'The Flash' and 'Arrow' Crossover Review: Super-fun Super-action

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Part of the childhood fun of reading big-team-hero comic books such as Justice League of America or The Avengers was in seeing how heroes who were used to dominating the territory of their own comic books come together to help each other — but also to chafe and compete with each other, to be forced to adjust their egos or chide each other for not being team players.

The crossover event that ties together tonight’s episode of The Flash and tomorrow night’s Arrow is a splendid example of first-rate super-hero traffic-jamming, as not only the title characters but supporting characters such as Speedy, the Earth-2 Flash Jay Garrick, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl also get in on the action, all to battle one of the comics’ most overreaching villains with a great name, Vandal Savage.

If you buy the premise — the Flash gang goes to Star City to seek advice and help from the Arrow team because the Flash-ers are science-based and Vandal is a mystical, supernatural force of a kind more familiar to Green Arrow — then you’ll be free to enjoy the interplay and introduction of new characters. As occurred during last season’s crossover, both shows benefit: Arrow becomes a bit lighter in tone, while The Flash becomes more worldly-wise.

Tonight’s Flash hour brings all the heroes together efficiently, with plenty of battle action yet also lots of time for interaction between not only the super-heroic characters but their normal-folks co-stars as well. There’s a nice moment when Arrow’s Felicity asks Flash’s Barry Allen if he’s happy and seeing anyone. His quick, smiling response that he’s involved with police officer Patty reminds you of the spark that once existed between Barry and Felicity, yet the two are now delighted to be just-friends.

Tomorrow night’s Arrow is burdened just slightly with some of the flashbacks to earlier times in super-hero mythology that is both faithful to Arrow-style storytelling and a characteristic that sometimes slows down the narrative. But in this case, it adds important elements that will pay off in future, non-crossover Arrow episodes.

It’s no spoiler to say that the crossover reveals Kendra as being Hawkgirl — it takes a villain to bring out the long-dormant super-hero in her — and her history with Hawkman raises questions about her budding love affair with Cisco. The two hours give us an opportunity to get a good fix on the tough-but-savvy personality of Hawkman/Carter Hall, a complicated dude but not excessively so. And Savage proves to be a bad guy worthy of all these heroes’ strenuous efforts. It’s a difficult trick to convey vast powers and world-altering threats on a TV budget, but Casper Crump’s performance, along with some smart, comics-based weaponry like a magical staff, achieves the proper degree of maximum malice.

When you watch how smoothly — how enjoyably and wittily — The Flash and Arrow merge their line-ups, a couple of things occurred to me. I was reminded of what an unfortunate botch Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has turned out to be, an example of many talented people unable to mesh engagingly. And more immediately, I felt fresh enthusiasm for the project this crossover is helping to launch: the CW’s upcoming DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, the super-team that will include the Hawk duo as well as other protagonists such as The Atom and a minor-league Silver Age comic hero that stirs my nostalgic heart — Rip Hunter, Time Master. Bring them on.

The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW. Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.