Director – Jeff Wamester, Screenplay – Jim Krieg, Based on the Graphic Novel Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-6) by George Perez & Marv Wolfman, Producers – Jim Krieg & Kimberly S. Moreau, Music – Kevin Riepl, Supervising Animation Director – Mat Whiting, Animation – Digital eMation (Supervising Diector – Scarlet Sookyung Kim, Animation Directors – Jinhyun Choi & Seung-woo Yang), Maven Image Platform (Supervising Animation Director – Jinseong Kim, Animation Directors – Jonggeun Kim & Sungchan Lee) & Studio Grida (Animation Directors – Seungbong Im & Dong-jun Kim). Production Company – Warner Bros. Animation.
Voices
Darren Criss (Superman/Earth-2 Superman), Jensen Ackles (Batman/Bruce Wayne), Corey Stoll (Lex Luthor), Alexandra Daddario (Lois Lane), Meg Donnelly (Supergirl/Kara), Keith Ferguson (Doctor Fate/Two-Face), Stana Katic (Wonder Woman), Matt Ryan (John Constantine), Ike Amadi (Martian Manhunter/J’onn J’onzz), Aldis Hodge (Green Lantern John Stewart), Gideon Adlon (Batgirl), Ato Essandoh (Mister Terrific), Erika Ishii (Doctor Light/Dr Hoshi/Huntress), Liam McIntyre (Aquaman), Elysia Rotaru (Black Canary/Black Canary II), Troy Baker (The Joker/Spider Guild Lantern), Ashley Burch (Nightshade/Queen Mera), David Kaye (The Question/Cardonian Lantern), Brett Dalton (Bat Lash/Captain Atom), Cynthia Kaye McWilliams (Dr Beth Chapel/The Cheetah), Matt Bomer (The Flash), Jamie Gray Hyder (Hawkgirl/Young Diana), Geoffrey Arend (Psycho Pirate/Charles Halstead), Brian Bloom (Adam Strange/Sidewinder), Will Friedle (Kamandi/Batman Beyond), Lou Diamond Phillips (The Spectre), Jimmi Simpson (Green Arrow), Armen Taylor (The Flash – Jay Garrick/Gas Soldier/Executioner), Jennifer Hale (Queen Hippolyta/Green Lantern Aya), Keesha Sharp (Vixen), John DiMaggio (Lobo), Katee Sackhoff (Poison Ivy), Zach Callison (Earth-2 Robin/Robin – Damian Wayne), Kevin Conroy (Earth 12 Batman), Mark Hamill (Earth 12 Joker)
Plot
The gathered superheroes try to prevent the destruction of the various Earths of the multiverse and fight off strange incursions as the inhabitants from one universe flee through into another. For safety, they have relocated several Earths into The Bleed, a realm that exists between universes. However, they find that Lex Luthor has betrayed the whereabouts to the Anti-Monitor. Supergirl gives her life to gather the power of all the suns in The Bleed into her own body and destroy the Anti-Monitor. Batman finds that the cause of the multiple different universes lies with John Constantine who used his spells to get The Flash to go back in time and kill the infant Darkseid. The only solution may lie in harmonising all of the Earths into a single Earth with one timeline.
Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-6) was a twelve issue comic-book series released for the fiftieth anniversary of DC Comics. It was created with the intention of harmonising the conflicting continuities and multiverses that DC had created, bringing everything together into a single universe. The series was previously adapted to the screen (loosely) in Crisis on Infinite Earths (2020), a five-episode arc stretched out between the various series Arrowverse series’. Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Three was the third of a three-part animated adaptation of the comic-book and was preceded by Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part One (2024) and Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Two (2024).
The previous two parts of Crisis on Infinite Earths did an okay adaptation of the comic-book. Although both treated the story liberally and stripped it of some of its complexity and other elements, they conducted a general overall telling of the story. The same can be said here when the Warner Bros. Animation team return to complete the saga here.
What is most noticeable this time around is the addition of elements over the original Crisis on Infinite Earths comic storyline that have been taken from previous DC Original Animated Movies. There is the use of the Warworld from Justice League: Warworld (2023) as a weapon against the Anti-Monitor, as well tying into the end of Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (2020) where John Constantine gets The Flash to go back and reverse the devastation of the Earth, but showing that this has much more disastrous consequences that intended with some handwave about Darkseid being a fixed point in time.
The battle for the multiverse – (l to r) Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, Black Canary, two Supermans flanking Lois Lane and Aquaman
My criticism of the Crisis on Infinite Earths films is that they tap the Multiverse themes that have been popular in superheroics ever since Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), as well as having been subsequently incorporated into both MCU and DCEU live-action films. Despite this, they don’t offer much of what is appealing about multiverse superhero films – seeing alternate versions of characters. We do see alternate versions of Superman, Batman, The Flash and Black Canary, but not much is done to distinguish them. There are brief glimpses we get of some of the other universes – the best of these is one where we venture into the world of the animated Batman (1992-4) where we see Batman and The Joker fighting (with the voice sampled from the late Kevin Conroy, who the film is dedicated to, and Mark Hamill returning to play The Joker). There are some scenes towards the start where superheroes in various universes fight invading dinosaurs and Nazis that have outfitted themselves from the Batman villain’s arsenal but these feel like filler.
The film gives us the main concluding events of Crisis on Infinite Earths. It tells the culminating battle in the general but slightly different ways to how the graphic novel had it happen. Everything mounts to a series of epic battles with the tragic sacrifice of Supergirl and then the activation of the alien artefact to harmonize the universes into one. The battles are massive in size and the story all comes together with quite reasonable affect.
