Arrowverse

Arrowverse
Gallery
Aliases	CWverse[3], Berlantiverse[4]
Creators	Andrew Kreisberg · Marc Guggenheim
First Appearance	"Pilot" (October 10, 2012)

Arrowverse is a fan-originated term which refers to the television franchise created by The CW that is based on characters that appear in publications by DC Comics. The shared multiverse started with Arrow in 2012 and, later, retroactively included NBC's Constantine and CBS' 1990 The Flash series. It was eventually expanded to include worlds which were home to not only the DCEU movies and related modern film franchises but virtually every licensed live-action adaptation of DC intellectual property when Arrow and its spin-offs staged a 5-hour televised adaptation of the Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline.

History

Structure of the Multiverse

This multiverse has both similarities and differences with the ones from the comics and it is composed by infinite universes, with at least 1938 known realities. In the beginning, there was only a single, black singularity; then, it broke so the Big Bang created the Multiverse, every existence multiplied by possibility with Earth-1 as its original center.

Every reality in the multiverse vibrate at its own frequency that separates one world from the other and they also feature counterparts to other worlds' characters, like Jay Garrick of Earth-3 and Barry Allen of Earth-90. People with special abilities are also known as metahumans: in particular, they exist the so-called vibers who are directly linked to the energies of the Multiverse so they have the power to move into other planes of existence and realities, like Cisco Ramon/Vibe or the Collector Agency's members of Earth-19.

The first known entity is God who is believed to be the Almighty ruler of the Multiverse. He was responsible for the creation of the various metaphysical realms: the Heaven, where He lives along with his consourt and their sons, the Angels, as well as the righteous souls; the Hell which was created, after the rebellion of his son Lucifer, as a prison for him and his damned followers as well as the corrupted souls; the Purgatory which is a plane of existence where souls live in their own limbo worlds. Because of His omnipotence, it can also be presumed that the Big Bang was caused by God's powers.

The concept of time is embodied by the so-called Temporal Zone, the vortex of time itself where all the events from across the ages and realities exist at the same time. It is commonly used by non-speedsters to move through time and it was supposed to be preserved by the Time Masters who, however, began controlling it from the Vanishing Point, outside of time and space, until their defeat and death.

The Speed Force is another extra-dimensional source of power that gifts to whoever taps into its energy the ability to move at supershuman speed which also allows them to move through the infinite realities and to travel back and forward in time. Eventually, in the future, an Earth-1 scientist, Eobard Thawne, was able to replicate the Speed Force in order to create his own artificial source of energy, the Negative Speed Force, which made him able to travel through time without any rules which caused him to be immune to reality-altering events and permanent death.

At some point in time, they were created two metaphysical books, the Book of Destiny and the Book of Oa. The Book of Destiny has the ability to manipulate the Multiverse's energy to alter the reality itself, rewriting events or, even, entire universes; the Book of Oa, which is stored on Earth-12, contains all the knowledge in the Multiverse from all the events that were, are and will be in the future.

They also exist other higher beings, like the Spectre or the Phantom Stranger, who are in tune with the Multiverse and observe events from across the realities.

Early History

The Maltusian scientists, Mar Novu and his wife Xneen, sought to see the creation of their universe so they experimented on time travel, building a time machine which Mar Novu used to go back at the Dawn of Time. There, he was overwhelmed by the radiations of the Temporal Zone and obtained cosmic powers which made him the Monitor; then, he fell through the space itself to the Antimatter Universe where it was somehow born his negative doppleganger, Mobius, later called the Anti-Monitor.

The Anti-Monitor was sealed by his positive counterpart into his home dimension but he swore to Novu to take his revenge against him and the Multiverse itself: the seal separated the positive realms from the doorstep of Mobius' prison whose door was placed on Earth-1 in what would become Central City in modern days. It was also prophetised that he eventually would free himself and destroy the Multiverse which could only be saved by seven righteous individuals, collectively known as the Paragons.

In ancient times, free will was spread on Earth-1 as the Greek Goddess, Clotho, destroyed the Loom of Fate and its pieces were scattered across many realities in the Multiverse. During the age of Gods and heroes, supernatural creatures also lived on the earthly realms, along with the Divine beings.

Due to his evil actions, the time demon, Mallus, was banished into another plane of existence by the Totems of Zambesi users; along with him, a great number of creatures, including Clotho and the Fairy Goodmother, were sealed into this dimension.

At some point in time, there was an incursion on Earth-19 by an unknown universe that led to the creation of the Collector Agency which had to ensure the respect of a ban on interdimensional travel on this reality; in fact, those who disrespect it are punished by the Collectors with the death penalty.

During his career as a superhero, the Crimson Comet, Jay Garrick aka Flash of Earth-3, explored many realities in the Multiverse, collecting informations about his discoveries.

In 2015, an immense worm hole originated on Earth-1, causing the creation of space portals between Earth-1 and Earth-2. The evil speedster Zoom took advantage of the situation to satisfy his hunger for speed by challenging Barry Allen aka The Flash after having already defeated Jay Garrick on Earth-3.

Almost one year later, Zoom tried to destroy all the realities in the Multiverse through the use of the Magnetar, a complex machine which had to be powered by Speed Force energy: he challenged Barry Allen one last time to determine who was faster between them while gathering enough energy to start his doomsday device. During their run, Barry Allen was able to create a time remnant that stopped the Magnetar at the cost of his life while Barry's real self managed to defeat the evil speedster who was dragged into the Speed Force to become its enforcer, the Black Flash.

Crisis on Earth-X

In 2017, the Nazis of Earth-X, a cruel universe where the German Party won World War II and conquered the Earth, targeted Supergirl and the heroes of Earth-1, assembling a giant army to invade their universes.

They managed to track them to the wedding of Barry Allen and Iris West which was crashed by a plotoon of Nazis which confronted the heroes that were present at the church. The Nazi troupes were ultimately defeated and forced to retreat, losing one of their commanders, Tommy Merlyn aka Prometheus.

The main army was led by a new Führer, Oliver Queen, also known as Dark Arrow, and they were also helped by a displaced Earth-1 Reverse Flash: their main goal was to use a light accelerator, the Prism, to artificially create red sunlight that would help them transplant Supergirl's heart to her Earth-X counterpart, Overgirl, who also was Oliver's wife, as she was dying from sunlight overloading..

Some of Earth-1's heroes were abducted to Earth-X so Oliver Queen and others had to travel to the obscure reality where they found help in the Freedom Fighters, a resistance team which was led by Captain Winn Schott and the Ray from Earth-1. After joining their forces, they saved the abducted group and discovered Earth-Xers' doomsday device, the Wellenreiter, a militarized timeship that was to be deployed on Earth-1.

When the Nazi finally attacked Central City on Earth-1, all the heroes fought against the Nazi enemies and defeated them: Overgirl ultimately died from her disease and Dark Arrow was killed by Earth-1 Oliver Queen; after they lost their leader and the Wellenreiter was destroyed by Harry Wells, the Nazis were forced to concede defeat and retreat to their universe..

Elseworlds

At some point in 21th century, the Monitor began his journey through the Multiverse in search for potential heroes that could help him prevent an incoming Crisis. He tested some universes, entrusting some of their residents with the Book of Destiny; then, he arrived on Earth-90 which failed to prove itself worthy to be saved so it was destroyed as the Flash became its only survivor and escaped into another universe..

In December 2018, he came to Earth-1 where he passed the Book of Destiny to John Deegan in order to challenge the heroes of this world. The scientist used the Book of Destiny to create a new reality in which the identities of the Green Arrow and The Flash were swapped so the two heroes found themselves in each other's bodies.

Thanks to Iris West, the two heroes were able to reach Earth-38 where they asked the help of Supergirl and his cousin, Superman. After returning to altered reality, the Earth-1 heroes were forced to face the threat of the android A.M.A.Z.O. who could replicate any power he scanned: as the heroes banded together and combined their different abilities, they were able to destroy the evil robot.

Later, thanks to Vibe, the heroes tracked Deegan to Gotham City where they retrieved the Book but they had to stop a riot in Arkham Asylum with the help of the vigilante Batwoman. In the meantime, the Flash of Earth-90 also came to Earth-1 and warned them about the Monitor's intentions. The heroes confronted the Cosmic God which got his Book back and ordered Deegan to "think bigger", altering the reality for the second time and causing the Flash of Earth-1 and Green Arrow to become the infamous Trigger Twins.

Inspired by Clark Kent, Deegan turned himself a black-suited doppleganger of Superman and imprisoned Supergirl in the S.T.A.R. Labs's pipeline. However, the Trigger Twins convinced the alternate Cisco to take them to Earth-38 where they told Superman about Deegan's menace; at the same time, on the Elseworlds, the alternate Alex Danvers freed Supergirl and, while Deegan was facing Superman, the heroes used the Book of Destiny to restore Flash, Green Arrow and Supergirl's identities.

Then, Superman/Deegan retrieved once again the Book of Destiny and planned to change the unvierse again: the Flash and Supergirl tried to slow him down by running at super-speed around the Earth. As the two were nearly torn apart, Oliver Queen made a deal with the Monitor to save them in exchange for being his enforcer in the incoming Crisis.

Deegan and his army, including a resurrected A.M.A.Z.O., were defeated by the group of superheroes and the scientist became an husk after his connection with the Book of Destiny was interrupted as it was hit by a Monitor-powered arrow of Oliver Queen. The reality was restored to his original form and Deegan was imprisoned in Arkham Asylum where he befriended an inmate, Roger Hayden who warned him that "worlds will live, worlds will die, and the universe will never be the same".

The Crisis

In May 2019, after the defeat of the Ninth Circle, the Monitor called Oliver Queen to his duties, sending him into various missions in order to prepare him for the future Crisis. Not long after Oliver's recruiting, Lyla Michaels also became Monitor's enforcer as the super-powered Harbinger.

In order to prove Monitor's non-existence, the adventurer Nash Wells found the Nexus' door and freed the Anti-Monitor from his prison who, in the course of millennia, planned to destroy every Earth in the Multiverse with the antimatter. In fact, after finding the Flash of Earth-90 in the Antimatter Universe, he forced him to run in order to power its antimatter cannon that obliterated Earth-2 as a test.

After traveling to Earth-3, Barry Allen managed to project his mind into the future with the help of Jay Garrick and his wife, Joan Williams, seeing the outcome of the incoming Crisis.

When the Crisis erupted, the Anti-Monitor began its destruction, powering his cannon who fired its antimatter wave into the Multiverse: this wall of antimatter energy started to erased one reality after the other while the Anit-Monitor himself was rampaging through the realities, being heralded by his shadow demons..

As Earth-38 was about to be destroyed by the wave, the most righteous heroes were gatherered so they could band together to save this reality's residents while the Monitor raised colossal tuning forks which were rapidly assaulted by the Anti-Monitor's dark forces: in the climax of the battle, Oliver Queen bravely died to save more people he could. As the wave erased this world, the heroes retreated back on Earth-1, which was the last reality in the trajectory of the wave, and used the Waverider of Earth-74 as their moving base.

The Book of Destiny revealed to the Monitor avbout the existence of the Paragons who could save the Multiverse from annihilation. Thanks to the help of the Green Lantern Corps and the Guardian Ganthet of Earth-12 that let Felicity Smoak read the Book of Oa, Sara Lance and Kara Zor-El were discovered to be Paragons.

Meanwhile, the Council of Luthors battled the Council of Supermen on Earth-99 but was ultimately defeated by the Supermen of the Multiverse after a tough battle. Lex Luthor of Earth-38 was inspired by this all-out war so he escaped his imprisonment on the Waverider and stole the Book of Destiny to kill the remaining Supermen, including the Superman of Earth-75, through the Multiverse: he was stopped by the joined forces of his archenemy Kal-El and the Superman of Earth-96 who was discovered to be the Paragon of Truth.

John Constantine, Mia Smoak and Sara Lance resurrected Oliver Queen in a Lazarus Pit on Earth-18 but they discovered that he lacked his soul; later, Constantine and Mia, along with John Diggle, came to Earth-666 to meet the Devil himself, Lucifer Morningstar, who gifted them a special card to enter the Purgatory where they retrieved Oliver's soul but they also found the Avatar of the Spectre, Jim Corrigan that convinced the Emerald Archer to prepare himself to become the Entity's new host.

After Ray Palmer built a Paragon detector, Batwoman was discovered to be the Paragon of Courage who she had previously searched for on Earth-99; later, Barry Allen, Martian Manhunter and the Earth-1 professor Ryan Choi were identified as the remaining Paragons.

Meanwhile, Vibe's powers were restored by the Monitor so the heroes to manage to enter the Nexus' chamber and stop Barry Allen of Earth-90 from powering the antimatter cannon. The machine went critical, forcing Nash Wells, now reborn as Pariah, to rescue Black Lightning from the destruction of his world as his powers were needed to contain the energy of the cannon while, in order to ultimately destroy it, Earth-1 Barry Allen decided to sacrifice himself as it was always prophetised to him since he had first become the Scarlet Speedster.

Before he could jump on the machine, the older Flash tricked Barry into taking his place, reminding him that the prophecy never said which Flash had to die: as he remembered one of the first meeting with his beloved wife,, Barry vanished in thin air after one last run and fullfilled his lifetime as a hero by saving the rest of the Multiverse.

Believing to have finally stopped the end of everything, the heroes were shocked by a brainwashed Harbinger who killed the Monitor and allowed the Anti-Monitor to resume the destruction of the Multiverse which was annihilated along with the few survivors on the Waverider.

However, the Paragons were hidden by Pariah at the last minute in Vanishing Point, a place out of space and time, to survive the total annihilation. There, they discovered that Lex Luthor had previously replaced Earth-96 Superman as the Paragon of Truth thanks to the Book of Destiny's reality-altering power.

After spending a month out of time, the newly-born Spectre, Oliver Queen, reached the Paragons in Vanishing Point. Despite Oliver's warnings, The Flash convinced him to power him up enough to run into the slowly dying Speed Force where he met another speedster that made him realized that the Multiverse could be brought back to existence; at the same time, Supergirl and other Paragons were sent back in time to stop Mar Novu from ever creating the Anti-Monitor but, while managing to stop him from going back at the Dawn of Time, the superheroes discovered that Mobius was always meant to come into existence. The Paragons reunited with the Spectre at the Dawn of Time where Good and Evil faced each other in an epic battle.

As Barry and Sara stood by Oliver's side as, after winning his clash with Mobius, he ultimately died from his wounds, the Paragons gathered his Spectre's energy and used it, along with their own energies and the remains of the Book of Destiny, to recreate reality itself.

Rebirth of the Multiverse

A new Big Bang was caused by the combination of Oliver Queen/Spectre and the Paragons' energies:the original singularity divided itself once again and recreated the infinite realities. Every reality was restored to the existence so all the residents in the Multiverse were brought back to life.

Earth-1 did not exist anymore as it was merged into a new universe, Earth-Prime, along with Earth-38 and Black Lightning's world. Their histories were amalgamated as if all their residents had always lived together in a single world.

Waking up in a new universe, the Paragons discovered the merge of their realities and, after discovering the Anti-Monitor's survival, they banded together with the other Earth's heroes one last time to finally defeat Him and his demons. Upon realizing that Mobius was too strong even for their combined powers, Earth-Prime's heroes used Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi's knowledge to banish the Dark God, who had become a giant version of himself, into the Microverse.

In the new multiverse, some realities were recreated with some differences from the original ones, like Earth-2, while others were totally anew, like the Earth-Prime which replaced Earth-1 as the new center of the Multiverse. However, after the Crisis, these universes are not separated anymore by vibrational frequencies so it is currently impossibile to move from a reality (at least from Earth-Prime) to another one which led the Earth-Prime heroes to believe that the Multiverse was gone.

During the Crisis, some residents of the Pre-Crisis realities managed to save themselves from annihilation, felling through the space itself to the newly-born Earth-Prime; later, it was also revealed that two or more counterparts cannot exist on the same Earth for a large amount of time.

For some reason, the minds of all the Harrison Wells's dopplegangers of the old Multiverse, including the Eobard Thawne's, were merged into Nash Wells'.

As a consequence of being corrupted by the Spectre' mystical energy during the Crisis, the Speed Force was fatally destabilized and ultimately destroyed, causing the speedsters to gradually run out of power. Eventually, the Team Flash built a machine to artifically engineer Speed Force energy, like Thawne did with the Negative Speed Force, powering it up with the Multiversal energies of the Harrison Wells inside of Nash Wells, who sacrificed himself to create the Artificial Speed Force: he was corrupted by the energies of the new force and forced to shut down the extra-dimensional field.

Later, Barry Allen used Iris West's last remnants of the Speed Force to power up the machine once again in order to reboot the original Speed Force. However, along with it, they were created new elemental Forces, including the Sage Force, the Still Force and the Strength Force whose conduits began fighting against each other for their own survival.

Because of Nash Wells' sacrifice, the Multiverse tried to balance itself for the loss of the various dopplegangers by restoring the Earth-Prime counterpart of Wells as a Multiversal pure-energy being who could travel trough time itself.

The Multiverse also includes various extra-dimensional planes and spiritual realms, most of which are common to multiple realities:

• Ancestral Plane: also referred to as the world between worlds, it is the dimension inside the Totems of Zambesi which also functions as their power source. The original Zari Tomaz now resides in this plane of existence as her original future was erased after the battle of Heyworld.
• Antimatter Universe: also known as Netherverse or Antiverse, the antimatter reality where the Anti-Monitor was born. Here, it took place the final battle between the Spectre and the Anti-Monitor that led to the rebirth of the Multiverse.
• Artificial Speed Force: an artificially engineered extra-dimensional field which was born after Nash Wells used his life and the energies of the various Wells inside of him to power up the Fusion Sphere which was built by the Team Flash. Its energy restored the Flash's speed and gifted him the speed thinking but it somehow corrupted him so the hero was forced to shut the field down.
• Fifth Dimension: the plane of existence where the Imps like Mister Mxyzptlk come from. It is a realm where the common rules of the Multiverse don't apply as it was also untouched by the Crisis and its residents have immense powers that make them gods in the other realities.
• Heaven: also known as Afterlife, it is the spiritual realm where Gods and the Angels reside. It is also the place where the noble souls go after their deaths, appearing to them as their happiest memories.
• Hell: the metaphysical realm where the damned souls and the Demons reside. Originally, it was ruled by the Devil Lucifer Morningstar but, after he retired to Earth-666, the First of the Fallen began to rule it along with the other members of the Triumvirate of Hell.
• Juru: a dark dimension where the Kryptonian witches created the Worldkillers who used it as the source of their mighty powers.
• Microverse: a nanoscopic dimension that was discovered by Ray Palmer when he shrunk for the first time. During the Crisis, Palmer and the professor Ryan Choi created a device that could eternally shrink the the Anti-Monitor, stucking him in this reality.
• Mirrorverse: a mirror dimension which is accesible through every mirror in the Multiverse. It created a mirror duplicate of Eva McCulloch when the real Eva died during the first S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator explosion.
• Negative Speed Force: an artifical source of energy which was created by Eobard Thawne aka Reverse Flash when he replicated the Speed Force's source of energy. Thawne's connection with the Negative Speed Force frees him from the Speed Force limitations as he became a living paradox who was is able to travel through time without being discovered and never really be able to die.
  • It currently hosts Thawne's mind as he lost his body in the aftermath of the Crisis.
• Nexus: this dimension is the doorstep to the Antimatter Universe. There, the Anti-Monitor stored his antimatter cannon which he used to bring destruction to the infinite realities; Nash Wells opened its door, which is located under Central City on Earth-1, and destroyed the seal that kept the Anti-Monitor imprisoned outside the positive Multiverse.
• Purgatory: also known as Limbo, it is the realm where souls became trapped in their own hell so the realm appears differently to each resident.. During the Crisis, the Spectre came to Purgatory to convince Oliver Queen to become himself a new host of the Multiversal Entity.
• Sage Force: an extradimentional source of energy, which gifts its conduits mental abilities, that was created along with the other Forces when The Flash rebooted the Speed Force.
• Speed Force: the extradimensional source of energy that gives the speedsters the ability to move at superhuman speed and travel through space and time.
  • After the rebirth of the Multiverse, it was destroyed as a side-effect of being corrupted by the dark energy of the Spectre after the Entity powered the Flash to make him run into it; its death caused every speedster to gradually lose their powers.
  • However, Flash was able to recreate the source of energy by extracting Iris West's Speed Force residuals inside her body and powering up the Artificial Speed Force machine.
• Still Force: an extradimentional source of energy, which gifts its conduits the ability to manipulate time itself, that was created along with the other Forces when The Flash rebooted the Speed Force.
• Strength Force: an extradimentional source of energy, which gifts its conduits an enormous amount of superhuman strength, that was created along with the other Forces when The Flash rebooted the Speed Force.
• Spirit World: the dark realm where Mallus was banished along with other magical creatures. When the time demon was freed, the door to this world was left open so the other prisoners were also unleashed into both space and time.
• Temporal Zone: also known as Timestream, it is the embodiment of time itself and the birthplace of creation. This space is used by non-speedsters time travelers, like the Legends, to move through time; it can be also used to move through the Multiverse.
• Vanishing Point: a realm outside space and time where the Time Masters resided and the place from where they controlled every possibilities through the Oculus artifact. After their defeat, it became the lair of the Legion of Doom and, years later, the last place in existence, along with the Netherverse, when the Anti-Monitor destroyed the Multiverse.

In the scope of a larger Multiverse, they also exist other pocket dimensions, alternate realities and possible futures. Theoretically, everyone's choices lead to the creation of parallel worlds where things could be different.. Alternate realities can also be born as a result of alteration of certain events by using time travel or reality-warping powers, like Mister Mxyzptlk's, or objects such as the Spear of Destiny or the Loom of Fate. Time is not strictly fixed so there could also be infinite possible futures which not necessarily could ever come to exist.

Media

Television Series

• Arrowverse series
  • Arrow
  • Batwoman
  • Black Lightning
  • Constantine
  • DC's Legends of Tomorrow
  • The Flash (2014)
  • Supergirl
  • Superman & Lois
• Doom Patrol
• Batman (1966)
• The Flash (1990)
• Smallville
• Lucifer
• Stargirl
• Super Friends animated series
• Swamp Thing (2019)
• Titans
• Wonder Woman

Movies

• Arrowverse movies
  • Vixen: The Movie
• DC Extended Universe
• Fleischer's Superman animated movie series
• Batman (1989)

Web Series

• Vixen
• Freedom Fighters: The Ray
• Blood Rush
• John Con Noir
• The Chronicles of Cisco
• Stretched Scene

Comics

• The Flash TV Special #1
• Arrow (Volume 1)
• Arrow: Special Edition (Volume 1 1)
• Arrow: Season 2.5 (Volume 1)
• The Flash: Season Zero (Volume 1)
• Arrow: The Dark Archer (Volume 1)
• Adventures of Supergirl (Volume 1)
• Crisis on Infinite Earths Giant (Volume 1)

Novels

• Arrow: Vengeance
• The Flash: The Haunting of Barry Allen
• Arrow: A Generation of Vipers
• The Flash: Hocus Pocus
• Supergirl: Age of Atlantis
• Arrow: Fatal Legacies
• The Flash: Johnny Quick
• Supergirl: Curse of the Ancients
• The Flash: Climate Changeling
• The Flash: The Tornado Twins
• Supergirl: Master of Illusion
• The Flash: Green Arrow's Perfect Shot
• The Flash: Supergirl's Sacrifice
• The Flash: The Legends of Forever
  
  

Residents

• Too many to list

Trivia

• Although it was not shown being part of the Multiverse, the TV show Powerless was stated to be set on Earth-P.
  • However, Van Wayne Industries was shown to exist on Earth-Prime in the Post-Crisis Multiverse.
• Despite being a TV show on Earth-666, Watchmen was not directly shown to be set on an Earth of the Multiverse.

See Also

• Characters from Arrowverse
• Other things related to Arrowverse
• Arrowverse's Comic Appearances
• Reality Gallery: Arrowverse

Links and References

• Arrowverse Wiki