The first three hours of the CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths Arrowverse crossover were chock-full of cameos and guest appearances from past DC actors like Tom Welling, Kevin Conroy, and even Burt Ward. When the third hour of the event ended with the destruction of the entire positive matter universe, though, most people figured the cameos were over. Those people were in for a big surprise last night, though, when about twenty minutes into the Arrow hour of the two-hour Crisis on Infinite Earths finale, The Flash (Grant Gustin) encountered another alternate Flash: Ezra Miller, the Flash of the DC Comics Cinematic Universe.
Loyal Arrowverse fans knew something cool was coming in the conclusion of the crossover—Arrow EP Marc Guggenheim had teased some surprises on Twitter last week—but as far as I can tell no one had even an inkling of this cameo. On Instagram, Gustin shared some behind-the-scenes photos of himself with Miller, and a comment from Supergirl actress Melissa Benoist indicates that the circle of people who knew about the cameo ahead of time was very small:
“YOU KEPT THIS SECRET SO WELL,” Benoist wrote. “NONE of us knew!!!!”
On Twitter, Guggenheim thanked DC Comics co-publisher Jim Lee for helping to make the cameo happen.
https://twitter.com/mguggenheim/status/1217320804624498688
With the entire multiverse destroyed earlier in Crisis, how did the Ezra Miller Flash survive to make an appearance? There are a few possibilities. Gustin’s Flash encounters Miller’s Flash in the speed force, an extradimensional field that’s the source of the speedster’s powers. Miller’s presence there could mean that he was also in the speed force when his earth was destroyed. Another possibility is that the DC Extended Universe exists on an earth in an entirely different multiverse, completely separate from the CW multiverse and the positive matter and anti-matter universes. The third possibility, and what seems most likely, is wibbly wobbly timey wimey, don’t think about it too hard stuff.
Whatever the explanation, the appearance of the DCEU’s Flash was a genuine shock, given how walled-off DC has traditionally kept their television and movie universes. Miller is still currently slated to appear again as The Flash in an upcoming solo movie that he was at one point reportedly co-writing with Grant Morrison (that doesn’t appear to be the case anymore), and last month the film was given a release date of July 1st, 2022. Miller’s Crisis cameo is a nice reminder that the character, who I found to be one of the more entertaining parts of Justice League, is still out there.
