When Characters Collide (Thoughts on Flash, Arrow Crossover)

This week, what happens several times a month in comics happened on television as the Flash and Arrow met up for two crossover episodes in the "Flash vs. Arrow" and "Brave and the Bold." Some spoilers may follow.

In "Flash v. Arrow" Oliver Queen comes to Central City as the Arrow in search of a criminal who killed someone in Starling City. He and the Barry Allen agree to be partner for a mission to capture a dangerous metahuman who is able to make people angry. Instead, the first thing Arrow does is dress the Flash down for his lack of preparation by embarrassing him and goes after the villain only to be turned into a speeding pile of rage that Arrow has to stop.

This episode had some good character moments with a very strong performance by Stephen Arnell as Arrow. The effects of the episode were stunning as always and the Flash v. Arrow fight scene was beautifully done.

On the downside, the plot suffers from a lot of contrivances. I'll even let them get away with the fact that Arrow's team came to Central City because it produced so much Iron Oxide (which is rust). The biggest contrivance has to be how the metahuman affected the Flash. While a normal person is angry for five minutes after exposure were told that Flash's system fought off the spectral light infection and so it's lasting for hours which makes no sense. Also, if his system is fighting it, shouldn't we see that? It should either last shorter or not effect him at all. But logic goes out the window to set up the battle.

And it also sets up the bigger storyline of Detective Eddie Thawn trying to get Eddie and Barry's precinct Captain to form an anti-Flash Task Forc. This may be meant to set up revelations about Eddie and the "dark past that was announced with the character when he was added to the series, but from a strict viewer perspective, it's a bit out of nowhere. I will like that this episode did disillusion Iris about the Flash which was good because her one-woman evangelistic crusade to get people to "accept the Flash" was getting a bit much.

In addition, I didn't like the fact the the Flash and Arrow confronting the villain of the episode occurred off screen.

There's also a scene at the end of the episode whee Oliver encounters a character that neither the audience or Barry knows, presumably from the continuity of Arrow (a series I hadn't watched since the pilot.) that was a tad confusing.

Overall, I'd give Flash v. Arrow a rating of 5/10.

"Brave and the Bold" has Caitlin and Cisco travelling to Starling City for vacation, with Cisco (in particular) wanting to take a look at "the Arrow Cave." Barry is called in when a boomerang throwing assassin tries to murder the chief of a local government black ops group.

This episode works on several levels. I think the plot is far stronger and less contrived. I can totally see Cisco coming to town and I love how he geeks out over everything the Arrow has and Arrow's annoyance when members of his team start referring to their headquarters as "The Arrow Cave."

The plot with the assassin does work and he's a genuine menace whose capture and plans play out on screen. The last few minutes are tense and how the Flash faces the threat is truly epic.

Arnell's Arrow is still in full command and I can definitely see why the show is so popular. He's clearly a tortured soul who is haunted by the dark deeds he performs to safeguard his city. He may be a Batman knock off or a low rent Batman, but he's also as much as in command and control as any version of Batman I've seen.

On the other hand, I did find that many characters were hard to sympathize with. Our villain was causing all this mayhem because he'd been part of the suicide squad under the black ops group and the person who he's hunting ordered a microbomb exploded in his head, which you admit is a pretty harsh corrective policy from a human resources perspective.

I don't usually go for a series where the line between the good guys and the bad guys is that thin. But then again, that's why I'm not a fan of the show, though I understand its appeal, so I can't really knock it down for that.

I did feel the show delved a bit too much into meta discussions with some dialogue that didn't make sense as various characters tried to explain the difference between the two shows' approaches. Arrow's explanation that Starling and Central City are different works best. After all, Gotham-I mean Starling is actually quite well portrayed as a city that's far darker than Central City. This is a city that needs a dark knight like Bat-I mean Green Arrow.

The idea Cisco floats that they didn't consider it real because they were dealing with metahumans and took it as a game doesn't quite hold water given that they were almost killed by an energy vampire in the prior week's Flash. It's also odd idea to apply to Barry. Barry is a crime scene investigator who sees horrific things regularly and the worst side of a major city. It's a great debate for fans, not so sure characters should get in on the action.

Overall, I'll give Brave and the Bold 8/10. Other than the Meta discussions, the things that most bothered about the episode of Arrow are the things that make it a show I rarely watch.

Looking at the two stories as a whole, I can't help but wonder if it would have been better to have one long crossover story rather than two shorter self-contained stories. There's good reason not to do this. Many people don't like being forced to watch a show they don't usually watch to understand what's happening in the one they do watch. And if people wanted to be cross-sold other titles that way, they'd buy comic books. But there's a case for doing it here as parts of both episodes seem to repeat each other with Flash and the Arrow criticizing one another, complimenting one another. It's all for people who only saw one episode, but it's a bit repetitive.

If you had one long story, it would have flowed better over the two nights.

I also think a sort of post-modern philosophy pervades the arc and lessens the conflict. In many ways, the story mirrored the conflict between Post-Crisis Superman and Batman with Superman objecting to Batman's rough tactics and that tension is always there despite the character's friendship and Batman's tactics are nowhere near as brutal as Queen's.

However, while Barry does weakly criticize some of Arrow's methods after witnessing them, it's somewhat muted. Barry defends the Arrow to his boss, Joe and tells him to "not judge" Arrow. For the post-modern superhero, torture and murder to get results are just an alternate lifestyle I guess. That's a shame because there's actual drama found in making the heroes confront these issues.

While hurt by the repetition and the lack of moral conflict between the two leads, the crossovers has a lot of fun moments. It was fun story but ultimately forgettable.

Overall Rating: 6.5/10.0