The Arrowverse has over the last couple of seasons come up with multiple ways of how to time travel in the DC TV shows. As The CW's franchise has gotten bigger since 2012 when Arrow began, more popular concepts from the comics have made their way into the franchise. Whether it's metahumans, aliens, magic, alternative realities, doppelgangers, many of these elements have helped expand the Arrowverse. But a big layer of the shared universe is time travel that has always been a big storytelling device in comics and just superhero stories overall.

The Flash season 1 marked as the first time the Arrowverse had ever done it before it became a regular component. When Barry Allen first traveled back in time, it was merely accidental as he was trying to stop Weather Wizard from destroying Central City. Given that The Flash's mythology does heavily include time travel, it only made sense for the Arrow spinoff to get into it during the first season. But ever since then, other shows have also incorporated that element primarily through Legends of Tomorrow as well as other Arrowverse series.

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Over the course of the last couple of years, time travel is a regular aspect of the Arrowverse that has both been utilized in the individual shows as well as past crossovers. While several shows are using time travel, they're all doing it differently which is good for the franchise. The longer this universe goes on, there will always be new ways of tackling storylines where someone either travels back or forward in time. Here is every time travel method that the Arrowverse has introduced across the different shows and how they each respectively work.

The Speed Force

Arrowverse-Time-Travel-Speed-Force

The first approach to time travel was introduced in The Flash by establishing that speedsters have the ability to travel back and forward. By tapping into the Speed Force, any of the established speedsters in the Arrowverse gets the power to either travel to the past or the future. The way The Flash has relied on time travel is through storylines like Flashpoint, the 100th episode where Nora West-Allen and Barry went to specific points in the past seasons as well as going to the future like 2024 and 2049.

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The Waverider

Arrowverse-Time-Travel-Waverider

Legends of Tomorrow has since its existence been using the Waverider, a time travel ship that is a nod to the DC Comics character of the same name. In the Arrowverse, the Time Masters invented this ship that runs on time drivers which are crucial in order for a crew to travel in time. In comparison to other time travel methods in the Arrowverse, the Waverider is one of the few, but most "traditional" approaches to travel into the past or future given that it's a time machine. The ship also relies on the A.I. Gideon that helps the team keep track of the past, present, and future timelines whenever something has been changed or restored.

Legion Rings

As the Legion of Superheroes became part of the Arrowverse in Supergirl season 3, so did their iconic Legion rings from the comics. While it allows any Legionnaire to fly as well as breathe in tough environments like the vacuum of space, it also has the functionality to travel into time. The Legion rings were invented during the 31st century, so they are based on highly advanced technology and were made out of Nth metal. Kara Zor-El has used the Legion ring once during the Supergirl season 3 finale where she flies into outer space and travels back a few minutes into the past to undo the deaths of her friends against Reign.

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Time Spheres

Arrowverse-Time-Travel-Time-Sphere

Before Rip Hunter had even been introduced to the Arrowverse, his Time Sphere appeared on The Flash prior to the launch of Legends of Tomorrow. The Time Sphere was invented by Rip during the 22nd century which is the era that he came from. The way it gets introduced through The Flash is via Eobard Thawne a.k.a. the Reverse-Flash who had somehow acquired Rip's designs for how to make a Time Sphere. Very little is known about it other than that multiple characters have ended up using a Time Sphere in the Arrowverse from time to time.

Time Couriers

Arrowverse-Time-Travel-Time-Couriers

In Legends of Tomorrow season 3, the Arrowverse invents the Time Bureau - a more formal organization that solely existed to maintain the peace of the timeline. While they serve a similar role as the Time Masters, the Time Bureau was free of corruption, as Rip Hunter was its founder and former director. They also have a smoother way to travel in time, as they don't rely on time ships as the Time Masters did. Instead, Legends of Tomorrow introduces the Time Couriers - an object that may look like a simple watch, but actually allows anyone to travel into any timeline. Whoever is using a Time Courier is able to literally open a hole into another time period and simply walk through it. That's why it's always dangerous when it falls into the wrong hands, especially the many super-villains in the Arrowverse.

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The Monitor's Power

During the Elseworlds crossover, the Arrowverse brought in Mar Novu - a.k.a. the Monitor, one of the big characters from Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Monitor comes from Maltus and while he wasn't born with abilities, Mar Novu was eventually gifted with cosmic powers. He is so powerful that The Monitor is essentially one of the Arrowverse's few godlike characters that have ever existed. In Arrow season 8, the Monitor even demonstrates that he could take people from the future and place them in the past as he did with Mia Queen, William Clayton, and Connor Hawke.

Mallus's Time Stones

Arrowverse-Time-Travel-Time-Stone

Another practical way to travel in time that Legends of Tomorrow season 3 invents is the Time Stones. When Mallus served as the primary antagonist, he would give Time Stones to several villains that were loyal to him. Characters like Nora Darhk, Damien Darhk, and Amaya Jiwe's future granddaughter Kuasa used Time Stones to travel into any timeline they wanted. Due to it coming from Mallus who was a time demon, it's one of the Arrowverse's few supernatural ways to time travel.

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Xneen's Time Machine

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During the fourth hour in Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Arrowverse flashes back to Mar Novu's early days before becoming The Monitor. During his time on Maltus, Mar Novu was married to Xneen, who was also a scientist that was fascinated with exploring time itself. Xneen created a time machine that allowed Mar Novu to travel to the beginning of the universe's birth. While this is only seen in a flashback that aired in 2020, this technically makes Xneen's machine one of the Arrowverse's chronologically first approaches to time travel.

Temporal Disruption/Wormholes

Arrowverse-Time-Travel-Wormholes

While the Arrowverse mostly uses speedsters or time machines to travel into the past or future, there have also been the random occasions of temporal disruptions or wormholes as most commonly referred to. Most of the time when wormholes are created, they usually show up in space, particularly on Supergirl. In Supergirl season 2, Mon-El was forced to leave Earth in Kara's Kryptonian pod that ended up getting sucked into a wormhole that opened up during his travel. While it's unknown what caused its creation, it ended up taking Mon-El to the 31st century.

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Harrison Well's New Way

Harrison Wells looking surprised in The Flash

One of the latest and perhaps unusual ways to travel in time that the Arrowverse has created is through the Still Force, with Deon Owens and the original Harrison Wells as two of its users. In The Flash season 7, the Earth-1 Harrison that Reverse-Flash killed gets recreated through remaining particles that didn't get carried into the Artificial Speed Force when Nash Wells sacrificed himself. While Nash and all the remaining Multiverse-Harrisons are absorbed, 0.01% didn't make it and that resulted in the original Harrison being brought back to life.

However, unlike his Earth-1 iteration, this Harrison was bestowed with a unique time travel ability but with a catch. While Harrison knows of his entire 92-year-long existence, he can only travel into moments in the past, present, and future that has already been laid out for him. Therefore, Harrison can only emerge himself at any point of his own individual timeline before dying at the age of 92. Any time he uses the power, Harrison's body dissolves into green energy that then takes him into wherever he wants to go before his body gets re-created in the said timeline.

The green energy ties back into the New Forces that The Flash season 7 brought into the Arrowverse as his power comes from the Still Force. Deon is able to travel anything or anyone into any time period he wants. Another Still Force ability that Deon has is he can freeze time around him, including people. This is likely not the last approach to time travel in the Arrowverse as current shows as well as future ones can and will always find new ways to tackle it. As the Arrowverse gets close to having lived for almost a full decade, they have managed to find a lot of intriguing ways for the various shows to time travel.

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