Chris24601

Since some of this might tangentially deal with what will happen in the Crisis Crossover I'm going to put in spoiler tags, but I'll only be referencing old comic stories that 5 (Rebirth) and 35 years old (Crisis on Infinite Earths) and hypotheticals based on those comics and what we've already seen in the crossover so if you don't mind being spoiled about comic stories about as old as Vader's "No, I am your father" line... feel free to proceed. The main reason I think they might go the way Rebirth went is, based on the casting calls, they're looking for a teenager to play their son Jon Kent and there's only three ways that can happen in relation to what we've seen. A) Clark and Lois lose their son in the time-stream and he spends 15 years growing up without them until he returns as a teenager. B) the Superman & Lois spin-off is set about 15 years in the future (c. 2035) with Jon having grown up normally but leaving the series completely out of temporal step with Supergirl and the rest of the Arrowverse shows (making ever crossing over even with Supergirl difficult). C) Earth-38 Superman, Lois and Jon end up in either Earth-38 or Earth-1's past (c. 2005) and then raise Jon in secret until 2020 when they re-emerge for whatever reason is the inciting incident of this series. Of those, A is such a downer/parent's worst fear scenario that I can't see them using it for the core of an ongoing Superman series. B would almost make sense if Jon were going to be 20 so that it would be set in 2040 contemporaneous with the new GA&tC series (allowing future crossovers with those two and present-day crossovers with the other shows), but putting it 15 years out of sync with the present, but still five years shy of the other new series seems like bad planning. That leaves something like C as the only scenario where you get teenage Jon and the ability of the show to interact with the rest of the present day Arrowverse.

While I agree they might not WANT to do big crossovers much anymore, the network is kind of insisting on it now. In an ironic twist given the source material, guest stars from the other showing is a way to boost viewership. "You don't want to miss the appearance by [Character X] when he shows up in [Comic/Show Y] so you better buy the comic tune in." Crossovers are basically that turned up to eleven. One of the things I could see the Arrowverse showrunners doing to placate the network a bit after this though might be to do more periodic single crossover guests because it sort of accomplishes the same purpose as the crossovers on a smaller, but more frequent, scale. So I do think part of the streamlining is simply so they don't have to worry about things like dimensional extrapolators and other bits you'd really have to have watched previous series to understand (especially once The Flash ends); particularly since they've already made a big deal of pushing Kara/Kate as a replacement for Ollie/Barry now that Arrow is ending and having them in the same universe removes a step from their teaming up from time to time. The other half though is, like I said, jumping to 2040 with the FTA spin-off and other potential spin-offs because "twenty years have passed since the end of Arrow/The Flash/Supergirl" is an easy answer for why Ollie/Barry/Kara aren't turning up to help. Sidebar: I suspect that the Flash and/or Supergirl will take advantage of the comic (in the comics Barry eventually reunites with Iris there and they have kids and grandkids... Bart Allen and XS are both Barry's grandkids from the 31st Century in the comics) and Justice League animated series lore respectively to send Barry/Iris and Supergirl to the 31st Century when their series end, thus conveniently removing them from showing up in future stories while still giving them a happy ever after. I honestly wouldn't be surprised at all to see a XS/Nora 2.0 or Impulse/Barry Allen Jr. series set contemporaneously to FTA once The Flash winds down and Superman & Lois seems to be geared to preemptively take over for Supergirl once that series ends (Legends is an ensemble so could theoretically keep slowly replacing cast indefinitely, but have already ran with the meta bit of "I promised the crew no more crossovers,,, our problems are already bigger than yours" to excuse their absence). Its clear that the Arrowverse has grown over the last eight years to be a HUGE part of the CW's brand identity and that's not going to be changing anytime soon. Because of Arrow ending with plenty of advance notice I think the showrunners are taking the long view of steps to ensure that the shared universe can survive the end of the other first generation series over the coming years.

Possibly, but I think Arrow would have had to have ended with season three or four for a spin-off to have not been considered (in which case Legends with Sara and Ray would have been the natural “successor”). I think by season five (introduction of the newbs) they were already looking for another more direct spin-off, and if they had taken off then Ollie could have retired in peace (minus some guest spots), but they didn’t so they looked for something else and once they settled on OTA’s future children they also realized that Oliver would have to be “dead” to NOT be completely involved in his kids’ lives (and for similar reasons Felicity had to leave by the end of s7 and on the off chance EBR couldn’t come back for the series finale they wanted to include an Olicity reunion into it). Likewise, the rest of the modern day team was written out by the end of the season seven flash-forwards to clear the decks for FTA. I also think some of the blame can be laid at the feet of the wider Arrowverse and that once it became a thing where the shows were regularly interconnecting then you have to explain why Oliver no longer shows up when the entire world is in peril anymore even if we aren’t seeing his day-to-day adventures anymore. Let’s face it, the same problem is going to face the Flash crew and then Supergirl and various members of The Legends. It’s one of the reasons I think Future Team Arrow being set in 2040 isn’t an accident (also around the time a Nora 2.0 could come into her own after The Flash ends... Jon Kent would be turning about twenty then too). Maybe if this story were in an actual comic book or an animated series where Oliver and Felicity weren’t being played by actors in the same roles for the better part of a decade now and who wouldn’t need to wear old-age makeup for every scene they’d be in for the spin-off, they could have done an ending where Ollie and Felicity happily raise their kids together. But it’s a live action television series, so best case is what s7’s ending gave us... Oliver survived in a form that couldn’t actually come back to a normal life (now we know he’s The Spectre) and Felicity goes to him once she’s sure their kids can stand on their own. So yeah, I guess you could blame the spin-off for Ollie’s ending, but ultimately it comes down to the larger Arrowverse and practicalities of live-action. Heck, one of the main reasons FOR this crossover is likely about streamlining the Arrowverse to better handle these transitions (along with laying groundwork for both the FTA and Superman & Lois spin-offs just like Elseworlds was used to launch Batwoman last year and the second crossover was used to launch Legends of Tomorrow).

The thing is, while they may be planning on tweaking the 2040 timeline a bit, I don't think they're going to just completely throw all the character development we saw in season seven and eight for Mia and William out the window either or else the spin-off is just new characters wearing the faces of the ones we've gotten to know over the last two years. There's also just the pragmatic fact that neither SA nor EBR are going to be in the spin-off in any capacity so they're going to need to explain that and "see the end of season seven" is probably the most efficient in that regard. So no, the writing's been on the wall for Earth-1 Oliver and Felicity since the end of season seven and it pretty much had to be that ending (i.e. Ollie dead/something else and Felicity off the grid raising Mia for the next 20 years before finally reuniting with Ollie on the other side of a portal) with the rest of the Arrowverse continuing onward without them. We'll have to see what the "re-sparked" universe and then the backdoor pilot 8x09 looks like but I could still see things playing out with the re-sparked universe in such a way that season seven took place exactly as we saw it and Mia, William and Connor return to the exact moment they left (some of the incongruous elements might be flashbacks... a technique not exactly unknown to its parent series). Even if there are some changes though (Dinah and Rene remember meeting a version of Mia from the future and so know Oliver and Felicity had a daughter, Rene keeps Zoe from becoming a Canary and they keep a lid on the Deathstroke Gang instead of the founder getting a rep for escaping repeatedly) my hunch is the core of season seven and Mia's backstory will be mostly intact for character continuity and economy of flashback usage if nothing else.

Nah, it was Earth-1 Ollie who died; Earth-16 Ollie was notably older, had a robotic arm and wouldn't have known who Mia was. Making Ollie the Spectre is their way of killing him as promised but also keeping him around (he may not be a regular, but this leaves it open for Ollie/The Spectre to return from time to time as a special guest star). Making him the Spectre also let them play with subverting expectations. As the final act of Arrow, having Ollie go out as THE big damned hero of the crossover was probably the expectation of just about everyone in the general audience. But this let them kill him off in Act One, subverting expectations, but still have him come back and save the day in Act Four & Five as expected (thus the "playing with" part instead of a true subversion).

My hunch is that they've pretty much laid out that the Book of Destiny will end up being used to bring back something, but my hunch is that because of the cost it will be limited to a single Earth (or a handful at most) and so to save as many people as possible, they bring back a composite Earth/Universe instead of just Earth-1 or Earth-2 or Earth-38. One of the comments in that article though sparked a thought about how Batwoman's continuity for Batman flies in the face of the Arrowverse's "Oliver was the first" continuity and it got me thinking. Admittedly this could be lack of sleep, too much mindless work being done and a need to keep my brain occupied... so it could be way too far out there... but... (I'm putting the set-up reasoning under spoiler tags because some of it relates to casting news about in development shows that will be spinning out of the Crisis). So I'm wondering if part of getting everything to fit properly after Crisis if its all one world isn't going to involve a bit timeline re-arrangement so that Arrow is first, and things like the start of Batman and Superman's careers happens after that, thereby pushing the events of Supergirl (complete with aliens and VR contact lenses) and Batwoman into our future and closer to 2040. Say Ollie still starts c. 2012 and Barry in 2014, but Batman and Superman don't start until 2019. Supergirl arrives as a 13 year old in 2024 and begins her career in 2035. Batman disappears in 2036 and Kate becomes Batwoman in 2039. Even as I type that out it really does sound silly... but then we're dealing with multiple series based off a comic universe known for blowing up and rebooting its universe every couple of years so who even knows. Still more interesting to think about than swapping out parts every two minutes for 14 hours straight due to the Christmas rush.

Is it wrong of me to hope that the Canaries part goes over like a lead balloon and we get a straight-up FTA series as a result?

Until its officially picked up, this discussion is technically about episode 8x09 and what it sets up, so I think, for now, we're okay on discussing what the backdoor pilot will set up here (once 8x09 airs and is no longer spoilers for Arrow then I agree it should be appropriate to move it to the GA&tC thread. And again... I didn't say that 2040 is an outright lie... what I said was "part of me just wonders if that isn't a smokescreen to some extent and there's actually something else going on." For example, the casting calls for the Superman & Lois series (which I'll drop under a tag since its not an actual Arrow spoiler) indicate that... Similarly, MB on Supergirl is a trooper, but she signed on for a series filming in LA and rumor has it she has no intention of renewing past whatever she's currently contracted for so she can go back to LA. If that's true (admittedly, a big if) then next season would be Supergirl's final one (a possible reason they're opting to launch the Superman & Lois series in the first place). Next season would also be season seven for The Flash so it might only be running (pardon the pun) another year or two as it is depending on how much longer GG wants to keep going. Legends is an ensemble cast of time travelers going into season five this year. In other words... one possible variation of "something else going on" is that GA&tC will be set in 2040, but what they aren't saying is that the Arrowverse show-runners are planning on shifting other future replacement series to 2040 over the course of the next couple of seasons as their older series end. Or, another possible variation of the "something else going on" is that GA&tC is taking the idea from Arrow of building the series around both the present day and flashbacks to five years earlier and doing the same with its successor with two parallel timelines of DD & LL setting up the Canary network in 2020 (i.e. no old age makeup) and FTA's adventures in 2040 running parallel to them with no actual time-travel playing a role in the series at all. That's what I mean by "The show is set in 2040" feeling like its not the whole story. The big thing that feels out of place to me is that if DD & LL end up in 2040 via time travel... why do they feel compelled to stay there versus hitching a ride back to 2020 with the Legends as soon as they detect the temporal anachronism? Three people from a now erased future trying to further change things for the better based on their future knowledge and getting help from some people in the past just makes far more conceptual sense (its practically a trope) than two people who played a critical role in past events being pulled into the future and deciding to stay there (particularly if its a bit of a dystopia) instead of struggling to get home so they can stop it from even happening. The concepts that make the most conceptual sense to me is just straight 2040 (with DD & LL aging REALLY well... almost like they're in a comic book) or parallel timelines (Canaries in 2020, FTA in 2040). Now that I think about it, the latter would also make crossovers a lot easier on the actors anyway. The crossovers would all be 2020 so only the Canaries are involved in that part and while they're filming the crossover the FTA side is the focus of some minimal/no flashback episodes. Like I said, I'm just throwing out spitballs at this point. We'll know for sure in about six weeks once 8x09 actually airs. Until then I'm trying to amuse myself playing the speculation game.

I'm aware... and if it were JUST FTA and it looked like more of the present day material was wrapping up I wouldn't even be questioning it... but with the odds being good that Flash will run at least two more seasons and that Supergirl and Black Lightning will probably end up part of a merged Earth post-Crisis and have some more seasons in them, plus Batwoman just getting off the ground... it just adds up to some weirdness. Likewise, if they aren't adding two decades to DD and LL via makeup (or say they got really good plastic surgeons) then something in the whole premise for the spin-off is going to end up being needlessly convoluted with time-travel shenanigans that dilute the impact of the first true legacy series in the franchise. I'm also of the firm opinion that if you can't summarize one of the Arrowverse shows with an "Arrowverse Open" they're not going to appeal to new audiences and throwing in some time-travelling Canaries from the past makes that trickier (we're talking All New X-Men levels of convolution). Crossovers down the line would make it even more convoluted unless they're committed to making them all happen in 2040 from now on so FTA can't just look in a history book and tell everyone else what they have to do to end the problem since they obviously did or 2040 wouldn't still be here. Heck, even just them being in 2040 means you can't credibly have world-ending stakes in 2020 anymore because 2040 Earth is still around. In fact, it means that, unless they move it to its own Earth somehow, none of the other series set in 2020 can do ANYTHING to disrupt the timeline GA&tC establishes (i.e. if a character is revealed to be alive on the show, they can't be killed off in 2020). Basically, a 2040 setting with the Canaries from the past in tow just feels like its borrowing problems the Arrowverse doesn't need. So while I know its going to be set in 2040... part of me just wonders if that isn't a smokescreen to some extent and there's actually something else going on.

I'm still not entirely convinced the season seven timeline is out the window. Part Three of Crisis ended with Earth-1 (and every other Earth) annihilated. The ONLY way forward is to essentially re-boot or otherwise undo that destruction and that means potentially undoing other things to the point that the future still turns out like we saw in season seven (primarily, all memory of Mia, William and Connor visiting the past... Wilson Jr. was noted to have escaped from prison multiple times in the original timeline so whether his capture this time fully stops the existence of the Deathstroke gang in 2040 is presently a mystery). I know, I know... pink room, no tattoos. Thing is... we also know neither Oliver nor Felicity are in the backdoor pilot and I don't see how they explain Felicity deciding to go off and leave Mia and William behind forever without the "need to go away because I'll always be hunted and a danger to them if I stay" that the end of season seven set up. I mean, the lack of tattoos could also be as simple as tattoo removal being even easier in 2040 than it is now and after Mia has come to understand her parents better, she no longer felt the need for that act of rebellion. Alternately, its not like production gaffs have never happened before. It just seems odd that they'd completely throw out a season and a half of build-up and the lovely exposition tool of two virtual stranger siblings (one of the advantages of Ollie's five years away was that characters had to explain to him why something is different than he remembered it, thus also explaining it to the audience) and the meaning behind getting her costume directly from her dad and start over with the actors essentially playing characters as different from the versions we've seen as E2 Laurel is from E1 Laurel. There's just a metric ton that doesn't add up about the setup of this spin-off right now and it probably won't entirely make sense until we see how Crisis ends up. I'll admit too that even though MG said the real title of 8x08 should be "Living In the Future" I'm not entirely convinced it won't end up being set in 2020 with Mia, William and Connor trying to make a new future with Dinah and Laurel's help just because of the logistics of having one show set twenty years in the future of all the other still-running shows. Maybe if Flash were also ending and Earth-38 was returned in whole so Supergirl continues to run on a separate timeline the 2040 thing would be fine (Batwoman would be the only remaining Earth-1 series still set exclusively in 2020), but with probably at least another season or two of the Flash and Earth-38 (and Black Lightning's Earth) probably being merged into Earth-1 that would put the bulk of the Arrowverse still set in 2020 with Green Arrow having 20 years of future knowledge on the rest of them whenever they show up for a crossover. Keeping Mia, William and Connor in 2020 as temporally displaced heroes trying to prevent a dystopian future means no such complexity and means there's no additional weirdness involving the two Canary actresses and possible old-age makeup or why they'd be left in the future instead getting a lift back to 2020 from the Legends.

I've discussed it on another of the Crisis spoiler threads, but I think there's a very good chance that what Oliver will become is The Spectre (i.e. God's Spirit of Vengeance). In the comics, the Spectre requires a recently deceased mortal of strong will and with a desire for justice to bond with. The Spectre is also the one who, in Crisis fought the Anti-Monitor at the beginning of time and merged and re-booted the universe so it could survive the antimatter wave. In one of the DC Comics many crossovers the previous vessel for the Spectre's power had moved on and so God's Vengeance was running loose without a strong-willed mortal soul to give it mercy and temper it to justice. So some of the heroes went to the afterlife and ultimately found Hal Jordan (who had died in the previous crossover event by re-starting the sun) in Purgatory (because he had not yet made peace with himself) to become the new Spectre. We've seen shots of Oliver and Mia on Lian Yu that haven't happened yet so my hunch is that Lian Yu is how Oliver's soul understands Purgatory and Mia and Diggle (probably with the help of Constantine) go to Purgatory and convince Ollie to become the Spectre, who then comes in and saves the day in the final part of the crossover (with the Legends taking him back to the dawn of time to fight the Anti-Monitor and re-boot the universe in the final part). Finally, throw in that the comic-version of The Spectre's most prominent costume piece is a green hood (and Ollie becoming him would be a reason for him to have it, when an aspect of God has no reason to have any costume at all).

Pretty much this. The rule in the comics was that The Spectre has to bond with a mortal of extremely strong will who has recently died with great willpower and a desire for justice. The Spectre is a literal aspect of the Capitol G God (his Vengeance specifically) and in the comic version of the Crisis we responsible for fighting the Anti-Monitor to a stand-still and then recreating the universe in a form that could survive the antimatter wave. This resulted in all the surviving characters from all the Earths being merged into the same history on the same Earth and only those actually present with the Spectre when he rebooted the universe still remember that there even were multiple Earths. In Arrowverse terms, after the reboot into a singular universe, all of Superman and Kara's adventures would have always happened on the same Earth as Arrow, the Flash and all the rest happened on. Two things I think is actually subtly brilliant about making Ollie the Spectre (as in the sort of brilliance you saw in s1-2 where they creatively spun various mythos elements to make them seem more plausible) are... A) It gives an actual in-universe reason for God's Spirit of Vengeance to be wearing his comic-iconic green hood... in the show the spirit might have never appeared in that form UNTIL Oliver becomes the Spectre and he chooses to wear the green hood because of what The Hood/Arrow/Green Arrow represented in terms of vengeance against evildoers. "ANTI-MONITOR! You have failed this Multiverse!" B) If Oliver does recreate the universe as part of defeating the Anti-Monitor's plans, then the new universe would, quite literally be The Arrowverse... which is just so meta it goes around twice through ridiculous and back to awesome. Finally, it makes Oliver an immortal being watching over the Universe and ensuring that the wicked receive justice and so can't actually play a role in day-to-day matters on Earth (as an aspect of God he's probably also technically the Monitor's boss), but still exists in a form that Felicity can go to with the Monitor as she did at the end of season seven. There's your fitting end to the Arrowverse's first hero. Ollie becoming the Spectre the way Hal Jordan did in the comics also plays REALLY well with the spoiler bits of Mia and Ollie back on Lian Yu. In that story arc some of the heroes went to the gates of heaven to find a soul to replace Jim Corrigan's as the Spectre, but ultimately had to go to Purgatory (because they needed a soul who hadn't yet found the true peace needed to enter Heaven) and find Hal Jordan to take up the mantle. Thus, my hunch for the Arrow episode of the crossover will be Mia, probably with the help of Constantine (who might call up his old "buddy" Lucifer; as played by Tom Ellis; to assist) journeying to literal Purgatory (which for Ollie would be represented by Lian Yu) to get him to take up the mantle of the Spectre to save the universe. THAT would actually be a fitting Arrow episode for the crossover actually... Oliver did indeed die, but then he has to become someone else... SOMETHING else. ETA: Between all the other passing the torch bits to Mia, I don't think the payoff works unless she's one of the ones present for Ollie's universe reboot so she can remember her father (and also have the suit he gave her and remember that he specifically asked her to take up the name Green Arrow).

Well, I think Ollie dying in part one lends some credence to the idea that he might return as The Spectre (who plays a rather crucial role in saving the remaining universes... to the degree that if Ollie as the Spectre did similar you could literally call it The Arrowverse in-universe and not be wrong). It wasn’t COIE, but another of the various DC crisis crossovers involved recruiting the spirit of the dead Hal Jordan (Green Lantern) to become the new host for the Spectre, in part due to his incredible willpower because only the Spectre could end that Crisis. I could see running with a variation on that premise since Ollie is basically The Determinator of the Arrowverse. It would also explain the ending of season seven since being The Spectre means Ollie becomes a cosmic force and really wouldn’t be able to stick around in the mortal world. Finally, it’s not entirely Crisis-related, but with Ollie giving Mia her suit and asking her to take up the Green Arrow mantle in part one, the Mia we see in Crisis almost HAS to be the same one we’ll see in the backdoor pilot (versus a new one created by a changed timeline).

And now we know why the Post-Crisis Star City 2040 we saw in season 7 of Arrow was such a dystopia and why heroes are hated. They inflicted Earth-1 with a population crisis that resulted in mass starvation, population displacement and political unrest that’s still shaking out in 2040. 😉 As to Ollie’s death... we already know via Constantine’s appearance over on Arrow that death isn’t the actual end and he’s stubborn enough that I half expect Ollie The White to descend from Heaven at the moment all seems lost leading an army of angels to take out the Anti-Monitor’s shadows. Because it’s Ollie and he isn’t going to let a little thing like death stop him from saving his family and friends. Still it was a nice passing the torch moment with Mia.

Honestly, the more I hear of this, the more it sounds like they’re doing a live action version of the Rebirth storyline from a couple years back. Heck, I forget where I did it, but back when the Rebirth comics were coming out I actually came up with a variation of an Arrowverse Open* just to prove how effective the Rebirth re-boot was in making the story easy to jump onto. The gist of Rebirth for the non-comic followers was that Superman and Lois survived the destruction of their previous universe (the pre-Flashpoint continuity) and came to this on with their infant son. Because there was already a Superman and Lois on that Earth (the ones introduced in the New52), they kept out of sight and focused on raising their son for about a decade while helping out in secret (Superman via covert heroics, Lois via investigative novels exposing corruption under a pseudonym). Then the New52 Superman died and with the world in peril, the pre-Flashpoint Superman stepped up and started helping publically again all while continuing to raise his family in secret. It was mostly set in a small town, but not Smallville... instead it was just a short hop upstate from Metropolis (close enough to commute) and one of the subplots was investigating the weirdness in the town. In addition to recurring Damien cameos, there was also a neighbor girl (possibly this “Lauren” character) who witnessed Jon losing control of his powers in an early issue and later became a confidant. This show may not run with that exactly (it’d almost certainly skip the replacing an alternate Superman and that while living in hiding they went by Clark and Lois Smith for two examples), but it might keep the idea of Superman and Lois as refugees of the pre-Crisis universe... mainly because it explains why Superman didn’t get involved with any of the many near disasters that occurred before whatever causes him to get involved again). * The Arrowverse Open: “My name is [given name]. I used to [backstory element] until [inciting incident from pilot] changed things. Now with the help of [supporting cast group], I [description of superheroics] and [secondary plot goal]. I am [comic title]!”)

I know I'm probably the odd man out, but I am actually hoping we actually do go back to 2040 as it was specifically because a solid part of the dynamic between Mia and William is that we get see them get to know each other and experience various firsts (and because they're siblings its a 100% ship-free relationship). If that's changed to them growing up together they're effectively completely different characters than the ones we've known; they just happen to be played by the same actors. ETA: It also means Ollie didn't actually meet his future kids, he met a version of who they could have been and the kids he's been bonding with since the end of ep 3 will cease to exist post-Crisis and the replacement Mia would have never actually gotten know her real live father.

Well, shoot. To be fair, I mentally block out all things Rene and Dinah by default. Frankly, for all they’ve done this season the show runners could probably just reuse that footage and almost no one else would either. It also doesn’t negate that a comic-style Crisis universe reboot would be an explanation for why 2040 still happened the way it did even if we don’t see Rene and Dinah wiped out again. Unrelated, but the new still images appear to show that Mia will get her Green Arrow outfit during Crisis (the new outfit matches the lines of the one on GA&tC fake comic cover) which I think argues that Mia (and by extension William and Connor) physically goes back to 2040 afterwards vs. getting rebooted and seeing a new version of her in 8x09.

I wonder if that will still be true Post-Crisis however. I think the Crisis trailer just showed us how the 2040 we saw could still play out exactly like we saw. Specifically, the new Crisis trailer showed Rene and Dinah being disintegrated by the antimatter wave. They only way they're even alive in 2040 if that's the case is if the universe gets rebooted (likely to include the events of Earth-38 always having happened on Earth-1) like in the actual Crisis from the comics. And if its rebooted that means there's a prospect that the universe that comes out the other end of Crisis will be one where no one remembers Mia, William and Connor visiting the past (and presumably one where Roy never loses his arm). Ollie, wherever he ends up Post-Crisis, is probably the only one from 2019-2020 who actually remembers them and he won't be in a position to tell anyone about them. He gets the gift of seeing how his kids turned out and his kids get the gift of getting to better know and understand their father going forward... but without affecting anything we saw in s7 because the re-booted Roy, Rene and Dinah don't ever learn that Felicity was pregnant.

Okay... sounds like this will wreck my holidays if it leaves me hanging. DVR to the rescue.

In other words, there's probably NOT another Arrowverse show ending... its just summer filler. That said, I think they are setting the table for some more of them to end in the near term. This is season six for "The Flash" and season five for "Supergirl" and "Legends of Tomorrow" and the main lead and his love interest on Arrow were done after seven seasons (with this eighth as a mini-season that's basically a victory lap and setup for the crossover/spin-off). The big crossover events are essentially their best foot forward for promoting their latest spin-offs (see Batwoman in the crossover last year). This time they're doing extra duty because they can only realistically expect another 1-3 seasons out of Flash, Supergirl and Legends (technically an ensemble, but I don't think it survives if CL decides she's done). Bottom line... the Arrowverse NEEDS to start investing in fresh blood for new series if they want the shared universe to continue. Seeing three potential spin-offs (along with finally getting a Black Lightning push) this time is just them trying to stay ahead of the curve.

To me, that does NOT sound like the sort of thing where they're just going to wipe it away with a reset of the future. There's just too much character development work there to wipe it away and lends itself to a pretty solid rationale for why she decides to take up the mantle of Green Arrow, whereas she showed no interest before the jump to the past. I'm going to be very interested in seeing how the backdoor pilot (presumably set in 2040) and Mia also apparently being in the final scenes of the finale in episode 10 after that is supposed to work unless the finale is almost a "Oliver Queen, This was your life!" type of deals where Ollie in the paradise dimension gets to see all the ways he impacted everyone's lives (making the scene in the bunker technically a flashback to before Mia returned to 2040) for the better and that it was worth it and then closes with Felicity joining him there.

The funny thing is that the only reason we’re even calling wherever Felicity is going a “Paradise Dimension” is because it’s an explicit reference to the Crisis comics and it had nothing to do with death. Rather, it was a pocket dimension outside the newly created “monoverse” for characters who the writers specifically didn’t intend to ever use again, but didn’t want to just wipe out of existence either. It was most specifically for the Golden Age Superman because he literally started the concept of superheroes as we know them (and it couldn’t be a Paradise Dimension without his wife Lois there so she got saved from Earth 2 before it got wiped out and went with him). A few others went too, but they were ancillary to giving a happy ending to Golden Age Superman and Lois. Thematically, Ollie literally started the whole concept of the Arrowverse so he’s essentially the Golden Age Superman of this franchise. He and Felicity are also characters they’re not really going to be able to use again, but who they want to have a good end despite no longer being around. Thus... Paradise Dimension. So, yeah... Ollie’s not gonna die die, but something in the Crisis will require him to become “Something Else” that can’t just stick around in the universe either... so he’s gone and Felicity stays off the grid to look out for and raise the kids then goes to join Ollie once she’s sure they can make it without her. Plus, I’m still not convinced that that much of the future we’ve seen is actually going to get changed. They’ve already gone to the effort of establishing these characters and the s7 flash forwards were already written with Crisis in mind. My hunch is that part of saving what’s left of the multiverse (in the comics they merged all the remaining universes into a new singular one strong enough to resist the antimatter wave, but this also resulted in characters getting altered backstories) may involve wiping out all memory of Mia, William and Connor visiting the present (except from Ollie who’s outside the merged universe and possibly Mia and Co. since they traveled from the already merged universe) and because of that the future ends up playing out just as we saw in s7.

So, one thing I’m wondering about in relation to the backdoor pilot stuff is how Smoaktech is going to factor into things. Provided we still get the Ollie is “dead” and c. 2040 Felicity disappears into the paradise dimension... wouldn’t that basically put all of Felicity’s Smoaktech shares (if its even publicly traded) into Mia’s (or Mia and William’s) hands? I am having a bear of a time trying to figure out how the backdoor pilot is supposed to work if it’s set in 2040. Without time travel, Dinah and Laurel would have to be in their 50s, bit if they DOntime travel to the future for the back door pilot how does that work in relation to the statue unveiling? Did Laurel and Dinah fall into a vat of anti-aging cream due to the Crisis so they still look 30 in 2040? I know the Crisis crossover will probably sort things out, but right now the pieces just don’t quite fit right with me.

To be fair, Lois could probably fill the Tech Guy/Overwatch role. She’s gotten more computer savvy over the years and in the Rebirth comics (i.e. where she’s mom to 10 year old Jon Kent) she’s absolutely familiar with Kryptonian tech (Clark I believe pointed out that as his wife she owns the Fortess of Solitude as much as he does) and she also makes use of all sorts of “souvenirs” she’s acquired from her past adventures (ex. a blaster glove in one issue). Further, even in the comics Superman has always had a science advisor (ex. Dr. Hamilton or John Henry Irons) and a police liason (ex. Maggie Sawyer or Dan Turpin) in addition to the Daily Planet crew (which, while it keeps defaulting back to Lois/Perry/Jimmy every time a writer decides to get “back to basics”, has included a wide array of other characters; Ron Troupe, Cat Grant, etc.). He also had Ma and Pa Kent alive and well for the nearly 25 year run that was Post Crisis up to just a year or so before the New52. Heck, he’s even had other heroes like Guardian, Gangbuster and Steel (John Henry or his niece Natasha) who’ve come and gone. The idea of Superman as some lone island who does everything alone is, I think, largely a side-effect of how he got portrayed in the late Bronze Age and in films, but hasn’t been true to the actual stories since the Reagan-era. In other words, there’s actually a pretty large cast of already existing supporting characters who have already filled various roles common to the Arrowverse shows. Frankly, if they did Superman and Lois, then added Maggie Sawyer as police liason, John Henry Irons as science guy with Perry White as Editor (and veteran character actor) you’d have a pretty typical CW/Arrowverse main cast line-up without even needing to step outside of the “shown up on other Superman shows” category).

If that set report is accurate it sounds like the scene might be of William and Mia back in 2040 (after wrapping everyone in the present) in the future at the statue. My bet is the sequence will have a voice over from Ollie (hey, parallels to the early s1 voice overs) in the form of a letter to them that's passing the torch. My hunch is if there is a paradise dimension ending for Ollie and Felicity it will precede the William and Mia statue sequence just because as nice as the Olicity happy ending would be the passing of the torch is more important to establishing their lasting legacy in the form of their kids who are taking on their mission.