It Seems Supergirl's Universe Won't Fuse with the Arrowverse After All!

With Supergirl Season 2 moving to The CW, fans have been eagerly awaiting news about how the show would relate to CW's existing superhero universe (affectionately referred to as the Arrowverse). There'd been intense speculation that the realities would merge, perhaps as a result of a Flashpoint-esque event, but now it seems that's not going to be the case...

How Will Supergirl Tie In With the Other CW Superhero Shows?

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Supergirl executive producer Andrew Kreisberg advised that inter-dimensional exploits would only focus on Supergirl herself. Asked if the show would be bringing Supergirl's world into the Arrowverse, he explained these adventure would be:

"Not for her entire world, but Kara will be traveling from her dimension to our dimension, ‘our’ being the world that The Flash, Arrow, and Legends lives in."

We already know there are going to be a number of tie-ins between Supergirl and the other DCTV shows— most notably an exciting four-part story in which the heroes battle against the Dominators. But now we know that these stories will involve Supergirl stepping out of her world and into Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow.

What Does This Mean?

Fans are seriously excited about Supergirl Season 2, not least because it's set to expand Kara's world. Tyler Hoechlin has been cast as Superman, and trailers have already given us a nod to Gotham City; there are strong rumors that characters such as Batwoman may make an appearance. Batman himself is unlikely, though, as Fox retains the TV license to the Dark Knight.

With Supergirl's world growing at such a rate, many fans had actually begun to speculate that The CW planned to launch more TV shows set in her reality. We learned otherwise in August, when CW President Mark Pedowit explained:

"There are no real discussions about any more superhero characters. We have built a universe where we get to see all of these characters interact with each other and we're proud of that. But at this time, there aren't any discussions for adding anything else to that."

Even though we're not expecting more CW superhero shows, the fact remains that Kara's expanding world means we'll have not one, but two fully-fleshed superhero realities. Placing Gotham in Kara's reality would seem to mean Batman-centric characters won't appear in the Flarrowverse — which is a surprising decision, to say the least.

Could We Wind Up With Two Versions of Gotham?

Here's the catch, though. Back when Felicity Smoak was choosing her codename in Arrow, the show toyed with different possibilities. One of them was Oracle — except Oliver said it was "already taken".

In DC's comic book universe, Oracle was a codename used by Barbara Gordon after she was crippled by the Joker. That single throwaway comment suggests that the character of Oracle already exists in the Flarrowverse, and hints that Gotham - and Batman - may exist as well. It's actually possible that Batman and his allies exist in both realities. So, incredibly, there's a chance we could wind up with two versions of the Gotham heroes.

That said, let's be honest about it: this is unlikely. While superhero fans would easily handle multiple versions of the same character, I suspect that everyday viewers would find it confusing. DC would probably be wiser to ignore Arrow's name-dropping of Oracle.

All in all, I freely admit that I view this as something of a surprise; I'd truly believed that Supergirl's world would somehow be merged with the Flarrowverse, making it easy for the stories to cross over. It seems that's not the case!

Featured Image: The CW