Comic Info
Comic Name: Flashpoint
Publisher: DC
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Andy Kubert
# of Issues: 5
Release Date: 2012
Flashpoint #2
Reprints Flashpoint #1-5 (July 2011-October 2011). Barry Allen wakes up powerless in a world he doesn’t recognize and realizes the Reverse Flash has attacked again. With Aquaman and Wonder Woman at war over Europe, Barry has to set things right…but how can he since he isn’t the Flash? Barry realizes he’ll need help doing it and there is only one man he can trust with Superman out of the picture, but Barry is about to learn that the Batman he knew no longer exists and the Reverse Flash’s plans for the future are just beginning!
Written by Geoff Johns, Flashpoint was a DC Comics “Big Event”. The five issue limited series ended the continuity of the DC Universe and relaunched the New 52 DC Universe. It features art by Andy Kubert. A DC Animated film version of the movie called Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox was released in 2013.
Flashpoint was the limited series that changes the DC Universe forever…again. The idea of rewriting the history of the universe has been done so many times by DC. First it was done by the far superior Crisis on Infinite Earths, then to a lesser extent in mini-series Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, and then somewhat in Final Crisis.
Flashpoint has a weird flow. Johns was in charge of a lot of the DC Universe at this point, and with series like Green Lantern, he wanted to keep going with his storyline so things didn’t radically change. It leads to an almost picking-and-choosing aspect to Flashpoint which at times seems random. The series itself also feels a lot like a general Elseworlds story and had a ton of spin off mini-series that expanded on the story…it also felt that Flashpoint needed a second miniseries to try to explain the changes to the DCU (but ended up leaving that to individual titles after the relaunch).
Flashpoint #5
The story like many of the big crossover series of both Marvel and DC does have the problem of not knowing what to do at the end. The generic “big fight” doesn’t really pan out and it just is Flash kind of facing off against Reverse Flash with Batman in tow. The final panels are interesting, but I expected more of a “big reveal” of the new 52 which never happened.
Flashpoint feels a bit like more of the same, but it did give a nice jolt to the DC Comics line for better or worse. After Flashpoint, DC rolled out the New 52 which reintroduced DC’s characters and fleshed out more of the changes make by Flashpoint (but as mentioned some of those changes felt pretty random). With 52 series launching in four weeks, Flashpoint had ambitious results…and the 52 (plus a couple extra weeks) of the New 52 did re-inspire me on the DC Comics front so that was not a bad thing. Like Crisis on Infinite Earths, Flashpoint will be judged and debated for years after its release and for some it could be the last straw with changes to the characters they loved. Was Flashpoint necessary? Not really, but it did turn out to be important.
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