In the comic book version of Crisis on Infinite Earths, characters like Supergirl, the Flash, The Monitor, Pariah, and Psycho Pirate were all pivotal parts of proceedings, but the latter was notable by his absence. Normally, fans probably wouldn't complain too much, but his involvement was blatantly teased in the final few moments of the Elseworlds crossover!
Now, showrunner Marc Guggenheim has confirmed that despite his cameo appearance in the event, Psycho Pirate isn't a character they ever seriously considered using as time passed.
"I wish I could say he made it to the draft stage," he revealed. "Well! That's not true. He did make it to the draft stage. For the most part, he ended up -- like, he could just never make it off the whiteboard. We had stories and moments and scenes and everything in between with him in it. But honestly, every single time we talked about him, it felt forced."
"It felt like we were doing this only because he's in the comic," Guggenheim elaborated. "That can't be the reason we included anybody, and that's what it felt like."
"We managed to work in a cameo for him that felt pretty legitimate. Like, it felt like, 'Okay, this is good. This works. This is satisfying.' But it was part of a larger story beat and that story beat ended up going away for a variety of different lengths and production reasons and a whole host of things. Basically, that story beat was us going down a certain rabbit hole that we just didn't have the story time or screen time to go down. So unfortunately, that had to go."
To be fair, it is better that he ended up being cut rather than shoehorned in for a subplot that wasn't needed in a crossover which was already very busy (and didn't exactly need more characters). It's hard not to wonder about what might have been, though, and you have to believe the villain could show up elsewhere in the Arrowverse moving forward.
What do you guys think?