The upcoming annual crossover event of Warner Bros TV’s superhero shows on The CW will have a backdrop concept of Elseworlds, which suggests the three-night story may be a stand-alone “What if?”-type story separate from the familiar and ongoing mythology.

Elseworlds was an acclaimed imprint that DC Comics launched in 1989 with Gotham by Gaslight, which featured art by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and reimagined Batman as a 19th century manhunter tangling with the infamous Jack the Ripper. Another Elseworlds issue melded the mythology of Green Lantern and Aladdin, while a third superimposed the Superman origin story over a medieval knight saga.

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Warner Bros TV also Wednesday announced the casting of LaMonica Garrett as the role of The Monitor, a cosmic character with a singular spot in the eight-decade publication history of DC Comics. In April 1985, The Monitor was introduced as a powerful entity at the center of Crisis on Infinite Earths, a miniseries that sought to streamline all the alternate universes that had over the years created a thicket of confusing overlaps and contradictions in the DC canon. The Crisis mini-series eliminated hundreds of characters — including Supergirl, a shocker at the time for DC readers.

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The Monitor, also known as Mar Novu, was created by writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez, the same writer and artist team that turned the Teen Titans into a 1980s publishing sensation as well as the creators of Cyborg, the character Ray Fisher portrayed in the Justice League film. Pérez, a living legend among comics artists, will be illustrating a sketch of the Monitor that plays a prominent role in the crossover story, according to Warner Bros TV.

The annual DC/WBTV crossover is a three-night event that kicks off with The Flash on Sunday, December 9, followed by Arrow on December 10 and capped off with Supergirl on December 11. Guest characters include Superman (Tyler Hoechlin), Batwoman (Ruby Rose), Lois Lane (Elizabeth Tulloch) and Nora Fries (Cassandra Jean Amell).