It seemed like the usual event comic that these major comic book publishers like to shoot out every year or so to give collectors more stuff to collect and maybe even read. You know how these things usually work; they usually have a core miniseries of five issues or so, spread the wealth across multiple one-shots or spin-off miniseries, and resolve the story with some changes in the status quo, sticking with those changes until the next year’s event comic. That sort of thing.
And by that context alone, the DC Comics event Flashpoint seems like the usual sort of thing with an interesting (for me, anyway) premise; due to unknown circumstances, the Flash a.k.a. Barry Allen finds himself in a world completely different from the one he’s familiar with; where the Amazons and Atlanteans are at war with each other, where the US government is in possession of a certain Kryptonian boy, and where Batman is actually Thomas Wayne, father of the late Bruce Wayne who spends his days running casinos in Gotham City and is an overall more brutish Batman than his son would have been. Now the Flash has to find a way to change things back to the way they were before his memories of the old timeline fade away forever… or before the world ends. Whichever comes first.
There were a few reviews I’ve read online that seem to feel that Flashpoint felt more like a Flash story that somehow became an event comic but never read like one. It’s probably a fair assessment, since the Flash is the main character and even from the get-go before the big climatic revelation in the final issue, I sort of knew that whatever happened in this story was probably Barry Allen’s fault…
I guess it should be noted that I’ve never cared for the Barry Allen character. I think the closest I ever got to having any vested interest in the Barry Allen character was the short-lived live-action television series from 1990-1991. So perhaps, because it was a mostly Flash-centric story, I probably didn’t get into this one as much as I could have. The problem with Barry Allen is that I find him boring and quite frankly, never had much of a reason to read any of the recent Flash stuff, whether it’d be the Rebirth or the recent series that was shitcanned to make way for Flashpoint. Maybe this might have something to do with the fact that, outside of the aforementioned TV show, I always preferred Wally West in the red suit since I felt he was a more lively character during his stint and perhaps also because he was the guy in the suit when I was growing up.
Also, I firmly believe Wally West, for all of his quirks and faults, wouldn’t have done anything catastrophically stupid… but I digress.
The truly unfortunate thing about Flashpoint as a whole is that it’s just goes from point A to point B to point C (and so on) in such a short period time that you hardly care about the world because very little of it explored in the main miniseries. You have a vague idea as to what’s going on in the altered timeline, but not enough to really sink your teeth into. Reading through the main mini in one sitting, I often get the feeling that the main story taking place during the miniseries felt extremely rushed and lacking in details, as if the story was copied verbatim from a 20-page outline with dialogue made up as they went along.
I suppose the idea is that if you wanted to learn more about the Flashpoint world, you’d check out the corresponding spin-off minis. And out of all the spin-offs that I’ve read, not surprisingly, I find myself reading through the entirety of the Batman: Knight Of Vengeance (pretty good) and Project: Superman (not too bad) miniseries, with the rest of them not holding enough interest beyond the first issue. Did not care for the Atlantean/Amazon war beyond figuring out the cause of such conflict – for something that was supposed to be monumental and a contributing factor to this alternate world, Flashpoint does very little to explore it further or give anyone a reason to want to care about such an event. The Hal Jordan mini, I felt, was pointless since his fate was sealed in the main mini, and really, the rest of what I had read (and I’ll admit, I didn’t read through all of them) did not having enough to keep me around as a reader and wanting more.
Somewhere along the way, while Flashpoint was taking place, DC Comics made a monumental announcement that some (myself included) perceived to have come out of nowhere. The month of August would see an end to the DC Universe that has been in existence since 1985 following the events of that year’s Crisis On Infinite Earths maxiseries and see the release of Justice League #1, the flagship issue of DC’s New 52 initiative that will serve as the introduction to a brand-new, relaunched DC Universe, featuring younger versions of characters and other things… and would be one of 52 new series relaunched by the company. And the other thing of note? Flashpoint would serve as the catalyst that would transition from the old continuity to the New 52 continuity.
Certainly, Flashpoint does leave subtle clues that could possibly suggest that the timeline would not be restored as it was before, but whether they were implemented in the story with the relaunch in mind or not… depends on who you ask and what you believe to be the case. Until the final issue of Flashpoint, there’s no indication that this was going to be anything more than an alternate timeline event comic with few changes made across the restored timeline. And even with that final issue where everything is supposed to change, the transition is relegated to a simple two-page that seemed like a nice transition from OLD to NEW, even if the details were (once again) lacking… perhaps serving as fodder for a future event comic. I only wish they dwelled into that a little more, but whatever.
But for all of the “mehs” and “sighs” that I have exerted from the main story, there are a couple moments that I felt were touching and especially one meeting between Barry and Bruce that brought me to tears… and I rarely tear up in a comic… or anything else. It was a really nice, touching moment that doesn’t necessarily make up for the whole, but a solemn end nonetheless.
Andy Kubert does wonderful work here with the artwork. The art throughout the main series has been rather eye-pleasing and does a fantastic job of depicting a world where everything is going to Hell; truly top-notch stuff that I can say is perhaps Flashpoint’s best part.
As a typical Flash story, it is really nothing special; other than the fact that the whole thing is Barry Allen’s fault, it’s a pretty average story taking place in a universe that I would have liked the series to explore a bit more before killing it off for good. As a company-wide event comic, it’s certainly not the strongest of the bunch compared to past event comics and is probably going to be forgotten in a few months time. But as an event that is suppose to bring closure to the now-past DC Universe and transition to the New 52 currently in progress, it is an EXTREMELY underwhelming title that really falls below expectations. Despite the subtle hints that things weren’t exactly going to return to the way they were before the Flashpoint event, Flashpoint hardly feels like a story that would have huge ramifications on the DCU as a whole, but rather as a story plodding along its natural course before drastically realizing that it’s supposed to be the catalyst to a new continuity and so… let’s have a double page spread explaining the changes. And while I thought that double-spread was adequate and rather nice, it’s still only two pages out of an estimated 120-pages of story.
For something that was supposed to bring about change, Flashpoint was far below what it needed to be. And even then, it barely touched on the potential it had. Sure, it has its moments, but overall, this isn’t something that is going to scream must-read regardless of the hype surrounding it.
dtm666 