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Crisis Crossover - TV Tropes

  • ️Thu Jun 14 2007

Crisis Crossover (trope)

This is one way they can start.

"So first there was The Infinity Gauntlet, then Infinity War, and now there's Infinity Crusade. It must be like an annual convention for super heroes that Warlock runs for them. It gives them all a chance to get together and network and catch up on each other's continuity, exchange business and trading cards, pose for holograms with each other, stuff like that. They probably just wish the things were held in San Diego or someplace fun, where everyone could hang out at the beach."

— Marvel Year in Review 1993

A company-wide Massive Multiplayer Crossover which sweeps all the "mainstream" characters in a ficton into a single storyline and, often, takes their own series along for the ride.

The original was Marvel Comics's Secret Wars (1984), but the trend only really caught on with Crisis on Infinite Earths, the event which changed The DCU so much that its history is permanently defined as "pre-Crisis" and "Post-Crisis". It went from April 1985 to March 1986, tying in almost every other series DC Comics published at the time.

After this, it became more and more popular, with not just Marvel and DC but other companies — Malibu, WildStorm, etc. — getting into the act. Eventually, though, readers were sick of it, and it tapered off, before returning to the scene in 2004 when DC and Marvel both launched new Crisis Crossovers that started Metaplots that are still running today. Time will tell how long it takes for readers to get sick of it this time (if they aren't already).

The advantage of a Crisis Crossover to a publisher is that people reading the main story will want to read the various crossovers, thus increasing sales. The disadvantage is that people who only want to read one of the titles that cross over may be turned off by having to buy all the tie-ins to understand it, thus decreasing sales. In practice, it can go either way, but there's a reason the technique was abandoned for awhile.

In-story, the scope is usually more massive than what may be found in the stories at ongoing comics. Things like the death of a flagship character or events where Nothing Is the Same Anymore for the whole setting usually take place in those stories. But what about the event that kickstarts it all? It may simply take place in the first issue, it may be expanded in a dedicated one-shot (with titles such as "Crisis Alpha", "the road to Crisis", and "Prelude to Crisis"), or even have been brewing for quite some time already in a previous Comic Book Run elsewhere by the author. For example, Secret Wars (2015), King in Black and War of the Realms are the culmination of The Avengers (Jonathan Hickman), Venom (Donny Cates) and Thor (2014) respectively.

In comics, there are several subtypes:

  • The classic is a single mini- or maxi-series, with other titles having a couple issues branded with the crossover's title. Crisis on Infinite Earths itself and Secret Wars II are of this type.
  • A second kind is the all-annuals crossover. Many comic series have, in addition to their twelve monthly titles per year, a thirteenth plus-sized annual. An all-annuals crossover takes place entirely in one year's annuals (plus, perhaps, a special bookending issue or two). Armageddon 2001 and Atlantis Attacks! are examples.
  • Fifth Week Events. Most comics come out monthly, most comics come out on Wednesday, and most months have four Wednesdays. Four times a year, however, there will be a month with a fifth Wednesday. Instead of moving titles around so that (for example) some comics that usually come out on the fourth Wednesday are pushed to the fifth, the publisher may just schedule an event for that week. Example: Sins of Youth
  • Self-contained: A crossover that doesn't crossover. The heroes take a break from their own books to participate in a mini-series, then return to their own books. Examples: Secret Wars and Cosmic Odyssey.
  • The opposite is the crossover without a self-titled mini-series; the whole crossover takes place in extant books. Marvel used to do this a lot, as with Inferno and Acts of Vengeance.
  • The current format is an expansion of the first type: There will be a core series, one or more spinoff series, probably some one-shots, and crossover into regular titles. Blackest Night, for example, had a core mini-series, seven multi-issue spinoffs, a slew of one-shots (nominally numbered as "new" issues of long-dead series), and heavy crossover into both Green Lantern titles, among others.

When a comic slaps a big, visible "Crisis Crossover" logo on the cover, but only has a token Shout-Out to the Big Event that only peripherally affects the plot of the issue in question, that's a Red Skies Crossover. When a Crossover occurs that involves a couple of characters and their support, but doesn't necessarily affect the large universe, it's a Bat Family Crossover. When the various sets of characters do not interact with each other but still deal with a universal threat, it's a Cross Through. When the same characters from different Alternate Universes work/clash together in a Crisis Crossover, then it's an Intra-Franchise Crossover.

Examples:

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Film — Live-Action 

Literature 

Live-Action TV 

  • CSIVerse has been known to cross storylines and characters between its various incarnations, as has the Law & Order series. This most commonly takes place during sweeps.
    • The most prominent CSI example is their "trilogy" from Nov of 2009, which concerned a nation-wide human trafficking ring Ray Langston was after due to young woman being kidnapped. It starts on CSI: Miami with "Bone Voyage," travels up the East Coast to CSI: NY with "Hammer Down," and wraps up in Vegas with CSI's "The Lost Girls."
    • There was in fact a Law & Order massive crossover in the works, involving a terrorist plot to attack NYC and several teams of detectives from different squads all working the case together. The idea got shelved after 9/11.
  • During the winter of 1999, in line with its plans to air the Miniseries Storm of the Century, ABC had a raging winter storm strike all four of its soap operas. Fitting, as two were set in upstate Pennsylvania, while the other two (one of which was a Spin-Off of the other) was set in upstate New York.
  • American Horror Story: Apocalypse is effectively one of these for the American Horror Story universe, as it combines several characters and story threads from different seasons (but especially Murder House and Coven) to reverse its titular apocalypse.
  • The CW's Arrowverse has been doing these ever since The Flash premiered; it's not uncommon for characters to visit each other, but the ones that air each fall just before the winter break are advertised as big event TV. Originally they were just with the parent show, Arrow, they've gotten bigger each year as more and more shows are added to the franchise. They are in order:
    • The 2014 event, Flash vs. Arrow, where Flash and Arrow face off and visit each other's cities to understand each other better.
    • The 2015 event, Heroes Join Forces was used to promote the third Arrowverse show, Legends of Tomorrow by having Teams Arrow and Flash team-up to help Kendra Saunders and Carter Hall escape the wrath of Vandal Savage, the Big Bad of Legends Season 1.
    • The 2016 event, Invasion!, an adaption of the Invasion! arc of the 1980's expanded the crossover by having play across all four shows: Supergirl, The Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow by having Barry Allen unite all the heroes he knows to stop an impending invasion from an alien race called the Dominators.
    • The 2017 event, Crisis on Earth-X is even bigger. Whereas Invasion! was technically only a three part event (with Supergirl being just a tie-in to the main event), this crossover fully plays out over all four episodes, equally juggling the storylines of each show, as well as serving as a lead-in to Freedom Fighters: The Ray. And it actually has lasting repercussions for the Arrowverse's future, as Barry and Iris get married, as do Oliver and Felicity, while Martin Stein is Killed Off for Real.
    • The 2018 event, Elseworlds, dials things back somewhat, "only" being a crossover between The Flash, Arrow, and Supergirl, though in a surprising twist the 1990 Flash ended up making an appearance.note  That said, it is notably a Breather Episode compared to the previous year's crossover and is used to promote the then-upcomingBatwoman. Ultimately, it is just a setup for the following year's event.
    • The 2019-2020 event is Crisis on Infinite Earths, having been foreshadowed steadily since The Flash Season 1 and sporadically throughout the other shows, it featured five episodes that span all recurrent Arrowverse series, including Supergirl, Batwoman, The Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow (the last of these actually began its forthcoming season after the Crisis). This was the last time Arrow got to participate, as the show ended in 2020 and its final season focuses on Tonight The Hero Dies in the lead-up to and the aftermath of the Crisis. It is an adaptation of the classic comic of the same name AKA the Trope Namer. In addition to the return of 1990 Flash, it also features a cavalcade of guest and cameo appearances from other DC live-action adaptations from outside of the Arrowverse continuity, including Tim Burton's Batman, Titans, the 1960s Batman series, Smallville, a merger of Superman: The Movie and Superman Returnsnote , Birds of Prey, Lucifer, Black Lightning, Swamp Thing, Doom Patrol and the DC Extended Universe. It also marks the debut of the titular character of Stargirl, ahead of the series' premiere on the DC Universe streaming service (which includes the aforementioned Titans, Doom Patrol and Swamp Thing)note . As with the comic book, this crossover has a huge impact on the franchise, as it ends up merging the Black Lightning Earth with Earth-38 (the universe where Supergirl is set) and Earth-1 (where the other four shows are set) into a single new reality.
  • The Defenders (2017) is the self-contained type. It is an eight episode miniseries that sees Matt Murdock, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand team up to fight the Hand, a villainous organization built up in Daredevil season 2 and Iron Fist season 1. The crossover has lasting repercussions for the next phase of the Netflix shows, as Matt's "death" in the climax, and subsequent turning up at a convent, sets up the third season of Daredevil to do a loose adaptation of the renowned Born Again storyline.
  • Doctor Who:
    • Pre-revival, the show would occasionally have multi-Doctor special episodes. They had "The Three Doctors" (First/Second/Third), "The Five Doctors" (First/Second/Third/Fourth/Fifth), and "The Two Doctors" (Second/Sixth).
    • The two-part Series 4 finale, "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End", crosses over with spinoffs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, and also brings in almost all of the Doctor's companions (a majority of the companions of the Russell T Davies era as a whole) to appear in the revived series to date. (Although it should be noted that this did not have any on-screen content or long-term consequences in either of the spin-off shows.)
    • "The Day of the Doctor" sees the Tenth, Eleventh, and retroactively introduced War Doctors work together to end the Time War. Eventually, all 13 Doctors (including the 12th, yet to debut Doctor) come together to end the Time War and prevent the destruction of the Time Lords.
    • "Twice Upon a Time" has the Twelfth Doctor team up with his original incarnation, the First Doctor himself.
  • A rather famous "Hurricane Saturday" event that happened on The Golden Girls and its spinoffs Empty Nest and Nurses (Nurses was technically a spinoff of Empty Nest, but go with it.) A hurricane hit during The Golden Girls and Empty Nest and the hospital of Nurses dealt with the aftermath. A similar even happened with a full moon, but that better fit as a Cross Through.
  • Ten years of Kamen Rider's Heisei era (and much later on, the franchise's 38 years up to that point) were celebrated in Kamen Rider Decade, where Decade (obviously the tenth) must travel across the Kamen Rider multiverse to save it from total destruction.
  • The three crossover episodes that NCIS: New Orleans has shared with its parent show—one of which was its Back Door Pilot—had a case beginning in Washington on NCIS before evidence took them to New Orleans.
  • Power Rangers has done something like this a few times (not counting traditional two-season teamups), in what was originally meant to be the Grand Finale and as part of Milestone Celebrations.
    • The first, Countdown to Destruction during the sixth season, featured Dark Specter and the United Alliance of Evil declaring war on the entire universe. While the Space Rangers are the main protagonists, making this a Downplayed Trope, the Aquitar Rangers and Zeo Gold are shown fighting elsewhere.
    • Ten Red Rangers would later unite for a special mission in the tenth season, to stop the Machine Empire's remaining generals from re-activating Zedd's war Zord Serpentera as part of the 10th anniversary celebration.
    • The twenty-first season took the previous Rangers examples up to eleven with its Grand Finale The Legendary Battle, where every Ranger team to ever lead a season (including two from other planets, one from the future and one from an Alternate Continuity for some reason) come together to fight an Armada dwarfing the United Alliance of Evil declaring war on Earth. Most of the war is actually off-screen, with the Legendary Rangers fighting and rescuing people elsewhere while the season's own Mega Rangers fight the Emperor and high command; they all come together in time for the final battle against the last remnants of the army. This served as the 20th anniversary celebration, though the post-Channel Hop scheduling of the show delayed it to the 21st year.
    • The finale of Power Rangers Cosmic Fury features multiple teams attempting to stop a Reverse Z-Wave from destroying all good in the universe; serving as the Grand Finale to 30 years of the franchise ahead of an upcoming reboot.
  • Space Squad: Space Sheriff Gavan Vs. Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger involves Geki/the new Gavan and the Dekarangers teaming up to fight an alliance between Metal Heroes villains, with Madgallant as the movie's main villain. On top of this, the establishment of a space squad was done in response to another universe being dominated by evil, to prevent such an event from happening again.
  • Super Sentai. In the seasonal crossovers, the series from Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger to Engine Sentai Go-onger are nominally connected by mentions of the Dino House where one character from series A met a character from series B.
    • Kamen Rider X Super Sentai Superhero Taisen is starting to look like this as well, with Decade's Dai-Shocker being ressurected, with their opposite number being the similarly-structured Dai-Zangyack Fleet led by GokaiRed of the Gokaigers. Both the Super Sentai 199 and the All Riders are at the very middle, wondering just what is going on.
    • The Super Hero Taisen series has become an annual tradition, though the focus has been shifting more and more toward the Rider side of things.

Magazines 

  • This trope is spoofed in MAD's article about The 8 Greatest Comic Books of All Time, with one of them being the fake issue Multiple Issues: Infinite Identity Countdown to Final Crisis Ad Infinitum: The Introducing. This issue follows on from Exigency Climax: Final Crisis Across Multi-Realities: The Finality, with every DC Hero from every universe introducing themselves to each other... before the next crossover event happens.

Multi-Media 

  • The Doctor Who Expanded Universe has had multi-media crossover events involving multiple different spin-off works.
    • Time Lord Victorious (2019-22 — intended to be 2019-20, but some works were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic), which centered on the Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Doctors, and included New Series Adventures novels, Big Finish Doctor Who dramas, comic arcs in both Doctor Who (Titan) and the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip, webcasts, a T-shirt, and two live theatrical events, A Dalek Awakens and Time Fracture.
    • Doom's Day (2023), which was set in a single 24-hour day from the perspective of the assassin Doom, in search of the Doctor, and included a webcast, text stories on the BBC website, arcs in both the Titan Doctor Who comic and the Doctor Who Magazine strip, content in the Doctor Who: Lost in Time mobile game, a prose novel, and audio dramas from both Big Finish and BBC Audio.

Mythology and Religion 

Podcasts 

  • Are You Afraid Of The Dark Universe aims to revive the Dark Universe by mimicking the style of the Marvel Cinemtic Universe, so naturally each Phase of film pitches ends in one of these. Phase One had Dark Legion: House of Dracula, followed by Dark Legion: The Mummy's Hand, Dark Legion: Death's Door, and Dark Legion: Hell on Earth. This also applies to some of the other film pitches. Van Helsing sees a major team-up between their various characters and is described as their version of Captain America: Civil War. Their version of Mystery Men also takes this form, as while it's tonally akin to the original the cast is actually made up of secondary characters and characters introduced in various guest pitch episodes.

Professional Wrestling 

  • The Invasion storyline in the WWE was meant to be this, with top WCW talent (the then WWF had bought out WCW) "invading" WWF. However contract issues meant that many of the WCW's top stars weren't involved.
  • Rather than being involved in every aspect of a single company, The Hostile Youth Project was out to invade every North Carolina promotion in 2002.

Tabletop Games 

  • The Abyssal Plague, a series of Dungeons & Dragons Tie In Novels which started out in the Nentir Vale setting but grew to involve other D&D worlds too, including the Forgotten Realms, Eberron and Dark Sun.
    • The D&D settings Planescape and Spelljammer are made of this trope, explicitly designed to allow travel and storylines across D&D's other universes. While it was implied for years that all D&D games belonged to the same multiverse, these were two official company lines that supported it.
    • The book Die, Vecna, Die had the titular lich escape the Mists, leading the party to fight in Greyhawk, across various planes, and culminating in an attack on Sigil. Canonically, this module is the story reason for the changes from 2nd Ed. to 3rd.
    • The 50th Anniversary adventure, Vecna: Eve of Ruin crosses over Forgotten Realms, Planescape, Spelljammer, Eberron, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk as heroes and characters fight to stop Vecna, who's now an aspiring Multiversal Conqueror.
  • The Old World of Darkness had a few thematic ones toward the end of its line, but an official one with the Time of Judgment series of books, officially ending the old settings.
  • Rifts is this to the Palladium systems of games. The setting is of Earth a couple hundred years in the future, after having been transformed into a multidimensional hub, with beings from all over time and space arriving, either by choice or forcibly.
    • More specifically, Palladium ran a series of Sourcebooks called "Minion Wars," detailing a conflict between two different versions of Hell that spilled out across the Megaverse. Sourcebooks were written for several Palladium titles, describing how those specific settings were affected by the war.
  • Reality Storm: When Worlds Collide, a crossover between Silver Age Sentinels and Champions.
  • The OblivAeon event in Sentinels of the Multiverse, which not only sees villains turn hero (permanently or otherwise), but includes heroes from alternate universes rushing to help fight in the grand finale.
  • In Wargames, characters and factions beating the crap of each other is their entire point, but sometimes events in the story get too out of hand and several facions are drawn into the ensuing conflict. These wars are commonly told in special supplements commonly named "Campaign Books". These books usually include the background of the conflict, special rules and scenarios to replicate in the tabletop the battles of the mentioned conflict and the rules of units, soldiers and characters who got involved in said conflict, regardless of faction or allegiance. Sometimes, these camapigns and their resolution gets it's way into the story itself and becomes a part of it, specially in the ficitional wargames.
    • Years ago, Games Workshop hosted events called "World Campaigns" which involved every faction of their main games Warhammer or Warhammer 40,000 and threw them into a war where everyone had someting at stake, with different levels of focus (Usually both Empires being the highest) in the story. These campaigns were to be played by players all around the world and games deciding (usually) the outcome of said wars. Some Campaigns were reinforced by Campagin books like normal campaigns. The most famous are included in their games entries.
      • 40K had campaign suppements way back to 2nd Edition, like Storm of Vengeance, but other, more recent ones are Armageddon and Eye of Terror related to the World campaign of the same name. The most recent ones are The Red Waagh and Shield of Baal series of books and boxed sets wich the firt Series pits the Astra Militarum, and Space Wolves aganist the Orks, and the second the Astra Militarum, Sisters of Battle, Blood Angels and Necrons aganist the Tyranids.
      • Warhammer also had its share of campaigns, usually in the form of "campaign boxes", normally centered in two or three of the factions that included the campaign books and special markers or scenery, all capboard. Some of most famous of these Campaign boxes are Idol of Mork and Tears of Isha. 6th Edition onwards, the campaign box format was dropped in favor of the traditional book, being the most famous campaigns The Shadow over Albion, Storm of Chaos and The Nemesis Crown also World Campaigns (albeit The Nemesis Crown was retconned the istant the campaign ended and Storm of Chaos suffered the same fate in the beggining of 8th Ed., The Shadow over Albion sticked). The most famous (and controversial) of the recent campaigns is the Warhammer: The End Times series of books. The End times tells the story of the final days of the world and the efforts of EVERYONE to stop it or bring it. No one knows for sure if it will stick, but everyone fears that it will. No need to say that it didn't end well.

Video Games 

Webcomics 

Web Original 

  • Critical Role: The third campaign revolves entirely around Ludinus Da'leth's plan to unleash an Eldritch Abomination that will devour the gods, and the forces of Exandria gathering together to fight them. Bell's Hells encounter multiple player characters from previous campaigns (they meet Keyleth, Percy, Vex, and Pike from Vox Machina while trying to resurrect Laudna, and Caleb and Beau from the Mighty Nein during their attack on the Malleus Key), and temporarily gain Essek Thelyss, a beloved NPC from Campaign 2, as a traveling companion. The end of the campaign makes the crossover complete, as the players reprise their roles as Vox Machina, the Mighty Nein, and Bell's Hells for a three-pronged assault on the enemy base — the Hells and the Nein even travel to their respective destinations together, forcing each player to play two characters at the same time.
  • These have become the main storyline in I'm a Marvel... And I'm a DC, as is to be expected in a meta series for both Marvel and DC. Having Deadpool around means that inter-series continuity is now lampshaded.
  • The blogosphere side of The Slender Man Mythos has had a few. Some examples include the Winter Solstice story in Observe and Terminate and A Hint of Serendipity, and the Wedding crossover from Take The Myth.
  • The Fear Mythos, a spin-off of The Slender Man Mythos, had one early in its existence: The Birth of the Manufactured Newborn. It involved four different blogs intertwining their stories: The Hunter, The Devil and God Are, They Sought It With Thimbles, and Hidden in the Trees. The crossover involved a conspiracy by the Fears to birth a new one into their ranks, while the human characters either try to stop them or try to help them.

Western Animation 

  • Dexter's Laboratory: Last But Not Beast had the Dexter, Monkey and Justice Friends segments connected via the giant monster destroying Japan. The Monkey segment even skips its usual opening credits to continue the story.
  • Turtles Forever: It deals with the 2000 Shredder returning from his exile, taking over the 1980s Shredder's Technodrome, and, after learning of the TMNT Multiverse, he plans to go conquer it, until he learns that there are teams of TMNT in each and every reality. He goes after the original Mirage Turtles in order to destroy all the Turtles, and three sets of Turtle Teams set off to stop him.
  • Hanna-Barbera did this with the "Council of Doom" storyline in Space Ghost with Space Ghost eventually meeting Moby Dick, Mighty Mightor, Shazzan, and The Herculoids. Sometimes, the Cartoon Network (and later, Boomerang) would show the whole thing.
    • The later Space Stars series did this at the end of each show with a "Space Stars Finale" which features a team up of characters from two or more of the show's segments (Teen Force, Space Ghost, The Herculoids, and Astro and the Space Mutts).
  • Another Hanna-Barbera example would be Yogi's Ark Lark which by definition featured characters joining together to deal with a crisis. Except the crisis in question wasn't a comic book level event as much as the planet has too much pollution kind.
  • The Phoenix Saga of X-Men: The Animated Series was a borderline example. Although there were no actual team ups, it used appearances of other Marvel Comics characters to emphasise the seriousness of the whole thing. Captain Britain and Doctor Strange were seen reacting to the Phoenix and Spider-Man (albeit only his silhouette and his hand) and War Machine were seen protecting civilians in New York. In the sequel, the Dark Phoenix Saga, Doctor Strange briefly appeared again, along with Thor, a Watcher and Eternity.
  • A made-for-TV animated movie called The Man Who Hated Laughter brought together a big group of newspaper comic strip characters — Blondie, Popeye, Beetle Bailey, Hi and Lois, Snuffy Smith — who are ultimately saved from a comics-hating villain by the combined forces of a group of newspaper adventure strip heroes (Mandrake the Magician, Flash Gordon, Prince Valiant, The Phantom, and Steve Canyon). All the characters are owned by King Features Syndicate.
  • Hurricane Flozell blew her way into all three Seth MacFarlane shows, The Cleveland Show, Family Guy and American Dad! culminating in the final scene of the American Dad episode where Cleveland, Stan, and Peter have a standoff with guns.
  • The feature-length special Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July by Rankin Bass, which brought back several characters from all of their holiday specials and many of the voice actors from the previous specials as well. It involves Rudolph, Frosty, and Santa trying to stop an evil wizard named Winterbolt. It also contains a bounty of Continuity Porn, with callbacks to other previous specials such as Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, Rudolph's Shiny New Year, and Frosty's Winter Wonderland (with the notable exception of The Year Without a Santa Claus, leaving the poor Miser Brothers snubbed).
  • Spider-Man: The Animated Series: While the show had many crossovers, the series had two of this nature near the end of it's run. "Secret Wars" which saw Spider-Man drafted to be a leader in a literal battle of good vs evil where he picks the Fantastic Four, Storm, Captain America, Black Cat and Iron Man to help take on the likes of Dr. Doom, Dr. Octopus, The Lizard, Alister Symthe and Red Skull. The final arc of the series, "Spider Wars", saw him teaming with various Spider-Men from different alternate universes (one with six arms, one with Doc Ock's metal tentacles, one who was a billionaire and built his own tech, one who didn't have any powers, and one who was the Scarlet Spider) to stop Spider-Carnage, a murderous version of Spider-Man who fused with the Carnage symbiote.
  • Teen Titans Go! vs. Teen Titans features the 2013 Teen Titans meeting up with their 2003 counterparts to do battle against both Go!Trigon and a freshly resurrected 2003 Trigon. Multiple incarnations of Teen Titans throughout the multiverse are eventually summoned to do battle with this new threat alongside the two main teams.
  • The premise of Pibby, as shown in the trailer, is that an Eldritch Abomination is destroying several different cartoon shows (fictional and real, the latter all owned by Warner Bros.) and killing their casts. Pibby is forced to dimension-hop into these shows and meet with other characters in the hopes of stopping it.