Crisis on Infinite Earths (and why it is so great)

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a sucker for the DC hero The Flash. He has one power, super speed but the applications for that gift are endless.

With that power, Barry Allen (or Wally West, Jay Garrick, and Bart Allen) can travel through time, catch or throw lightning, phase through objects, multiply themselves, dodge bullets, break the sound barrier, travel to other dimension and the list goes on.

So you can imagine how anxious I was for the upcoming CW Arrowverse crisis because the only way people were going to survive it was if the Flash died during the crisis. Now, Barry risking his life for the universe is nothing new, his middle name should be self-sacrifice because he is always willing, without hesitation to die for the human race. However, these decisions were usually made in the spur of the moment when our Scarlet Speedster, with his heart on his sleeve, saw no other way to protect the people he loves.

This felt different, reminiscent of the Savitar arc when Barry had to learn to get faster to save his then-fiance Iris West. Barry was willing to take her place but the speed force wouldn't let him and he had to watch his fiance die in front of his eyes, failing to be fast enough to save her (spoilers!).

This time around though, Barry was faced with his own mortality, yes he has super god-like speed but he is still at the end of the day, human. Yes, he bleeds Batman. His friends even hit him with the realization that he has the tendency to go off on his own tangent in order to protect everyone. "I won't sit by and let you save the day again on your own" Cisco Ramon said this to him, (I may be paraphrasing).

By the time Crisis started on the 8th of December 2019 Barry had already made peace with the fact that he was going to die. He was ready to leave his wife, his friends, and his family if it meant that they could have a future. Now yes, there are other heroes who always played a big role during the Crisis (Green Arrow saving a billion people!) but I'm Flash biased so this article will focus on the second episode of the Crisis, when Barry met Barry, more accurately Barry from Earth 90. This Barry was older, more experienced and the spitting image of our Barry's father played remarkably by John Wesley Shipp.

The two Barry's had an argument about which Barry was going to sacrifice themself for the good of the universe and the older Barry won, telling the young one to "keep riding the lightning". (Cue the Precious tears). Now even though he sacrificed himself and the universe was saved (For all of two minutes). Chaos reigned and the resident bad guy of the cross over, the Anti Monitor managed to wipe out the universe (sans our heroes).

That was the cliffhanger left and I feel that Barry will not let Barry 90's sacrifice be in vain, we might get to see a different Flash, one fighting for the life of not only others but himself as well since Barry 90 is him, just from another Earth. For the first time in the Arrowverse, we will see a Barry fighting for himself and one who will hopefully shed the martyr role.