Anna Daniels
(Welcome to The Clock Tower, where we’ll break down the goings on of the The CW network’s Arrowverse. We’ll touch on things like themes, cultural impact, lead-ins to major events, ships, and more every week! Warning: this Clock Tower is filled with spoilers. Proceed at your own risk.)
Congratulations on surviving Christmas. I hope it was merry and bright, and filled with fluffy movies that were filled with many happy endings…y’know, to make up for the colossal cliffhanger that we’re all suffering through together. With a crossover as big as Crisis on Infinite Earths, there’s thankfully a ton of content to cover while we wait on the return of our intrepid heroes. This week, we’re going to dive into Pariah, and we’re also going to take a look at why Nash Wells seemed to feel connected to Allegra Garcia. We haven’t seen a ton of these characters in the crossover yet, but we know Pariah will play a pivotal role. If my guess about Allegra is correct, she will too.
He Is Pariah
I think it’s time that you and I had a little chat about Pariah. In the comics, his alter ego is one Kell Mossa. In the Arrowverse, we knew him as Nash Wells. I’m totally fine with the fact that we’ve lost one of the very best iterations of Harrison Wells halfway through the regular season, and not at all cranky over the sad, shell of a man he’s become. Though I may miss the dashing Nash, Pariah’s being depicted exactly as he should be for the time being.
At this exact moment in Crisis, he still believes the end of the universe to be his fault. In the original story, Pariah eventually discovers that he had very little to do with causing the event. We’ll have to see how the writers decide to play it in this iteration, but in the meantime, ol’ Pariah closed out the 2019 portion of the crossover with a little bit of a surprise. I think that means that it’s high time we learn a little bit more about him!
Crisis on Infinite Earths has done a solid job of giving you what you need to know about the character. He unleashed the Anti-Monitor, now he’s doomed to watch infinite earths fall, yada, yada. What it’s kept under wraps, however, is Pariah’s power set. He spends the majority of the first three episodes moping off on the sidelines then, out of nowhere, he blinks the Paragons to The Vanishing Point as if it were nothing.
Now, that “blink” happens before the Anti-Monitor successfully wipes out all of known existence with the exception of the Paragons (and Lex, who for all intents and purposes is a Paragon now). However, Pariah’s curse of immortality extends throughout Crisis. Considering the fact that the fine print on that curse includes him immediately getting zapped to the epicenter of any catastrophic event, it feels safe to assume that we’ll be seeing him pop up much sooner than the rest of the known universe.
There’s Something About Allegra
Allegra Garcia has existed in DC comics for some time. After starting off on The Flash as a baddie, we’ve seen her shift to journalism under Iris West-Allen’s wing. Her comic book counterpart, on the other hand, pretty much sticks to the big baddin’ (and usually in Gotham rather than Central City). Now, turning villains into heroes isn’t a new bag for the Arrowverse. This girl will remain Team Captain Cold for forever and always. But I think Allegra falls more under the Hank Henshaw umbrella.
For those who didn’t watch season one of Supergirl, J’onn J’onnz used to masquerade as Hank Henshaw. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because it’s Cyborg Superman’s alter ego. The actual Cyborg Superman would come into play later. However, a historically villainous character was essentially mashed together with a member of the Justice League.
When Nash Wells first meets Allegra, he seems to feel an immediate connection to her. We’ve discussed some of the theories about that in this very column, but it’s taken diving into Pariah for me to realize what that connection likely is. Nash hasn’t disclosed which Earth he’s from, but if I were a betting gal, I’d say it was Earth 6 – the very same Earth as Lady Quark.
Lady Quark and Allegra’s power sets aren’t identical, but they’re close enough for me to feel relatively confident in this theory. Is it heavy duty conjecture? Probably! But we know that Allegra has some sort of part to play in this overall Crisis situation. This seems as good an explanation as any. If I’m correct, we may just see Allegra helping the Paragons get to the beginning of time for the final showdown with The Anti-Monitor before it’s all said and done.
Wait, I Wasn’t Ready!
Let’s all just take a second to acknowledge how alarmingly unprepared the all-knowing Monitor has been for his brother. From the second Crisis began, The Monitor’s entire contribution has basically been “Ope, that’s not how that was supposed to go.” Way to be, cosmic being! You had one job. Pariah’s out here being a team player, meanwhile The Monitor’s out here going against his word over Oliver sacrificing himself for Barry and Kara, and getting the entire order of events wrong! Get it together, Mar Novu!
He can’t right now because he doesn’t seem to exist anymore, but he will again soon! That version of him should get it together. Or get out of the way. Both are good options, honestly.
Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel!
Just three more weeks before we find out how this saga will continue. There’s still more to explore so far as Crisis on Infinite Earths goes, but in the next installment of this column, we’re going to play it a little differently. It’s the end of the year, and everyone’s taking a look back on the shining moments of the year. We’re going to dig into the best moments of The Arrowverse, Legends of Tomorrow-style. We might miss our favorite time misfits, but that doesn’t mean we can’t honor them with some good, old-fashioned throwback hijinks!
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