Does Burt Ward’s Robin from the 1960s “Batman” television series know Michael Keaton’s Batman from the 1989 movie?
Does Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker live in the same universe as the CW’s “Batwoman?”
What would happen if Brandon Routh’s Man of Steel from 2006’s “Superman Returns” met Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman from TV’s “Supergirl?”
For superhero fans, these are not small questions. They are weighty concerns to be pondered during long nights staring at the stars or into yellowed long boxes storing their comic collection.
And they’re about to be answered. In a way.
Sunday begins “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” a five-part crossover event encompassing the six superhero shows on the CW that make up the so-called “Arrowverse.” The ambitious event finds the heroes uniting to stop a powerful force that’s destroying reality.
But it also explores the idea of the DC multiverse — the concept that every movie, comic and TV program ever produced by the company behind Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman have all taken place in the same universe, albeit on different parallel Earths.
The crossover has been carefully building for years and will involve dozens of characters, some of whom will undergo major changes. Others may not make it out alive.
The epic scope and finality of “Crisis” is rare on TV and recalls a recent cinematic venture by DC’s rival.
“This is our version of ‘Avengers: Endgame,’” John Wesley Shipp tells The Post. “What Marvel has done so right in the film universe, DC has done extraordinarily well in the TV universe.”
Shipp played the Flash in a 1990 CBS series and reprises the role in “Crisis” as Barry Allen, a speedster from a parallel dimension known as Earth 90.
His appearance is just one of many callbacks to DC lore.
“We wanted to touch as many strands of the DC tapestry as possible,” “Crisis” architect Marc Guggenheim tells The Post. “In some cases, it’s quick glimpses. In other cases, it’s an entire scene or a story across a couple episodes.”
“Crisis,” which is based on a 1985 miniseries by Marv Wolfman and George Perez, was initially hinted at in the first episode of “The Flash” in 2014.
That pilot ended with a glimpse of a newspaper from 2024 proclaiming that the Flash (Grant Gustin) had vanished in the “Crisis.” That tease, however, had no firm plan behind it.
“I would call it a hope and a dream,” Guggenheim says. “We didn’t even know enough to hope. It was more like whatever we can sort of head-fake toward. It wasn’t until a year ago when we get the corporate permission that we were allowed to do this.”
Last year’s “Arrowverse” crossover event planted the seeds for “Crisis,” exploring the multiple Earths and introducing the Monitor (LaMonica Garrett), a mysterious cosmic being who recruits the heroes to stop the universe’s destruction at the hands of the Anti-Monitor (also Garrett).
When planning “Crisis,” Guggenheim and his team compiled a list of 100 “cool things” they’d like to see.
“If you had asked me back then if we’d get as many of the people, Easter eggs and concepts that we ultimately did, I would have told you you were smoking crack,” Guggenheim says.
For example, the writers snuck in lines of dialogue from 1986’s comic series “The Dark Knight Returns,” and the score pays homage to other shows. Even background objects recall previous DC material, reportedly including a newspaper front page with a nod to Keaton’s Batman.
Actors from other shows will also make returns. Tom Welling and Erica Durance, who played Clark Kent and Lois Lane on “Smallville” (2001-2011), pop up. Kevin Conroy, who voiced the lead character in “Batman: The Animated Series,” will appear as an aged Bruce Wayne.
Eagle-eye viewers might also spot Burt Ward, who played Robin from 1966-68, making a cameo wearing a sweater with colors reminiscent of his Robin costume and walking a dog that readers of the 1950s Batman comic would swear looks a lot like Ace the Bat-Hound.
“All these people that grew up watching ‘Batman,’ their kids are watching our show in reruns,” Ward, who now runs a dog rescue, tells The Post. “The reaction [to my cameo] caught my wife and me off guard. We just weren’t expecting this.”
Not that producers got everything they wanted. Guggenheim says that some actors sought for cameos were busy on other projects (such as Cameron Cuffe from Syfy’s “Krypton”) while others were too expensive. Michael Rosenbaum, who played Lex Luthor on “Smallville,” wrote on Twitter that he passed on making an appearance.
“When I started hearing how many people they were involving, I began to wonder, does this have the danger of devolving into just a succession of cameos?” Shipp says. “What I discovered is that this is rich storytelling, as well as tying up loose ends and presenting Valentines.”
The crossover also has some of the same goals as the 1985 comic book series, which attempted to streamline DC’s muddled publishing continuity and provide a fresh start for stories.
“I think ‘Crisis’ comes at a perfect time,” Garrett tells The Post. “We are in a transition. The fact that ‘Arrow’ is ending [after this season], and that’s the show that started all this. There’s no other way to bring on ‘Crisis’ than right now.”
“The thing I said to all the showrunners was, this is not about fixing things,” Guggenheim says. “This event is a magic ticket and we can come out of this event with whatever status quo changes, ret cons [retroactive continuity], little or big fixes we wanted to do. I just encouraged them to ask what we want to see coming out of this.”
Exactly what that is has been cloaked in secrecy, as has the entire crossover. Shipp did not know his Flash would appear in the “Arrowverse” until someone showed up at his door to scan him for a costume.
Garrett says he’s constantly bugged for information.
“Everywhere I go, there are people poking and prodding, trying to get some spoilers,” he says. “Sometimes I give them a spoiler, and the look on their face is so dejected. They’re like, ‘Why’d you do that?’ I’m like, ‘You’ve been following me around Trader Joe’s for the last hour, I thought I’d tell you.’ ”
One spoiler will almost certainly involve the death of a character or characters. In the comic book series, the Flash and Supergirl were killed off. (At the time, sales of “The Flash” were anemic, and DC execs thought the existence of Supergirl made Superman less special.)
The build-up to “Crisis” has hinted at the passing of both the Flash and Arrow (Stephen Amell), and with the latter’s series ending two episodes after “Crisis,” that might be a good bet.
For this season and beyond, the question becomes, how will the network top a series that pays homage to 80 years of superhero history?
“We shouldn’t try, at least not in the near term,” Guggenheim says. “I really hate comparisons to ‘Endgame,’ because I wish we had their budget, but Marvel rightly didn’t follow up ‘Endgame’ with ‘Endgame 2.’ They followed up with ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ and ‘Black Widow.’
“It took us five years to build up to this, so it’ll take a number of years to build back up to something of this scale and scope.”