you know, Ted Bundy
was incredibly charming
and worked at a suicide
prevention hotline.
He saved some lives. So
people are complicated,
and that's what I'm letting Lex be.
Ted Bundy is like, "Why
are you harshing on me?
- I saved all these other lives".
- Exactly.
- "I only killed a couple of hundred".
- "On the average..."
You know, it's nice when
everyone can talk about Bundy
and end with, "It's complicated".
- Well, you know...
- Really reduces it down to what it is.
I want to thank Jon Cryer
for joining us, man.
- Excellent job...
- Truly a pleasure.
- ... killing Luthor.
- Thank you.
- Well, not killing, but killing it as Luthor.
- Killing it as.
We gotta be careful
what we say around here.
People take it seriously,
write it down on the Internet.
We've got so much more in store tonight
on "Crisis Aftermath", including a visit
from the voice of Batman
himself, Kevin Conroy.
And the world premiere teaser
for CW's newest superhero Stargirl, man.
I've read the Book of Destiny
and it says you won't go anywhere.
Stay right there.
Hey, man, welcome back
to "Crisis Aftermath".
I'm here with Marc
Guggenheim, Dani Fernandez,
and our next guest is the
showrunner of "The Flash".
It's Eric Wallace. How are you, sir?
- Doing great.
- Okay, as we saw tonight,
"Crisis On Infinite Earths"
deals a lot with fate and destiny.
The crisis itself has been teased
since the very first
episode of "The Flash".
I remember seeing this headline
and being incredibly excited inside,
goosebumps, going like,
"They're talking about 'Crisis'.
Like, I know what that
is. Will they ever do it?"
What is it like building
up to an event that massive?
You think to yourself,
"Okay, we've got to honor
this really incredible,
incredible comic book event".
So, you're putting the season together,
and we started at the end
last year wit "Elseworlds",
and you're like, "Does the
Flash really have to die?
Do we really have to do this?"
- And not only...
- I'm sure Grant was like, "No!"
I was the same way.
"We'll all be out of a job.
We can't do that. No, he's got to live".
So you've got to come up with
a way to honor what we've said
with the Monitor in 601
saying, "The Flash must die",
but also give it a nice story
twist, give it some emotion.
So we thought about
it for quite a while,
and we got to what I
hope the audience thinks
is a very satisfying conclusion,
which is a little bit of
the best of both worlds.
Grant almost doing it, wanting to,
being the hero that we always
thought he was gonna be,
and at the very last second,
in comes John Wesley Shipp...
- Right.
- ... and it completes a 30-year arc.
And here I am watching
this, weeping, right?
- That's tears rolling.
- I'm 14-year-old Eric
watching that CBS pilot back in the day
and I'm thinking, "Wow, this
could only happen on a crossover".
You even brought in the score.
- Yes.
- Like, when I heard the old score come in,
I was...
And, you know, John Wesley Shipp
has been well served by the
Arrowverse for years now,
but this is such a
grand, glorious moment
to see him back in that suit.
Because in many ways, like,
that show is a trailblazer
for, like, what you guys
have been doing for years.
Seeing him back in the suit and then
dying as the Flash is really, really...
And that flashback moment, oh!
- Does it get you?
- Yes.
- It gets me every time.
- Oh, man. I know.
- And that was my Flash growing up.
- Yes.
And to see that come full
circle? Tears right there.
- We didn't script that originally.
- I know.
That was something that we
added in the editing room.
- So it wasn't in the script?
- It wasn't in the script.
So, what happens in
an instance like that?
You cut together the
show and you're like,
- "Ooh, if we did this..."
- We want to see...
we want to see a little
bit of his life flashing...
no pun intended...
before his eyes, you know?
We just craved it, and,
you know, our amazing,
you know, post-producer Jeff Garret,
you know, went to the
archives and got the footage.
And we knew we had to
change the aspect ratio
because it was a different
aspect ratio back then.
That's right, they were
shot 1.33 back in the day.
So, um... but, man, it's awesome.
It's one of my favorite
moments in that hour.
That's crazy, man. That's a nice touch.
As we were saying, we finally
saw Flash meet his fate,
but it didn't play out
exactly like he expected,
so let's take another look.
I couldn't be the hero
I am without you guys.
Tell Joe and Iris I love them.
We will.
Sorry, kid, but this has to happen.
Barry, what are you doing?
I'm momentarily stealing your speed.
You play the speedster game long
enough, you learn some neat tricks.
Wait, why are you doing this?
Novu said, "The Flash
must die in Crisis".
He never said which one.
Come on, you're cruel, man.
How do you decide to
kill off such a big hero?
I mean, look, you killed off the Flash,
but not the Flash that everyone's, like,
- tuning in to see every week.
- Right.
So you can have your
cake and eat it, too.
We did, we did.
- But hopefully we honor the original Flash...
- You did, yeah.
... you know, from the '90s show.
And up until that moment
right before it happens,
hopefully the audience
is literally saying,
"There's no way out of this.
There's no way out of this".
And then the twist comes,
and you have these two great
performers, two generations,
where you have Grant
Gustin who loves John
and John loves Wesley...
- I guess he loves himself.
- He loves himself.
Who doesn't love the Flash, right?
But John loving Grant, and to
see them working together...
and that was real emotion
that you saw in that scene
as they kind of
realized... Grant's like,
"He's passing a real torch to me.
This really is the end of him".
And then John, he told
us, I think, afterwards,
"Thank you for giving me
this opportunity to close a chapter".
Oh, my God, I'm gonna cry.
I'm gonna cry just thinking about it.
That's so true. I never
thought about that.
When they ended "Flash",
it ended unceremoniously,
and they didn't like,
"Here's your season finale".
So to actually bring
closure to his incarnation?
Come on, that's a gift.
That John Wesley Shipp
death, that's big time.
- We're very lucky.
- Absolutely. Absolutely true.
Now that the Anti-Monitor
has won, ostensibly,
the Multiverse is gone
and everything is nothing.
I personally am having
trouble staying sane, man.
Here to give us the
latest Multiverse report
is "Entertainment Weekly's"
own Chancellor Agard.
Chancellor, how you doing, man?
Dealing.
All right, take us there.
You got the big board.
I got some things here.
I can try to help you out.
Well, in the past two hours,
we went to eight parallel Earths.
First we started on Earth 18,
where Barry, Mia, Constantine, and Sara
tried to resurrect Oliver
and kind of turned him into a zombie,
and fought a version of Jonah
Hex without his iconic scar.
Then we went to Earth 167
where we encountered Tom
Welling from "Smallville",
who gave up his powers
to chop wood and have kids
with "Smallville's" Erica Durance,
the Lois Lane to his Clark.
- He still won't wear the "S".
- No!
On Earth 96, Brandon Routh wore the "S",
specifically in a suit based off
Alex Ross's "Kingdom Come" design.
Oh, yeah, we were all
very tingly about that.
And speaking of "Kingdom Come",
that comic also gave us the rock bottom
Bruce Wayne wearing the exoskeleton
who killed Superman on Earth 99,
played by, in my opinion,
the best Batman, Kevin Conroy,
who voiced him on the animated
series and in the video games.
- Yes.
- Then on Earth 666,
while the name is not so subtle,
nor is the man himself, Lucifer,
played by Tom Ellis on
the Netflix show "Lucifer",
which is inspired by the
DC comic "The Sandman".
This is his first Arrowverse
appearance, as you said earlier.
Also making his Arrowverse
debut is Black Lightning.
So now the only CW show not involved
in a crossover is "Nancy Drew".
- Yes.
- And, finally...
we learn that Earth
203 is where the women
from the 2000s-era "Birds
of Prey" show hang out.
But none of this matters
because the Anti-Monitor
destroyed all of this and
everything we love and know,
including this entire segment.
Faster!
There you have it.
There it is. Thanks, Chancellor, man.
Good Lord, it takes a mind
to bring us through all that.
Okay.
"Nancy Drew" was
supposed to be a spoiler.
♪ It's so hard ♪
♪ To say good-bye ♪
♪ To our favorite characters
from the Arrowverse ♪
Let's take a minute now to pay tribute
to all the people,
places, and, yes, planets
that we've lost along the way.
Roll that sad-ass clip.
I made a promise to keep
fighting no matter what.
My world died.
My family.
Hadn't even thought of that.
Now facing my own mortality.
- So weird.
- That's very meta.
Yeah, right?
I love that they did dogs and not cats.
- Aww.
- I want to thank Eric for joining us, man.
When we come back, we're
gonna be talking to a man
who sounds a lot like Batman.
And we have the world premiere
of the "Stargirl" teaser.
In brightest day, in blackest night,
we will see you later
tonight. Stick around.
Welcome back, man. You're
watching "Crisis Aftermath",
the official "Crisis On
Infinite Earths" aftershow.
The Anti-Monitor's evil plan
brought an end to the universe
and killed everyone we've ever loved.
But on the plus side,
the Arrowverse finally
got to see Bruce Wayne,
although this Bruce Wayne
was a bit of a grump.
Let's look.
This guy's not a paragon of anything.
I was right. We can't trust The Monitor.
- What did you do?
- Clearly, what you couldn't.
How was he a threat?
Strange visitor from another planet
comes to Earth with powers and abilities
far beyond those of mortal men?
Clark.
Clark always said yes to
anyone with a badge or a flag.
He gave them too much power.
My parents taught me a
very different lesson.
Life only makes sense
if you force it to.
Come on, man!
Holy crap, I am so happy to have
one of my personal idols here.
The one true Batman,
ladies and gentlemen.
- It's Kevin Conroy.
- Hey, how's it going?
How's it going? Good to see you.
- Hey!
- Yes, everybody knows.
I am vengeance.
- I'm like...
- My nipples got hard, man.
I'm in the radius of his voice.
- I can, like, feel it.
- There you go.
You have spent the
better part of the last,
- what, 25 years or more...
- 27.
27 years as the voice
of the one true Batman.
This is the first time you actually
got to physically portray
him in real media.
- What was that like?
- I know. It was incredible
to get that opportunity, finally.
But as old Bruce Wayne, you know?
Old, sort of angry,
bitter Bruce Wayne.
So it's a version of
him I had never imagined,
and I really leapt at the opportunity.
- I was so happy.
- How did it happen?
You got a call and they were like,
"Hey, man, we got an idea".
Well, it was so wonderful.
It was sort of a mixture of worlds
because the person who's responsible
for a lot of casting
at Warner Bros. now,
for on-camera casting, is someone
I've known for 40 years from...
- I used to do theater in New York, as you know.
- Yeah.
And, um, I know Tom Berg
from the old days in New York,
and he knew my work from the stage.
So he knew me as an on-camera
actor and as stage actor
long before any of the
voice stuff came along.
So when this came up, I think the
producers were talking about it,
and Tom was there to
say, "Well, you know,
I know him from his on-camera work
and his stage work. He can handle this".
So it was a mixture of
worlds. It was wonderful.
Was it that simple?
And were you in the room
when they were like, "What if
we got Kevin Conroy to do it?
Well, yeah. We wanted Kate
to meet a version of Bruce
that was obviously different
from the Earth 1 version of Bruce.
We were talking about who
could play an older Batman,
an older Bruce Wayne.
And the moment Kevin's
name came up in the room,
the entire room went insane.
I mean, just insane. And
we knew we had to do it.
And, you know, Tom...
actually, I think he was like,
"I'm actually having
dinner with Kevin tomorrow".
Then he brought it up to him.
We've remained friends for 40 years,
so that was just a
great happy coincidence.
There's a lot of things that
happen both on these shows
and in the crossover
that, quite frankly,
I believe only happened
by dint of destiny.
- Really?
- And this was absolutely
one of those fortuitous
moments where it's like,
"Oh, this is meant to be".
When you talk about
destiny, though, I mean,
my even playing this role...
this is the first animated
role I ever auditioned for.
- Are you kidding?
- Never.
- Wow.
- It was the first audition
I went in on for an animated character.
Your performance as Batman
is the one that, like,
when I read a comic
book, I hear your voice.
When I think of Batman, when
I see a review of something
and they talk about, "Batman says this",
I always hear it in your voice.
- Yes.
- You are so... yes!
- The brain-washing worked.
- Oh!
I get a young brain and I hold on.
That was... that was
absolutely wonderful.
Since we have the voice
of Batman right here,
we knew that we had to milk it.
So we asked fans what they'd most like
to hear the Dark Knight say.
Kevin, you down to read some of this?
- I'm down.
- Oh, yeah!
Here we go, man. Take it away.
_
Yes!
_
Oh, such a better version of "Titanic".
I wish both the kids had
lived in that version.
_
_
_
Oh, every Nickelodeon kid just lost it.
- Oh, no!
- Yes.
_
_
_
Oh. I think we've all been
waiting to hear that one.
_
_
_
_
I don't feel like a fan did that.
I snuck that one in myself.
I'm literally gonna roll a tear, man.
Kevin, thank you so much
for not only joining us,
- for being Batman for the last 27 years.
- Thank you. Appreciate it.
We gotta take a break,
but when we come back,
we're gonna chat with Robert Wuhl
about returning to the DC universe.
And we look forward to January's finale
of "Crisis On Infinite Earths", man.
We're para-gone, but not para-forgotten.
Stick around. We'll be right back.
Hey, man, and welcome
back to "Crisis Aftermath",
broadcasting from the
heart of Los Angeles 69.
I'm your host Kevin Smith.
Joining us now, the man
who played Alexander Knox
in Tim Burton's "Batman",
it's Robert Wuhl!
- How are you, sir? Such a pleasure, man.
- How you doing, buddy?
We got to see you in
the first installment
of "Crisis On Infinite Earths",
but it seems you were
nothinged by an anti-matter ray.
- Yeah. Just one line.
- Yeah.
It was great fun, though,
I have to tell you, I had a blast.
They asked me to do it.
I didn't think twice.
I just, "Yeah, I can do it".
- It's been 30 years, which is...
- It's been a minute.
And you were there for the laying
- of the track in 1989 with Tim Burton's "Batman".
- Yeah.
- Right.
- That is the model
from which most superhero movies
are kind of cut at this point.
When you guys were there
did you ever imagine one day
there'd be a universe of movies
with a lot of people in costume?
Batman makes sense, because
they had done the TV show.
Did you foresee
superheroes, like, in legion?
Well, not to this extent.
Look, I knew I was a
part of something special.
First of all, going to Pinewood studios
and seeing Tim Burton's
Gotham City every day
- was really cool.
- Right.
Because I was not a big
fan of the TV series.
- It was too jokey for me.
- Right.
And people were worried.
A, it was the most expensive
movie ever made up to that point.
B, it was much darker than
anybody expected it to be.
And C, are you old enough to remember
the backlash of Michael Keaton?
There was... it was...
people were so mad,
it broke the Internet
- and there was no Internet.
- Exactly. I mean, exactly.
Michael Keaton being announced
as Batman, we look back...
- We were like, "Mr. Mom?"
- Exactly.
It was Mr. Mom, or in
London it was Mr. Mum.
And then, of course,
you had Jack, you know,
which was a whole
different kettle of fish.
Right. I remember that
movie so well, incredibly well.
But I remember the trailer, too.
The dry trailer.
The first trailer they did,
which had almost no score.
It was just a series of images.
And you have the...
"Detective, is there a six-foot
bat in Gotham City?" line.
The moment resonates with me.
When they called you up for Crisis,
and they're like, "We
want you to come back
to play Alexander Knox",
do you even bother going
back to look at the movie?
"What did I do 30, 40 years ago?"
Actually, it was funny,
because I had tuned it in.
It was on one of the
channels, and I hadn't seen it
in about 10, 15 years.
And I watched about an hour of it,
and, yes, it was dark,
- but it was also fun.
- Very much.
The first ones were fun, more so than...
Jack Nicholson brought a lot
of fun because he's Joker,
- in particular, yeah.
- The Prince songs.
- The Prince, yes.
- The, uh...
you know, so it was fun.
You gotta remember,
too, in terms of 1989,
when they did this
incarnation of Batman,
Batman fans were, like, "Finally.
This is the real Batman".
- He ain't jokey. He's dark.
- That's right.
This is dark. Okay.
Not only did we get to
revisit Tim Burton's "Batman",
we also got another chance
to see Tom Welling
as Clark Kent from "Smallville".
But anyone expecting
him to wear the cape
was in for a bit of a surprise,
including Lex Luthor.
You gave up your powers?
Can't say I miss these chats.
You were basically a god. You could fly.
You could see through walls.
You had super strength.
You're kidding me.
That is worth more than any superpower.
Hey, Clark, the girls want to
show you what they made.
I think it's time for you to...
Still stronger.
Ahh! That's dope, man.
Marc, how'd you pick
the cameos for this?
Because there have been DC
movies and shows over history
and you've pulled from a lot of them.
How do you do it? How
do you figure it out?
We just had a list.
And we got so lucky.
I remember saying to the writers
as we were working on this I said,
if we have a list of
a hundred cool things
and we only do 50,
then we've still done 50 cool things.
It's just a cool thing, man.
It's, once again, fan service.
I loved seeing all
the different Supermans
because I feel like there's
so many different ways
that you can play him.
And he, wrongly, I think,
gets put in this singular box
and people think that he's simple.
But he's farthest thing.
- He's such a complex character.
- He's tough to write for.
- True.
- Like, most writers will dismiss it and be like,
"How do you write for a guy
that's got all the powers in the world?"
- But that's kind of the challenge.
- Yeah.
And that "Smallville" moment
was kind of everything,
particularly for old-school
"Smallville" fans who were there.
Before there was an Arrowverse,
there was a "Smallville"
series that went for, what,
- a decade or 11 years?
- Yeah, a decade.
And what was so great
about Tom's scene in Crisis
was it was written by
Don and Holly Whitehead,
who wrote on the original "Smallville".
- No.
- So, they obviously know the characters,
and this was an opportunity
for us to check back
in with Lois and Clark
and see what has basically happened
over the intervening ten years.
Oh, it was beautiful, man.
It was an excellent touch,
as well as including this man.
I want to thank Robert
Wuhl for joining us.
- Excellent. Excellent.
- Thank you, man.
Excellent talking to you. Thanks
for being involved in this.
- My pleasure.
- It was another bright moment
of my childhood to
come back to life, man.
It just delivered.
Fan service to the highest degree.
When we come back,
we've got the exclusive
world premiere teaser
for CW's newest superhero Stargirl.
Great Caesar's Ghost, it's
time for a commercial break.
We'll be right back.
Hey, man, welcome back
to "Crisis Aftermath",
your one-stop shop
for all things "Crisis
On Infinite Earths".
I'm Kal-El Smith.
Next year will not only be
bringing us the resolution
to "Crisis On Infinite Earths",
it'll also be giving us a brand-new hero
by the name of Stargirl.
And here's the creator
of Stargirl, Geoff Johns.
- How are you, sir?
- Hey, buddy. How you doing?
- Excellent seeing you, man.
- You, too.
Geoff, you ran DC comics for
years, for those that don't know.
You've worked on the movies.
Stargirl may not be
a household name yet.
Tell them who she is and
why she's special to you.
Well, she's the first character
I ever wrote in comic books,
and I created her in my
very first comic book.
But she is Courtney Whitmore,
and she's this teenager
whose mom remarries
and they move from L.A. to Nebraska.
And there she discovers
that her new stepfather,
Pat Dugan, played by Luke Wilson,
was a sidekick to a superhero
when he was younger.
And she finds his partner's old stuff
and goes for a joyride
and gets involved in
the superhero world.
And this character
has been close to you.
For how many years now, you've
been working on Stargirl?
- 20 years.
- What's it like to bring it
from the two-dimensional page
to the three-dimensional screen?
Oh, it's amazing. I mean,
she was inspired by my late sister,
so it means a lot to me personally
to have her come off the page
and onto the screen like this
and to work with the crew
and the cast that I did.
It was amazing.
It's so nice to see
you still in the space
and working on something that
means so damn much to you, man.
- Dani?
- Okay, so, when you were looking at casting,
what were some of the key
things that were important to you
that they embodied...
the actress embodied the character?
Well, I looked at so many
casting tapes and people that came in.
And it was actually Brec Bassinger,
who plays Stargirl... she's amazing.
Right when I saw her tape,
I was like, "That's her".
- Really? Just with the tape?
- Yeah, it was done.
- Yeah.
- Self-tapes work.
- Okay, good to know.
- They do, and then...
Did it have anything to do with
her alliterative superhero name?
- Brec Bassinger?
- Yeah, she sounds like...
Well, it's a great superhero name,
but she actually is a superhero to me.
She's an amazing actor to work with.
She embodies, like, a heroic nature.
She's, you know, super nice
and incredibly talented.
But it was humor and heart
that came through on that tape.
And then she came in
and read for us live,
and it just confirmed
that everything I felt.
But it was... It was
immediate. It was not...
- Wow.
- And I'd looked at and seen so many people.
And, obviously, I was gonna be
very particular about this role.
- It's so close to you.
- Yeah.
For Pat Dugan, played by Luke Wilson,
I wrote the part for him. I
didn't know him, but I wrote...
When I wrote Pat Dugan,
I thought of Luke Wilson.
And I wrote him a letter,
and I said, "Hey, I wrote this for you".
- And we met and he loved it.
- You scored him.
Look at you. Vision
quest. Well done, man.
So you've been living with this thing
for about how long now? A
year you been working on it?
Yeah, we've been working
on it since over a year now.
And it's all done and ready to go,
and I'm anxious for people to see it.
I know, and you've seen so much of it.
We've seen absolutely nothing.
But now, right now,
we're gonna see the world premiere,
a first look at CW's "Stargirl".
Check it out.
Starman, are you there? Starman?
The Justice Society must live on.
Someone with honor must carry the torch.
I know this has been difficult,
with the move, and a new stepfather,
but we're gonna make a good life.
Hey! Sorry, that's just real delicate.
What are you?
It's the cosmic staff.
It's extremely temperamental.
The staff's not supposed to
work for anyone except Starman.
This has to be the
reason the staff lit up.
The staff chose me...
... and I choose you.
I never thought there'd
be another Starman.
Stargirl.
"Stargirl", new series
coming spring 2020
on The CW.
You know what, man? I have a child,
and I saw that child get born,
and that's better than that.
That is incredible, man!
- I can't believe it. Congratulations.
- Thanks.
It must feel amazing to
see it go from the page
- up on to a real show. You rock, man.
- Very exciting.
- Thanks, buddy.
- Well done.
Check out "Stargirl"
when it drops next year.
Thanks, Geoff, for stopping by.
You wanna get hugged to death by Beebo?
Then don't go anywhere. Stick
around for more "Crisis Aftermath".
My Lord, that looks phenomenal.
Holy moly! Welcome back
to "Crisis Aftermath".
This show's almost
over, man, but fear not.
there are still two more hours
of "Crisis On Infinite Earths"
starting 8 PM on January 14th.
And I have no idea
what's gonna happen, man.
So to help us look into the future
here's "Legends of Tomorrow"
showrunner Keto Shimizu.
- How are you, Keto?
- I'm doing great. How are you?
Right on, man. I'm so good.
We're getting to the end of
this, but we need your help.
So, to recap, kids,
the Multiverse is gone.
Right? The Anti-Monitor
seems to have won.
The final installment
of Crisis happens during
"Legends Of Tomorrow".
What can you tell us
about the Legends' role
in this Arrowverse epic?
The Captain, Sara Lance,
has a huge role to
play in the final hour.
It's really when she comes
into her own as leader
of all of these amazing heroes
to really pull everybody together
and, you know, honor
everything that's happened
both in her life and
in this crazy crossover,
and steer everybody into the final
confrontation with the Anti-Monitor.
It's really epic and really fun.
That's why I love that she was named
the Paragon of Destiny,
because even in the last episode
where she was talking with Oliver
and he was trying to apologize,
and she had like accepted
her destiny so much.
And she was trying to tell
him, "No, I wouldn't be this
if that hadn't happened".
But she also brings
that out in other people.
Like, she has this band
of misfits that I think,
you know, people don't
necessarily have faith in.
And she's allowed them to accept
all their flaws as their destiny.
Let's talk about the
Legends for a second.
This is the show in the Arrowverse
that seems to have grown
the most and evolved the most
from the original incarnation to now.
Like, it was always kind of a fun idea,
but you guys started
leaning into the fun
of a comic book universe
in a big bad way about,
- what, season three?
- Two.
Part way through two, and then
three, it really, really...
- we just went crazy.
- And then found its...
Really found it. So of the shows,
they definitely have the
more humorous sensibility.
How does that blend in to
"Crisis On Infinite Earths"?
Honestly, I think the humor
that the Legends bring
to all of the hours is
a nice sort of breath
of fresh air in a way,
'cause, you know, it's...
there's a lot going on.
There's a lot of plot
that's being driven.
There's, like, 86 cast members.
Exactly, there's so many
people, so many heroes,
and there are so many intense,
emotional conversations happening
that it helps to have
just that sort of lightness
peppered in to sort of
bring it up and be like,
"Oh, yeah, this is
also super crazy fun".
And, you know, these characters help
bring that out of other people as well.
Also, where can we read
Rory's romance novel?
- Yeah.
- Is that out?
That is a missed marketing tie-in.
- I know. I don't know how...
- Somebody's fan fiction.
There aren't enough Beebos in the store
and this book does not
exist in the real world.
Both these things are true.
For the fans. You gotta
do it for the fans.
This show has a lot of fans
and we have fan questions coming in
from the Twitterverse, man.
MeliGrayce has this question.
_
_
_
_
_
- Keto?
- Well, it's actually really interesting.
We decided that because
our season is coming after
this incredible, massive event,
that we would actually
lean into that in our season
and let the fallout from
what happens in Crisis...
- Nice.
- ... really affect our season.
It affects it emotionally with Sara
going forward in a big way.
But also our mythology is directly tied
to the fallout from the
results of the Crisis.
Marc, before we get out of
here, as one of the architects
of all this, you got information
about what's gonna happen in 2020.
Give us a little something, man.
Something to hold us
over for the holidays.
I'll say a lot of, you know,
your big questions get answered.
I think there's some
really great surprises,
still some wonderful moments,
some wonderful cameos still yet to come.
And probably one of the
biggest, most epic fights
that we've ever done
on any of the shows,
certainly in any of the crossovers.
So you got to check it out January 14th.
I'm gonna be there, man.
I want to thank you for
building the universe
that we all get to enjoy,
some of us get to play in.
I've played in it from time to time
and I wouldn't have gotten to
direct a "Flash" or "Supergirl"
had there not been an "Arrow", man.
So you guys engineered something special
that has trickled down,
and now it's gonna
live for all eternity.
I have a feeling something big
is gonna happen to Oliver Queen in a way
that we'll carry him with us
in our hearts forever
and stuff like that.
I can't wait to see
what happens next year.
I don't want to live
through these holidays.
I just want to go to
sleep, wake up January...
- what's the date?
- January 14th.
14th, that's gonna be my Christmas.
Man, I want to thank my panel,
my special guests, and most of all,
I want to thank the fans.
That's you folks at home, man.
This is all for you.
As you can hear, a lot of
fan service at work here
and there's still lots more to come.
Can our Paragons save the Multiverse?
We're gonna find out. We're
gonna find out all the answers
in the final two hours of
"Crisis On Infinite Earths"
airing January 14th
at 8 PM on The CW.
Man, I'm Kevin Smith.
Thanks for watching "Crisis Aftermath"
with us, everybody. Good night.
Everything changes right now, folks.
Resurrections, evil heroes,
the death of the Flash,
but not that Flash.
We're gonna talk about all of it
right here on "Crisis Aftermath".
Come on!
Welcome to "Crisis Aftermath", man.
It's a good thing that this show
exists outside of time and space,
because things are looking
pretty bad for our heroes.
So much to cover.
Where do we even begin?
How about introducing the panel, man?
Executive producer Marc
Guggenheim is with us again.
Universally recognized
nerd Dani Fernandez is back.
And look at this. The
baddest of the bad, man.
And the baldest of the bald.
Lex Luthor himself, Jon Cryer is here!
- Captain, how are you, man?
- Thank you, thank you.
I am very well. Very well. And you?
So damn good. I have been enjoying
what you've been doing with Luthor.
Look, I'll get into it later,
but I think it's the best
interpretation of Luthor
that's ever been done.
We'll talk about it in a second.
- Wow, okay.
- The Multiverse is kaput,
Superman is dead,
and Anti-Monitor's evil plan
is centered around God's
cruelest invention a treadmill.
Jon, here's a question
from Twitter, man.
They're asking... Orphansteph says...
_
Ah, well, we shot a
huge scene in a quarry.
And it hasn't actually played yet,
but it is the huge shadow demon battle.
And we shot it in an
actual working quarry...
- Mm-hmm.
- ... so there was actual
huge explosions of dynamite
going on as we were shooting.
So it was pouring rain,
there were stunts...
it was crazy stunts, and
we had stunt explosions
and real explosions with,
like, small avalanches.
The thing was, they were pulling
out the stops for the crossover.
And, honestly, when I had done
three episodes of "Supergirl" last year
and they told me they were doing Crisis,
I said, "Okay, that might
be something I have to do".
So, let me ask... that was
something I wanted to know.
Were you only gonna do Luthor for just
that little bit and then never again?
And then you heard about this,
and you were like, "I wanna still play"?
Yeah, well, the idea was
that Luthor was only
gonna do three episodes.
- Yeah.
- And that was... the whole point was
we were just gonna have some
fun in this particular universe
and that was gonna be it.
But, obviously, the character
caught fire a little bit,
and I knew Crisis was coming up
and I really wanted
to participate in that.
And now you inherited the mantle,
and your take on the character,
to me, as a comic book reader,
is the closest to the
books that I've ever seen,
except within the animated series, man.
Like, live action? That is Luthor.
I remember reading something about you,
and I don't know if
it was tongue in cheek.
But you were like, "I gotta make up for,
like, the 'Superman' that I was in".
Which I assume was more
humor than anything else.
But you're a guy that's
known for being funny,
for playing funny.
Was it exciting to be offered,
like, the ultimate villain?
Yes, it was.
It was a little odd
because the way it came
about was very strange.
I got a call from an old friend
of mine from summer camp,
who said, "You know,
I think the producers
of 'Supergirl' are trying
to get in touch with you".
I'm like, "What?" And then Bill Prady,
who was a producer of "Big Bang Theory",
wrote me an email saying,
"Somebody wants to ask you
about playing Mex Muthor".
And I said, "Wait,
what is happening here?"
And then I got the call.
And at first I just thought, "Why me?"
You know, in a million
years, I wouldn't think...
but then the second I started really
going through the iterations
of who this guy is,
I was like, "Oh, my God,
I wanna do this guy".
And that I had the
history with, you know,
obviously, working with Gene.
But, yeah, that interview
was not really a joke.
It was that "Superman IV" was
a very emotional thing for me.
Being a part of the Superman
universe was really important to me.
And, unfortunately, that movie...
they ran out of money on it.
I don't know if you've
seen "Superman IV",
- but it is not the most...
- A couple times.
It is not the most polished
of the Superman franchise.
And I'd always been very
disappointed in that.
I had always felt
like... and it was also
sort of the end of the
Christopher Reeve Superman.
And that broke my heart,
because I loved it as a kid.
In 1978, when I saw
"Superman: The Movie",
- I believed a man could fly.
- You believed a man could fly.
Exactly. And so being a part
of that was important to me,
and I felt like we let
down the legacy of it.
And so when the producers of "Supergirl"
told me what they wanted to do with Lex,
I was like, "Oh".
'Cause I haven't seen
a comics-accurate Lex.
You're absolutely right.
Did you go to the
material? Are you a fan?
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
I collect Jack Kirby comic art.
I go to Comic-Con on purpose.
And just by myself for fun.
I grew up kind of immersed
in the Marvel universe,
and only actually came
later to understand
all the great stuff
that was going on in DC.
But a part of my youth...
and "Crisis" itself
was a part of my youth,
because it was so ambitious.
As an '80s kid, I never could've
envisioned Ducky as Luthor.
You are absolutely pulling it off.
- You're nailing it, man.
- Oh, thank you.
I also love that everyone
tried to get a hold of you.
It's, like, dude, check your DMs.
- I know. You're right.
- You know? Like...
Hours two and three of Crisis
were all about the Paragons, man.
The search for those seven
extra-special do-gooders
set this whole adventure in motion.
So, Mark, what do the
Paragons represent?
Well, you know, they represent
different aspects of humanity.
You know, hope and love
and courage and truth.
But what they really represented
for us as writers was
we needed a McGuffin.
We needed our heroes to
be looking for something.
And every year prior to
"Crisis On Infinite Earths",
they did an annual crossover
between "The Justice League of America"
and "The Justice Society of America".
And the last one before "Crisis",
written by Jerry Conway
and drawn George Price,
who drew "Crisis", was about the idea
that there were these
special characters that...
in the comic, if you remove
them from the universe,
basically all superheroes
would disappear.
But the idea that there
are these special heroes
that are out in the multiverse,
that was worth appropriating.
- And appropriating...
- Stealing.
Yeah, there we go.
Just call it what it is.
Fancy writer talk over there.
Let's talk about Batwoman,
the Paragon of Courage.
Dani, what makes Batwoman
courageous in your estimation?
Well, she was not someone
that originally even
planned to be a vigilante.
And she's also fighting alongside
people that have superpowers,
so that takes a lot
of courage, to be like,
"Oh, I might be the
first one to die here".
But she also has tremendous PTSD.
She's dealing with
discrimination for her sexuality.
There's so many things that
she is going up against,
so many obstacles that she's had.
And yet she still is fighting
for us for some reason.
So that... I mean, that
takes a lot of courage.
- Absolutely.
- She stands up against Supergirl, you know?
Yeah, she's got some
kryptonite in her pocket,
but she's got a lot of courage
there in that moment.
They do have a nice "World's
Finest" dynamic going on,
with Kara being like,
"Hey, we're friends",
and Batwoman being like, "I don't know".
I think in the years to come,
we will see that the relationship
between Kate and Kara
is the replacement for the relationship
between Barry and Oliver.
Ooh, nice, man. Inside dirt right there.
Jon, Lex Luthor seems to
have taken Superman's place
as a Paragon of Truth
thanks to the Bookmark of Destiny.
Yes.
Let's take another look
at how he got there.
- We have to go back right now.
- Barry, we can't.
They're gone.
No.
- Something's wrong.
- Kal? Kal?
- Something's wrong.
- No.
- I can't...
- Hey, hey, hey.
I can't... Kara, please.
Fix it...
Fix it.
What do I do?
No, no!
Oh, I am so happy that worked.
Lex, what did you do?
Well, I held the Book of Destiny
and I saw you seven
Paragons due to be stranded
at the Vanishing Point.
And I thought destiny
could use a little rewrite.
So...
what do we do now?
You're in a scene like that.
Are you like, "Get me a costume!"
I get some very nice suits.
- You do.
- They're beautifully tailored.
Uh, yeah, you know, it was...
it was me and a bunch of capes.
You look like the one guy at the house
that everybody's trick-or-treating at.
Yeah, it was fun, though.
You know, it was...
and also a great sort of
gut punch part of the show,
'cause, you know...
'cause that was my holy...
holy moment,
was going, "Oh, no".
You know, 'cause Brandon as Superman
is just a great Superman.
And it's something they've
been teasing the whole time.
- The whole time.
- Like, "You're gonna see him in the suit! He's back!"
- And then you take him away.
- Oh, God!
It's like in "Aliens"
when the captain...
or rather "Alien",
when the captain dies.
You know, it's like, "Oh, no.
- Things are not gonna go well from here".
- Anything can happen.
What is it like playing Lex Luthor?
How does one approach the character?
Because it's... you know, it's...
one would be tempted to
play him as just a villain,
but he doesn't see himself as a villain.
He sees himself as a world savior.
Oh, absolutely.
- He's a bit of a sociopath...
- Yeah.
... in this one. They've
allowed that layer to come in.
Whereas he's been a little
more clownish in the films
- and stuff like that.
- Right.
But even the worst sociopath...
you know, Ted Bundy
was incredibly charming
and worked at a suicide
prevention hotline.
He saved some lives. So
people are complicated,
and that's what I'm letting Lex be.
Ted Bundy is like, "Why
are you harshing on me?
- I saved all these other lives".
- Exactly.
- "I only killed a couple of hundred".
- "On the average..."
You know, it's nice when
everyone can talk about Bundy
and end with, "It's complicated".
- Well, you know...
- Really reduces it down to what it is.
I want to thank Jon Cryer
for joining us, man.
- Excellent job...
- Truly a pleasure.
- ... killing Luthor.
- Thank you.
- Well, not killing, but killing it as Luthor.
- Killing it as.
We gotta be careful
what we say around here.
People take it seriously,
write it down on the Internet.
We've got so much more in store tonight
on "Crisis Aftermath", including a visit
from the voice of Batman
himself, Kevin Conroy.
And the world premiere teaser
for CW's newest superhero Stargirl, man.
I've read the Book of Destiny
and it says you won't go anywhere.
Stay right there.
Hey, man, welcome back
to "Crisis Aftermath".
I'm here with Marc
Guggenheim, Dani Fernandez,
and our next guest is the
showrunner of "The Flash".
It's Eric Wallace. How are you, sir?
- Doing great.
- Okay, as we saw tonight,
"Crisis On Infinite Earths"
deals a lot with fate and destiny.
The crisis itself has been teased
since the very first
episode of "The Flash".
I remember seeing this headline
and being incredibly excited inside,
goosebumps, going like,
"They're talking about 'Crisis'.
Like, I know what that
is. Will they ever do it?"
What is it like building
up to an event that massive?
You think to yourself,
"Okay, we've got to honor
this really incredible,
incredible comic book event".
So, you're putting the season together,
and we started at the end
last year wit "Elseworlds",
and you're like, "Does the
Flash really have to die?
Do we really have to do this?"
- And not only...
- I'm sure Grant was like, "No!"
I was the same way.
"We'll all be out of a job.
We can't do that. No, he's got to live".
So you've got to come up with
a way to honor what we've said
with the Monitor in 601
saying, "The Flash must die",
but also give it a nice story
twist, give it some emotion.
So we thought about
it for quite a while,
and we got to what I
hope the audience thinks
is a very satisfying conclusion,
which is a little bit of
the best of both worlds.
Grant almost doing it, wanting to,
being the hero that we always
thought he was gonna be,
and at the very last second,
in comes John Wesley Shipp...
- Right.
- ... and it completes a 30-year arc.
And here I am watching
this, weeping, right?
- That's tears rolling.
- I'm 14-year-old Eric
watching that CBS pilot back in the day
and I'm thinking, "Wow, this
could only happen on a crossover".
You even brought in the score.
- Yes.
- Like, when I heard the old score come in,
I was...
And, you know, John Wesley Shipp
has been well served by the
Arrowverse for years now,
but this is such a
grand, glorious moment
to see him back in that suit.
Because in many ways, like,
that show is a trailblazer
for, like, what you guys
have been doing for years.
Seeing him back in the suit and then
dying as the Flash is really, really...
And that flashback moment, oh!
- Does it get you?
- Yes.
- It gets me every time.
- Oh, man. I know.
- And that was my Flash growing up.
- Yes.
And to see that come full
circle? Tears right there.
- We didn't script that originally.
- I know.
That was something that we
added in the editing room.
- So it wasn't in the script?
- It wasn't in the script.
So, what happens in
an instance like that?
You cut together the
show and you're like,
- "Ooh, if we did this..."
- We want to see...
we want to see a little
bit of his life flashing...
no pun intended...
before his eyes, you know?
We just craved it, and,
you know, our amazing,
you know, post-producer Jeff Garret,
you know, went to the
archives and got the footage.
And we knew we had to
change the aspect ratio
because it was a different
aspect ratio back then.
That's right, they were
shot 1.33 back in the day.
So, um... but, man, it's awesome.
It's one of my favorite
moments in that hour.
That's crazy, man. That's a nice touch.
As we were saying, we finally
saw Flash meet his fate,
but it didn't play out
exactly like he expected,
so let's take another look.
I couldn't be the hero
I am without you guys.
Tell Joe and Iris I love them.
We will.
Sorry, kid, but this has to happen.
Barry, what are you doing?
I'm momentarily stealing your speed.
You play the speedster game long
enough, you learn some neat tricks.
Wait, why are you doing this?
Novu said, "The Flash
must die in Crisis".
He never said which one.
Come on, you're cruel, man.
How do you decide to
kill off such a big hero?
I mean, look, you killed off the Flash,
but not the Flash that everyone's, like,
- tuning in to see every week.
- Right.
So you can have your
cake and eat it, too.
We did, we did.
- But hopefully we honor the original Flash...
- You did, yeah.
... you know, from the '90s show.
And up until that moment
right before it happens,
hopefully the audience
is literally saying,
"There's no way out of this.
There's no way out of this".
And then the twist comes,
and you have these two great
performers, two generations,
where you have Grant
Gustin who loves John
and John loves Wesley...
- I guess he loves himself.
- He loves himself.
Who doesn't love the Flash, right?
But John loving Grant, and to
see them working together...
and that was real emotion
that you saw in that scene
as they kind of
realized... Grant's like,
"He's passing a real torch to me.
This really is the end of him".
And then John, he told
us, I think, afterwards,
"Thank you for giving me
this opportunity to close a chapter".
Oh, my God, I'm gonna cry.
I'm gonna cry just thinking about it.
That's so true. I never
thought about that.
When they ended "Flash",
it ended unceremoniously,
and they didn't like,
"Here's your season finale".
So to actually bring
closure to his incarnation?
Come on, that's a gift.
That John Wesley Shipp
death, that's big time.
- We're very lucky.
- Absolutely. Absolutely true.
Now that the Anti-Monitor
has won, ostensibly,
the Multiverse is gone
and everything is nothing.
I personally am having
trouble staying sane, man.
Here to give us the
latest Multiverse report
is "Entertainment Weekly's"
own Chancellor Agard.
Chancellor, how you doing, man?
Dealing.
All right, take us there.
You got the big board.
I got some things here.
I can try to help you out.
Well, in the past two hours,
we went to eight parallel Earths.
First we started on Earth 18,
where Barry, Mia, Constantine, and Sara
tried to resurrect Oliver
and kind of turned him into a zombie,
and fought a version of Jonah
Hex without his iconic scar.
Then we went to Earth 167
where we encountered Tom
Welling from "Smallville",
who gave up his powers
to chop wood and have kids
with "Smallville's" Erica Durance,
the Lois Lane to his Clark.
- He still won't wear the "S".
- No!
On Earth 96, Brandon Routh wore the "S",
specifically in a suit based off
Alex Ross's "Kingdom Come" design.
Oh, yeah, we were all
very tingly about that.
And speaking of "Kingdom Come",
that comic also gave us the rock bottom
Bruce Wayne wearing the exoskeleton
who killed Superman on Earth 99,
played by, in my opinion,
the best Batman, Kevin Conroy,
who voiced him on the animated
series and in the video games.
- Yes.
- Then on Earth 666,
while the name is not so subtle,
nor is the man himself, Lucifer,
played by Tom Ellis on
the Netflix show "Lucifer",
which is inspired by the
DC comic "The Sandman".
This is his first Arrowverse
appearance, as you said earlier.
Also making his Arrowverse
debut is Black Lightning.
So now the only CW show not involved
in a crossover is "Nancy Drew".
- Yes.
- And, finally...
we learn that Earth
203 is where the women
from the 2000s-era "Birds
of Prey" show hang out.
But none of this matters
because the Anti-Monitor
destroyed all of this and
everything we love and know,
including this entire segment.
Faster!
There you have it.
There it is. Thanks, Chancellor, man.
Good Lord, it takes a mind
to bring us through all that.
Okay.
"Nancy Drew" was
supposed to be a spoiler.
♪ It's so hard ♪
♪ To say good-bye ♪
♪ To our favorite characters
from the Arrowverse ♪
Let's take a minute now to pay tribute
to all the people,
places, and, yes, planets
that we've lost along the way.
Roll that sad-ass clip.
I made a promise to keep
fighting no matter what.
My world died.
My family.
Hadn't even thought of that.
Now facing my own mortality.
- So weird.
- That's very meta.
Yeah, right?
I love that they did dogs and not cats.
- Aww.
- I want to thank Eric for joining us, man.
When we come back, we're
gonna be talking to a man
who sounds a lot like Batman.
And we have the world premiere
of the "Stargirl" teaser.
In brightest day, in blackest night,
we will see you later
tonight. Stick around.
Welcome back, man. You're
watching "Crisis Aftermath",
the official "Crisis On
Infinite Earths" aftershow.
The Anti-Monitor's evil plan
brought an end to the universe
and killed everyone we've ever loved.
But on the plus side,
the Arrowverse finally
got to see Bruce Wayne,
although this Bruce Wayne
was a bit of a grump.
Let's look.
This guy's not a paragon of anything.
I was right. We can't trust The Monitor.
- What did you do?
- Clearly, what you couldn't.
How was he a threat?
Strange visitor from another planet
comes to Earth with powers and abilities
far beyond those of mortal men?
Clark.
Clark always said yes to
anyone with a badge or a flag.
He gave them too much power.
My parents taught me a
very different lesson.
Life only makes sense
if you force it to.
Come on, man!
Holy crap, I am so happy to have
one of my personal idols here.
The one true Batman,
ladies and gentlemen.
- It's Kevin Conroy.
- Hey, how's it going?
How's it going? Good to see you.
- Hey!
- Yes, everybody knows.
I am vengeance.
- I'm like...
- My nipples got hard, man.
I'm in the radius of his voice.
- I can, like, feel it.
- There you go.
You have spent the
better part of the last,
- what, 25 years or more...
- 27.
27 years as the voice
of the one true Batman.
This is the first time you actually
got to physically portray
him in real media.
- What was that like?
- I know. It was incredible
to get that opportunity, finally.
But as old Bruce Wayne, you know?
Old, sort of angry,
bitter Bruce Wayne.
So it's a version of
him I had never imagined,
and I really leapt at the opportunity.
- I was so happy.
- How did it happen?
You got a call and they were like,
"Hey, man, we got an idea".
Well, it was so wonderful.
It was sort of a mixture of worlds
because the person who's responsible
for a lot of casting
at Warner Bros. now,
for on-camera casting, is someone
I've known for 40 years from...
- I used to do theater in New York, as you know.
- Yeah.
And, um, I know Tom Berg
from the old days in New York,
and he knew my work from the stage.
So he knew me as an on-camera
actor and as stage actor
long before any of the
voice stuff came along.
So when this came up, I think the
producers were talking about it,
and Tom was there to
say, "Well, you know,
I know him from his on-camera work
and his stage work. He can handle this".
So it was a mixture of
worlds. It was wonderful.
Was it that simple?
And were you in the room
when they were like, "What if
we got Kevin Conroy to do it?
Well, yeah. We wanted Kate
to meet a version of Bruce
that was obviously different
from the Earth 1 version of Bruce.
We were talking about who
could play an older Batman,
an older Bruce Wayne.
And the moment Kevin's
name came up in the room,
the entire room went insane.
I mean, just insane. And
we knew we had to do it.
And, you know, Tom...
actually, I think he was like,
"I'm actually having
dinner with Kevin tomorrow".
Then he brought it up to him.
We've remained friends for 40 years,
so that was just a
great happy coincidence.
There's a lot of things that
happen both on these shows
and in the crossover
that, quite frankly,
I believe only happened
by dint of destiny.
- Really?
- And this was absolutely
one of those fortuitous
moments where it's like,
"Oh, this is meant to be".
When you talk about
destiny, though, I mean,
my even playing this role...
this is the first animated
role I ever auditioned for.
- Are you kidding?
- Never.
- Wow.
- It was the first audition
I went in on for an animated character.
Your performance as Batman
is the one that, like,
when I read a comic
book, I hear your voice.
When I think of Batman, when
I see a review of something
and they talk about, "Batman says this",
I always hear it in your voice.
- Yes.
- You are so... yes!
- The brain-washing worked.
- Oh!
I get a young brain and I hold on.
That was... that was
absolutely wonderful.
Since we have the voice
of Batman right here,
we knew that we had to milk it.
So we asked fans what they'd most like
to hear the Dark Knight say.
Kevin, you down to read some of this?
- I'm down.
- Oh, yeah!
Here we go, man. Take it away.
_
Yes!
_
Oh, such a better version of "Titanic".
I wish both the kids had
lived in that version.
_
_
_
Oh, every Nickelodeon kid just lost it.
- Oh, no!
- Yes.
_
_
_
Oh. I think we've all been
waiting to hear that one.
_
_
_
_
I don't feel like a fan did that.
I snuck that one in myself.
I'm literally gonna roll a tear, man.
Kevin, thank you so much
for not only joining us,
- for being Batman for the last 27 years.
- Thank you. Appreciate it.
We gotta take a break,
but when we come back,
we're gonna chat with Robert Wuhl
about returning to the DC universe.
And we look forward to January's finale
of "Crisis On Infinite Earths", man.
We're para-gone, but not para-forgotten.
Stick around. We'll be right back.
Hey, man, and welcome
back to "Crisis Aftermath",
broadcasting from the
heart of Los Angeles 69.
I'm your host Kevin Smith.
Joining us now, the man
who played Alexander Knox
in Tim Burton's "Batman",
it's Robert Wuhl!
- How are you, sir? Such a pleasure, man.
- How you doing, buddy?
We got to see you in
the first installment
of "Crisis On Infinite Earths",
but it seems you were
nothinged by an anti-matter ray.
- Yeah. Just one line.
- Yeah.
It was great fun, though,
I have to tell you, I had a blast.
They asked me to do it.
I didn't think twice.
I just, "Yeah, I can do it".
- It's been 30 years, which is...
- It's been a minute.
And you were there for the laying
- of the track in 1989 with Tim Burton's "Batman".
- Yeah.
- Right.
- That is the model
from which most superhero movies
are kind of cut at this point.
When you guys were there
did you ever imagine one day
there'd be a universe of movies
with a lot of people in costume?
Batman makes sense, because
they had done the TV show.
Did you foresee
superheroes, like, in legion?
Well, not to this extent.
Look, I knew I was a
part of something special.
First of all, going to Pinewood studios
and seeing Tim Burton's
Gotham City every day
- was really cool.
- Right.
Because I was not a big
fan of the TV series.
- It was too jokey for me.
- Right.
And people were worried.
A, it was the most expensive
movie ever made up to that point.
B, it was much darker than
anybody expected it to be.
And C, are you old enough to remember
the backlash of Michael Keaton?
There was... it was...
people were so mad,
it broke the Internet
- and there was no Internet.
- Exactly. I mean, exactly.
Michael Keaton being announced
as Batman, we look back...
- We were like, "Mr. Mom?"
- Exactly.
It was Mr. Mom, or in
London it was Mr. Mum.
And then, of course,
you had Jack, you know,
which was a whole
different kettle of fish.
Right. I remember that
movie so well, incredibly well.
But I remember the trailer, too.
The dry trailer.
The first trailer they did,
which had almost no score.
It was just a series of images.
And you have the...
"Detective, is there a six-foot
bat in Gotham City?" line.
The moment resonates with me.
When they called you up for Crisis,
and they're like, "We
want you to come back
to play Alexander Knox",
do you even bother going
back to look at the movie?
"What did I do 30, 40 years ago?"
Actually, it was funny,
because I had tuned it in.
It was on one of the
channels, and I hadn't seen it
in about 10, 15 years.
And I watched about an hour of it,
and, yes, it was dark,
- but it was also fun.
- Very much.
The first ones were fun, more so than...
Jack Nicholson brought a lot
of fun because he's Joker,
- in particular, yeah.
- The Prince songs.
- The Prince, yes.
- The, uh...
you know, so it was fun.
You gotta remember,
too, in terms of 1989,
when they did this
incarnation of Batman,
Batman fans were, like, "Finally.
This is the real Batman".
- He ain't jokey. He's dark.
- That's right.
This is dark. Okay.
Not only did we get to
revisit Tim Burton's "Batman",
we also got another chance
to see Tom Welling
as Clark Kent from "Smallville".
But anyone expecting
him to wear the cape
was in for a bit of a surprise,
including Lex Luthor.
You gave up your powers?
Can't say I miss these chats.
You were basically a god. You could fly.
You could see through walls.
You had super strength.
You're kidding me.
That is worth more than any superpower.
Hey, Clark, the girls want to
show you what they made.
I think it's time for you to...
Still stronger.
Ahh! That's dope, man.
Marc, how'd you pick
the cameos for this?
Because there have been DC
movies and shows over history
and you've pulled from a lot of them.
How do you do it? How
do you figure it out?
We just had a list.
And we got so lucky.
I remember saying to the writers
as we were working on this I said,
if we have a list of
a hundred cool things
and we only do 50,
then we've still done 50 cool things.
It's just a cool thing, man.
It's, once again, fan service.
I loved seeing all
the different Supermans
because I feel like there's
so many different ways
that you can play him.
And he, wrongly, I think,
gets put in this singular box
and people think that he's simple.
But he's farthest thing.
- He's such a complex character.
- He's tough to write for.
- True.
- Like, most writers will dismiss it and be like,
"How do you write for a guy
that's got all the powers in the world?"
- But that's kind of the challenge.
- Yeah.
And that "Smallville" moment
was kind of everything,
particularly for old-school
"Smallville" fans who were there.
Before there was an Arrowverse,
there was a "Smallville"
series that went for, what,
- a decade or 11 years?
- Yeah, a decade.
And what was so great
about Tom's scene in Crisis
was it was written by
Don and Holly Whitehead,
who wrote on the original "Smallville".
- No.
- So, they obviously know the characters,
and this was an opportunity
for us to check back
in with Lois and Clark
and see what has basically happened
over the intervening ten years.
Oh, it was beautiful, man.
It was an excellent touch,
as well as including this man.
I want to thank Robert
Wuhl for joining us.
- Excellent. Excellent.
- Thank you, man.
Excellent talking to you. Thanks
for being involved in this.
- My pleasure.
- It was another bright moment
of my childhood to
come back to life, man.
It just delivered.
Fan service to the highest degree.
When we come back,
we've got the exclusive
world premiere teaser
for CW's newest superhero Stargirl.
Great Caesar's Ghost, it's
time for a commercial break.
We'll be right back.
Hey, man, welcome back
to "Crisis Aftermath",
your one-stop shop
for all things "Crisis
On Infinite Earths".
I'm Kal-El Smith.
Next year will not only be
bringing us the resolution
to "Crisis On Infinite Earths",
it'll also be giving us a brand-new hero
by the name of Stargirl.
And here's the creator
of Stargirl, Geoff Johns.
- How are you, sir?
- Hey, buddy. How you doing?
- Excellent seeing you, man.
- You, too.
Geoff, you ran DC comics for
years, for those that don't know.
You've worked on the movies.
Stargirl may not be
a household name yet.
Tell them who she is and
why she's special to you.
Well, she's the first character
I ever wrote in comic books,
and I created her in my
very first comic book.
But she is Courtney Whitmore,
and she's this teenager
whose mom remarries
and they move from L.A. to Nebraska.
And there she discovers
that her new stepfather,
Pat Dugan, played by Luke Wilson,
was a sidekick to a superhero
when he was younger.
And she finds his partner's old stuff
and goes for a joyride
and gets involved in
the superhero world.
And this character
has been close to you.
For how many years now, you've
been working on Stargirl?
- 20 years.
- What's it like to bring it
from the two-dimensional page
to the three-dimensional screen?
Oh, it's amazing. I mean,
she was inspired by my late sister,
so it means a lot to me personally
to have her come off the page
and onto the screen like this
and to work with the crew
and the cast that I did.
It was amazing.
It's so nice to see
you still in the space
and working on something that
means so damn much to you, man.
- Dani?
- Okay, so, when you were looking at casting,
what were some of the key
things that were important to you
that they embodied...
the actress embodied the character?
Well, I looked at so many
casting tapes and people that came in.
And it was actually Brec Bassinger,
who plays Stargirl... she's amazing.
Right when I saw her tape,
I was like, "That's her".
- Really? Just with the tape?
- Yeah, it was done.
- Yeah.
- Self-tapes work.
- Okay, good to know.
- They do, and then...
Did it have anything to do with
her alliterative superhero name?
- Brec Bassinger?
- Yeah, she sounds like...
Well, it's a great superhero name,
but she actually is a superhero to me.
She's an amazing actor to work with.
She embodies, like, a heroic nature.
She's, you know, super nice
and incredibly talented.
But it was humor and heart
that came through on that tape.
And then she came in
and read for us live,
and it just confirmed
that everything I felt.
But it was... It was
immediate. It was not...
- Wow.
- And I'd looked at and seen so many people.
And, obviously, I was gonna be
very particular about this role.
- It's so close to you.
- Yeah.
For Pat Dugan, played by Luke Wilson,
I wrote the part for him. I
didn't know him, but I wrote...
When I wrote Pat Dugan,
I thought of Luke Wilson.
And I wrote him a letter,
and I said, "Hey, I wrote this for you".
- And we met and he loved it.
- You scored him.
Look at you. Vision
quest. Well done, man.
So you've been living with this thing
for about how long now? A
year you been working on it?
Yeah, we've been working
on it since over a year now.
And it's all done and ready to go,
and I'm anxious for people to see it.
I know, and you've seen so much of it.
We've seen absolutely nothing.
But now, right now,
we're gonna see the world premiere,
a first look at CW's "Stargirl".
Check it out.
Starman, are you there? Starman?
The Justice Society must live on.
Someone with honor must carry the torch.
I know this has been difficult,
with the move, and a new stepfather,
but we're gonna make a good life.
Hey! Sorry, that's just real delicate.
What are you?
It's the cosmic staff.
It's extremely temperamental.
The staff's not supposed to
work for anyone except Starman.
This has to be the
reason the staff lit up.
The staff chose me...
... and I choose you.
I never thought there'd
be another Starman.
Stargirl.
"Stargirl", new series
coming spring 2020
on The CW.
You know what, man? I have a child,
and I saw that child get born,
and that's better than that.
That is incredible, man!
- I can't believe it. Congratulations.
- Thanks.
It must feel amazing to
see it go from the page
- up on to a real show. You rock, man.
- Very exciting.
- Thanks, buddy.
- Well done.
Check out "Stargirl"
when it drops next year.
Thanks, Geoff, for stopping by.
You wanna get hugged to death by Beebo?
Then don't go anywhere. Stick
around for more "Crisis Aftermath".
My Lord, that looks phenomenal.
Holy moly! Welcome back
to "Crisis Aftermath".
This show's almost
over, man, but fear not.
there are still two more hours
of "Crisis On Infinite Earths"
starting 8 PM on January 14th.
And I have no idea
what's gonna happen, man.
So to help us look into the future
here's "Legends of Tomorrow"
showrunner Keto Shimizu.
- How are you, Keto?
- I'm doing great. How are you?
Right on, man. I'm so good.
We're getting to the end of
this, but we need your help.
So, to recap, kids,
the Multiverse is gone.
Right? The Anti-Monitor
seems to have won.
The final installment
of Crisis happens during
"Legends Of Tomorrow".
What can you tell us
about the Legends' role
in this Arrowverse epic?
The Captain, Sara Lance,
has a huge role to
play in the final hour.
It's really when she comes
into her own as leader
of all of these amazing heroes
to really pull everybody together
and, you know, honor
everything that's happened
both in her life and
in this crazy crossover,
and steer everybody into the final
confrontation with the Anti-Monitor.
It's really epic and really fun.
That's why I love that she was named
the Paragon of Destiny,
because even in the last episode
where she was talking with Oliver
and he was trying to apologize,
and she had like accepted
her destiny so much.
And she was trying to tell
him, "No, I wouldn't be this
if that hadn't happened".
But she also brings
that out in other people.
Like, she has this band
of misfits that I think,
you know, people don't
necessarily have faith in.
And she's allowed them to accept
all their flaws as their destiny.
Let's talk about the
Legends for a second.
This is the show in the Arrowverse
that seems to have grown
the most and evolved the most
from the original incarnation to now.
Like, it was always kind of a fun idea,
but you guys started
leaning into the fun
of a comic book universe
in a big bad way about,
- what, season three?
- Two.
Part way through two, and then
three, it really, really...
- we just went crazy.
- And then found its...
Really found it. So of the shows,
they definitely have the
more humorous sensibility.
How does that blend in to
"Crisis On Infinite Earths"?
Honestly, I think the humor
that the Legends bring
to all of the hours is
a nice sort of breath
of fresh air in a way,
'cause, you know, it's...
there's a lot going on.
There's a lot of plot
that's being driven.
There's, like, 86 cast members.
Exactly, there's so many
people, so many heroes,
and there are so many intense,
emotional conversations happening
that it helps to have
just that sort of lightness
peppered in to sort of
bring it up and be like,
"Oh, yeah, this is
also super crazy fun".
And, you know, these characters help
bring that out of other people as well.
Also, where can we read
Rory's romance novel?
- Yeah.
- Is that out?
That is a missed marketing tie-in.
- I know. I don't know how...
- Somebody's fan fiction.
There aren't enough Beebos in the store
and this book does not
exist in the real world.
Both these things are true.
For the fans. You gotta
do it for the fans.
This show has a lot of fans
and we have fan questions coming in
from the Twitterverse, man.
MeliGrayce has this question.
_
_
_
_
_
- Keto?
- Well, it's actually really interesting.
We decided that because
our season is coming after
this incredible, massive event,
that we would actually
lean into that in our season
and let the fallout from
what happens in Crisis...
- Nice.
- ... really affect our season.
It affects it emotionally with Sara
going forward in a big way.
But also our mythology is directly tied
to the fallout from the
results of the Crisis.
Marc, before we get out of
here, as one of the architects
of all this, you got information
about what's gonna happen in 2020.
Give us a little something, man.
Something to hold us
over for the holidays.
I'll say a lot of, you know,
your big questions get answered.
I think there's some
really great surprises,
still some wonderful moments,
some wonderful cameos still yet to come.
And probably one of the
biggest, most epic fights
that we've ever done
on any of the shows,
certainly in any of the crossovers.
So you got to check it out January 14th.
I'm gonna be there, man.
I want to thank you for
building the universe
that we all get to enjoy,
some of us get to play in.
I've played in it from time to time
and I wouldn't have gotten to
direct a "Flash" or "Supergirl"
had there not been an "Arrow", man.
So you guys engineered something special
that has trickled down,
and now it's gonna
live for all eternity.
I have a feeling something big
is gonna happen to Oliver Queen in a way
that we'll carry him with us
in our hearts forever
and stuff like that.
I can't wait to see
what happens next year.
I don't want to live
through these holidays.
I just want to go to
sleep, wake up January...
- what's the date?
- January 14th.
14th, that's gonna be my Christmas.
Man, I want to thank my panel,
my special guests, and most of all,
I want to thank the fans.
That's you folks at home, man.
This is all for you.
As you can hear, a lot of
fan service at work here
and there's still lots more to come.
Can our Paragons save the Multiverse?
We're gonna find out. We're
gonna find out all the answers
in the final two hours of
"Crisis On Infinite Earths"
airing January 14th
at 8 PM on The CW.
Man, I'm Kevin Smith.
Thanks for watching "Crisis Aftermath"
with us, everybody. Good night.