The beginning of the end is here and it already wants to play on a good sized scale.
What They Say:
Not a dream, not an imaginary story, not an elseworld. This is Flash Fact: When Barry Allen wakes at his desk, he discovers the world has changed. Family is alive, loved ones are strangers, and close friends are different, gone or worse. It’s a world on the brink of a cataclysmic war – but where are Earth’s Greatest Heroes to stop it? It’s a place where America’s last hope is Cyborg, who hopes to gather the forces of The Outsider, The Secret 7, S!H!A!Z!A!M!, Citizen Cold and other new and familiar-yet-altered faces! It’s a world that could be running out of time, if The Flash can’t find the villain who altered the time line! Welcome to FLASHPOINT!
The Review:
When Flashpoint was first announced, little did we know the long term ramifications of it would be at the end where everything really would change. While we know that now, with the first digital issue coming a few weeks after the print edition and knowing what the future holds for DC Comics, going into this series has a bit of extra meaning now. We didn’t catch the prelude to it in the Flash series that Geoff Johns has been writing but we’ve read a fair bit of his Flash in the last year to be familiar enough with what he’s done with the character. Being that he’s the key to this story, opening the series with Barry waking up in the lab, getting grief from his boss, gives us a good dose of the familiar. Where it goes off the rails is when Barry learns that not only doesn’t he have his Flash ring, he doesn’t have any powers at all. The only consolation is the fact that apparently his mother is alive. Considering what her death meant to him as a young boy, it’s a profound moment on his life coming at a time when he’s already confused about what’s going on. It does lead him in the right direction of realizing something bigger is happening than just him and his powers though.
While we do see Barry going through a few moments of understanding throughout the book, the focus is largely elsewhere as we begin to grasp what’s going on in this seemingly alternate world we’ve been thrust into. Many of the heroes Barry has known are non-existent, including Superman, but there are others that he knows. Amusingly, Captain Cold is playing the role of a hero but people are trying to expose him for what he really is. The one name that Barry does connect with though is Batman, which sends him on a journey to Gotham so he can try and figure out what’s going on. No matter the different Batman’s we’ve seen over the years in alternate world stories, they always know their thing.
This Batman is a bit different from what we know as he rules over Gotham in a darker way as he has no compunction in killing someone for information, including a villain, but in his non-costumed identity he runs numerous Wayne Casinos, resorts and more. When we see him dropping someone off a building so they can go splat, we get a pretty big clue as to what to expect. What throws his plans off just a bit is the arrival of Cyborg, as he wants to bring Batman on board for a big plan that he wants to put into motion. But he needs an army to go with him and he can only get that if Batman is on his side. We’re introduced to an array of alternate personalities of various interesting characters, including the Marvel Family, that shows some of the neat differences and approach to how the world works as there is no Justice League here and even the Green Lantern of the sector is a non-human as Abin Sur has remained alive and taken on an active role within the community.
And what a state the world is in. Aquaman has used Atlantis to destroy Western Europe at the cost of a hundred million lives as the entire area was essentially sunk and is now deep under water. Wonder Woman and the Amazons have attacked the United Kingdom and killed over thirty million there in their attempts to turn it into a New Themiscrya. The world is falling apart and wars are going on and Cyborg wants to combat it with the forces that he can put together for it. But unfortunately, Batman has little interest in participating with this for a variety of reasons, one of which being that they can’t actually assemble a force together that won’t kill each other the minute they’re in the same room. This all gives us a very neat premise that holds a lot of potential, it’s all background material for the moment.
And it has little impact when it comes to most American’s it seems as when Barry makes his way to see Iris to try and put the pieces together more, even though she’s in the news business there isn’t any sense of real urgency behind it. It has meaning, but there’s such a relaxed nature to what we see of the citizenry when dealing with a time when <I>Western Europe</i> has been sunk that it’s a missed connection that should be in there more. Barry’s confusion is obvious and he goes through what you could almost consider a standard routine of trying to get his footing to figure out what his next step would be, so the issue largely does what it wants to do with him as the main character of the story. He may not be the one narrating it, but he’s the focal point for it all. And he does lead us to quite a fun little twist on the last page that while not demanding you come back for more, definitely makes it seem like it will be worthwhile.
While I’ve generally enjoyed Geoff Johns’ stories over the last few years, I felt he was at his weakest with Flash Rebirth. He did gain me back a bit with the first issue of the new Flash series, but I only made it to that issue since we have a significant digital delay. With this story, it’s reminiscent of the main series so Barry comes across well enough, but I still find him to be a weak character at this stage and I don’t expect that to change with Flashpoint. Barry has felt out of sync with the DC Comics world since Rebirth and I’ve had a hard time shaking that. On the plus side, Andy Kubert’s artwork here does a really good job in bringing the world to light, though it’s a bit shaky itself for the first few pages as he deals with Barry waking up into a changed world. Kubert doesn’t feel like he has a real handle on Barry but once it gets into the new dynamic of this world, especially our first look at Gotham, Kubert’s style of design comes through stronger and much more appealing. There aren’t too many really strong design changes here, outside of of Element Woman really, but he does a good job with this new Batman and that helps to establish things well. Kubert makes me want to see more of this Gotham though with the Vegas-like atmosphere.
Digital Notes:
This Comixology edition of Flashpoint has a total of thirty-four pages to it and contains three covers for it at the beginning. We get the strong one with Flash running forward with the red blood flowing from him while the big names of this world watch from the background. The second page has the pencil rough version of it which is really appealing while the third cover features Cyborg in the classic Superman pose of pulling his shirt open while the American flag waves behind him.
In Summary:
Flashpoint is set to change the DC Universe but it’s impossible to say what parts of this world will make it into the next world that we see. With this opening issue, we see how Barry is (so far?) the sole person who has a clue that things have changed and he’s trying to piece together some of the basics while hunting up the one man that he knows can help him make sense of it all. In the midst of this, we see how his personal life would be different in this world while also seeing the sizable differences in the world at large with the attacks by Atlantis and the Amazons. The plunging of the world into a war in this way is really an interesting idea, one that could carry its own series easily enough, but the intensity and impact of such events simply don’t feel like they’re felt by the people of this world. I like the potential of Flashpoint and am definitely curious to see where it will go.
Grade: B
