This week brought us the first poster for the upcoming Arrowverse crossover “Elseworlds,” and it’s fair to say it got fans talking. The poster saw Arrow and The Flash stars Stephen Amell and Grant Gustin playing each other’s characters, with the former in the Scarlet Speedster’s costume and the latter in the Green Arrow’s hood. It was such a striking image, in fact, that it might’ve successfully drawn our attention away from a major clue about the crossover’s story.
The tagline applied to the poster was “Destiny will be rewritten” and ComicBook.com has suggested that perhaps this word choice is very deliberate and actually tells us who the big bad of “Elseworlds” is: classic comics villain Doctor Destiny. For those who don’t know, traditionally, Destiny’s a powerful and dangerous foe who could reshape reality with the help of his Dreamstone. If the character’s being used in the crossover, it would explain this bizarre Freaky Friday identity-swap and make sense with the tagline.
There’s even a precedent for this sort of tale. 1993’s Justice League storyline “Destiny’s Hand” saw the villain create an alternate reality in which the JLA were evil. Notably, the Flash wore a black suit in this comic. That doesn’t seem to be the case here, but Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman has been confirmed to be donning a dark costume in the crossover instead.
Here’s the clincher, though. We know that Jeremy Davies is playing a villainous doctor at Arkham Asylum in the event, as it’s going to be set in Gotham City due to the introduction of Batwoman. He’s been named as John Deegan and that sure rings a lot of bells when you consider that Doctor Destiny’s real name is John Dee on the page.
If you ask us, all this evidence seems pretty conclusive. That said, there is the presence of The Monitor to think about, as played by LaMonica Garrett. His role in the story suggested we were headed for another multiversal threat. However, perhaps Destiny’s hijinks are threatening the structure of reality and so The Monitor appeals to the heroes to stop him? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, but this year’s Arrowverse crossover just got a whole lot more intriguing.