A few weeks ago I purchased a DVD of the Arrowverse event "Crisis of Infinite Earths". I rather enjoyed it - certainly, I've found what I've seen of the Arrowverse shows (not much) to be rather more enjoyable than the DC films. With the exception of "Wonder Woman" they've really not been particularly good. (That said, we haven't seen "Aquaman" or "Joker".)
One of the things that was particularly interesting about the show was the many, many cameos - we get hints of the 1989 Batman, the 60's Batman and Robin, Smallville, Birds of Prey, and so on. All of which were pretty cool, but they also emphasised something that I had kinda been aware of but perhaps hadn't fully grasped: you can't cheat when it comes to building investment. Tom Welling's appearance as Clark Kent works because he spent years playing that role in Smallville, so having watched that show (until I gave up), I was immediately oriented as to context.
I think that's also why "Avengers" worked but "Justice League" didn't - the former laid out lots of groundwork and then brought the team together; the latter tried to short circuit it. Which is a real shame, as some of the characters DC have are great.
The other thing that really struck me about the show was a reminder of just how great Brandon Routh was as Superman... or, more correctly, as Clark Kent. "Superman Returns" wasn't a great film, and really suffers now for Kevin Spacey and Bryan SInger's respective problems, but Routh was great in the role. And, doing double-duty in "Crisis on Infinite Earths", he is great in this. (There has been some talk of them doing some sort of Superman mini-series starring BR, largely off the back of his appearance here. If so, I'd certainly be interested!)
Anyway, that's more or less all I have to say about that.
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