ANI-MOVIES, *Freedom Fighters: The Ray

Set as a pseudo-prequel to the "Crisis On Earth-X" crossover arc set in the Arroverse live-action TV shows, The Ray was a Golden Age hero from Quality Comics back in the 40s, that DC Comics bought up along with other characters from the same publisher and put them on their own separate world known as Earth-X, set in a different universe from the normal Justice League-version of Earth. On Earth-X, the Nazis didn't loose WWII, and have dominated most of America, with the only superheroes to stop them are the Freedom Fighters, comprised mostly of Quality Comics characters.

Set some months before the annual Arrowverse crossover specials, the main heroes of the Resistance(never actually called the "Freedom Fighters" in the movie)made up of Phantom Lady, Black Condor, Dollman, Red Tornado, and The Ray are leading rebels to a safe location, but are ambushed by the Nazi villains trinity called the New Reichsmen made up evil versions of Supergirl(Overgirl), Green Arrow(Black Arrow), and Flash(Blitzkrieg, who might be their equivalent of Zoom). The battle results in the death of Dollman, and Red Tornado getting trashed leaving only his android brain. Earth-X Vibe shows up and transports a lethally hurt Ray with Red Tornado's brain to Earth-1. Once there, he meets his Earth-1 counterpart and bestows his powers to him just before dying. The new Ray uses his powers to save lives and fight crime, although they mostly seem to center on the victims being of the LGBT community, and shows more when Ray bullies a politician into equalizing the laws for minorities(which should send off some serious supervillain flags!). His activities get the attention of Flash and Green Arrow, who bring him in to help fight a random giant robot attacking Vixen's home turf. Earth-1 Ray then decides to have his Vibe send him to Earth-X to fight the New Reichsmen, and decides to stay on this world to help the Resistance.

This web series-turned-compilation movie doesn't 100% fit into the storyline shown in the Crisis On Earth-X story, mostly concerning Ray's physical appearance and whether or not this version was from Earth-1 to begin with. The main problem storyline-wise is it introduces overly-sensational concepts like giant robots into the Arrowverse, at least under the Earth-1 technological dynamics. The other main setback in this is that the DC TV universe writers continue to prove that they seriously fail at genuine dialogue for its LGBT characters, which they tend to go out of their way to point out in each show. Despite their good intentions, it shows a major lack of sincerity when you have heterosexuals providing dialogue for LGBT characters, which isn't insulting but just widely inaccurate. As far as a "superheroes vs. Nazis" in modern day plot goes, it pulls through, especially when Ray as handing Overgirl her butt on a plate!