Flashpoint

[SuaveStar]

Interesting theory on what was changed for Flashpoint to happen.

[Missy]

That is an amazing theory!

[SuaveStar]

Covers to Flashpoint #5 revealed.

Preview to Batman #3

[SuaveStar]

I don't want to say Flashpoint #4 was a bit shit, and everything it left no impression on me, and the art was at best a cheap Jim Lee knock off, and the writing felt like it was forcing you to give a fuck about the incredibly dull tie ins, like Aquaman, and ended on a pretty bland note with Zoom showing up for no other reason, than there only being one more issue of Flashpoint for this to be finished, so they have to rush into a convoluted conclusion.

I don't want to say all of that, but I kind of feel like I have to.

This event will be remembered for setting up DCnU, and for being a crappy event, with a dull protagonist in Barry Allen.

[SuaveStar]

Batman: Knight of Vengeance #3 felt like the series was just one issue to long.

We are shown the moments when Martha is driven mad by the death of Bruce, and is not with him at the last moments, as Thomas asks her to go find a policeman and sees Bruce's blood smeared on Thomas's face in the form of a smile.

Martha is then shown to be driven mad by the murder, and cuts in The Joker smile into her own face and says she is happy now.

That bothered me slightly, after reading that origin, I kind of proffered how issue two left the problem, Martha went mad and became The Joker. Giving her an origin story in this sort of brings up the question of why she would dress up like a clown and just feels like something that sounds cool now, instead of something interesting and different that makes sense in the story.

Thomas catches up with Martha and talks to her about Bruce and The Flashpoint, Martha agrees with Thomas that Bruce should not have died, and it should have been them. She then asks Thomas what Bruce is like as an adult, and he says "He takes after his father..." Martha asks if that means Bruce is a doctor, and Thomas pauses for a moment before having to tell her that Bruce becomes Batman.

Driven mad by this new revelation Martha runs off, and drops into a hole in the ground and dies.

That is how the series ends.

If this was just a two issue mini-series it would have been infinitely better, but the third issue just brings up more questions than it can answer and the disappointing, and pretty stupid ending waste what was, a pretty damn good Batman Elseworlds story.

[SuaveStar]

Citizen Cold was a strange mess:

Cold asks Iris to run away with him. She goes to his house and waits for him to return to make her decision. He's offering her the chance to leave Central City behind.

Cold goes and takes out the rogues, he kills all of them, except for the new Trickster, who Mirror Master kills, saying he knew that The Trickster worked for Citizen Cold.

Cold goes back to his own house and meets Iris who asks if Cold killed Wally, he says no, but Pied Piper shows up to say he did and Iris believes the Piper.

Cold goes to kill the Piper saying he ruined Colds happy ending, before Cold is frozen by Iris, who uses a cold gun she found to get revenge for Wally, who was killed at the end of issue 1.

Like Batman, this feels like it went an issue to long, and like Batman, the third issue was pretty crappy, it felt like it had to have a concrete conclusion:

It would have been better, to me, if Cold had just killed The Piper and Iris and just continued pretending to be Central City's hero, and said he guesses he will never be happy, or some generic sad end line. It would have been a lot better than just giving this a set "Tying everything up" conclusion

Give this whole Citizen Cold mini-series a miss. The Rogues aren't that interesting in it, and I still am not a fan of Scott Kolins new "Watercolour" style.

Flashpoint is feeling more and more like an event that needed to happen to set the stage for DCnU, rather than an actually fun event that readers could enjoy, and look at in a few years in trade and still enjoy.

[SuaveStar]

So, this is more relevant to Flashpoint than the toy thread, in my opinion.

DC Direct have released their Flashpoint figures to comic shops now. Here they cost between £14.99-£16.99.

The problem I have with this is, the previous DC Direct lines, Blackest Night and Brightest Day are, and have been available for £11.99. Not only do these figures not come with a special display base (In Blackest Night's line, you got the lantern specific base. Here, you get a black circle that fits one foot) but they are also charging more money for mostly more basic, and generic figures, the only one who stands out is Batman.

Looks like I won't be getting any of these. Which is a shame, as like I said that Batman was nice looking, but it costs the same as this and this so, for the same price as one of them, you get one of these.

[KnightWing]

Action figure pricing is getting insanely ridiculous these days.

[dc20willsave]

To be fair, action figures are made of plastic. Plastic is made from oil. Oil is getting more expensive.

[KnightWing]

Yeah, the price of plastic is what's been driving action figure costs up for several years now.

[Dan]

It's a contributing factor, yes.

The main reason these toys are so expensive is because they're not being marketed to kids as something to play with, they're being marketed to collectors as something to stand on a shelf or a computer desk.

[KnightWing]

Well, yes, but even kids' action figures have gone way up in price over the last decade.

[SuaveStar]

Bleeding Cool posts Flashpoint #5 preview.

Warning, this preview gives away how The Flashpoint happened.

So Barry was the one who fucked up everyone's lives. Didn't see that coming.

[prez]

For once, I'm resisting that spoiler.

[SuaveStar]

So, erm Flashpoint #5:

Barry caused the Flashpoint. Because he's an arsehole, and brought his mother back, causing a "Crack in the windscreen" of life for everyone else.

Thawne reveals to Barry that he's done something great, because Barry stopped him from killing Barry's mother Thawne no longer needs Barry to exist to create his negative speed force. He's a time anomaly, so he can kill Barry now, or in ten years, or before he's even born.

Thawne continues monologuing to Barry about how he's won, as he gets a sword stabbed through his chest by Batman. Batman lets Thawne know, that when in a war, don't stop to talk.

A war breaks out and Aquaman is going to tear the world in two, which causes a gigantic superhero fight, and Superman finally grows some balls and shows up to save the day, as Barry says "I knew it" as Superman tells everyone "That is enough."

Batman asks Flash to fix things and bring Bruce back and fix the world, and gives him a letter for Barry to give to Bruce in the proper timeline. Thomas then starts to die after having taken a serious beating.

Barry runs off to speak to his mother and ask her advice, when she finds out her living causes the death of millions, she tells Barry, she will have to die.

Barry goes into the speed force and has to forcibly stop himself from stopping Thawne from killing his mother. For the world to be normal, Thawne must cause Barry this tragedy.

We are then given the two page splash were Barry is told the timelines have split into three, and to save the world, Barry must make them one again. No, I didn't understand it either.

Next Barry wakes up at his desk like it was all a dream. Which is how the serious started.

Barry goes to visit Batman and talk about his Flashpoint adventure, and says how he can still remember all the time he had with his mother in that timeline, that never happened in this one. Bruce says that it was a gift, and Barry should appreciate it making his life a little easier.

Barry then gives Bruce the letter from his father saying that he loves him, and he understands what Bruce has to do, and why he has to be Batman.

Bruce slumps back into his chair with tears in his eyes as he reads the line "Love, your father" Bruce tells Barry "You're one hell of a messenger" as Barry looks back and says "You're welcome Bruce." as the series comes to an end.

Overall, an enjoyable fifth issue, not where I was expecting it to go, but all in all, fun. I am annoyed at some things, but they can explain them later if they want to:

Thawne's death, they can just say that his appearances after this one all come before his death in the Flashpoint Universe, he could know that's where he will end up at some point, but until then, he is going to make Barry miserable.

Oh, and for those keeping score, the book that's going to have a big impact on DCnU was:

The resistance book. Got to say, I didn't see that coming, but that was the big "It will tie in to DCnU" book.

[KnightWing]

Read Flashpoint #5.

I think this entire story could have been done in three issues.

#1: Barry wakes up in alternate reality, meets Thomas-Batman. (this is basically the same as Flashpoint #1)

#2: Barry and Thomas team up and discover what happened to alter the universe.

#3: Barry fixes the problem, thus altering the universe into its New-52 form. (basically the same as Flashpoint #5)

The first and last issues of Flashpoint are decent, mostly because they actually advance the plot. The middle three issues, though, are almost entirely pointless. There's no reason for all the exposition and focus on unimportant side characters. It feels like the tie-ins just started bleeding into the main book when they didn't need to.

EDIT:

We are then given the two page splash were Barry is told the timelines have split into three, and to save the world, Barry must make them one again. No, I didn't understand it either.

It looked like the three timelines were the main DCU, the Wildstorm universe, and another one where apparently all the sometimes-Vertigo heroes like Constantine hang out. So the DCnU is the result of Wildstorm and a bit of Vertigo getting mixed in.

[SuaveStar]

EDIT:

We are then given the two page splash were Barry is told the timelines have split into three, and to save the world, Barry must make them one again. No, I didn't understand it either.

It looked like the three timelines were the main DCU, the Wildstorm universe, and another one where apparently all the sometimes-Vertigo heroes like Constantine hang out. So the DCnU is the result of Wildstorm and a bit of Vertigo getting mixed in.

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for putting that out, it makes that strange scene a bit clearer.

You're right this could have been done in three issues. The middle issues were just full of extreme padding of "Here's A in the regular Universe, here's how he is in Flashpoint..."

Edit: Also, the main thing I'm taking away from Flashpoint. Batman is an interesting character, it's just the person usually under the cowl (Bruce) is very fucking stale right now.

[prez]

OK, so I read it and I gotta say: Disappointed.

I'm definitely in the camp of "If this was the end of the DCU, it wasn't anywhere near good enough." And if the whole finish was going to be Barry, Zoom and "Batman," why have the big battle? Just so everyone else in this ultra-violent world could show up for three panels and then disappear?

I think more than ever that they didn't think this whole thing through before a few months ago.

[SuaveStar]

I'm definitely in the camp of "If this was the end of the DCU, it wasn't anywhere near good enough." And if the whole finish was going to be Barry, Zoom and "Batman," why have the big battle? Just so everyone else in this ultra-violent world could show up for three panels and then disappear?

Realistically, I think they did the big battle, because they need to shift the tie-in books featuring everyone else somehow, and try and make people spend the money on those mostly ancillary books.

[Stavros]

Re Justice League #1

Between the Jim Lee art and the style of story, doesn't this feel like a slight retelling of All-Star Batman and Robin? Less stupid swearing and pointless extra dialogue, but still pretty much what Miller was doing?

Also I have no idea how they're supposed to fit Tim Drake in this if Superman, GL and Batman have never even met before. How does this timeline work again?

Re: Flashpoint #5

Uuuh, what?

The way I read this, the Flashpoint changed nothing, unless Barry remembers the new continuity instead of the old.

Also, that image of the new Justice League is amongst the WORST art I've EVER seen in a high-level comic. Superman looks insane, his chest is WAY too elongated.

Nothing like good enough for the end of the DCU. They should have done this after Final Crisis.

[SuaveStar]

Re Justice League #1

Between the Jim Lee art and the style of story, doesn't this feel like a slight retelling of All-Star Batman and Robin? Less stupid swearing and pointless extra dialogue, but still pretty much what Miller was doing?

Also I have no idea how they're supposed to fit Tim Drake in this if Superman, GL and Batman have never even met before. How does this timeline work again?

Justice League is set five years in the past right now.

So, this is likely before Batman brought in any Robin interns, or was still working with Dick Grayson.

[KnightWing]

The way I read this, the Flashpoint changed nothing, unless Barry remembers the new continuity instead of the old.

Yeah, that's the way it happened. You can tell because Barry is wearing his new outfit but says that as far as he can tell, everything's the same.

[Stavros]

How does Barry saving his mum make Superman's rocket change trajectory? This isn't a The Nail type scenario, this is outright changing everything and it's really unclear how or why it works.

[KnightWing]

Speed Force, man. Speed Force.

[SuaveStar]

Speed Force, man. Speed Force.

Yeah. Zoom called it a crack in the wind shield that sent ripples through time fucking other shit up. Like it made everything go one second off.

If Superman's Rocket just went one second to the right on it's way to Earth at that speed, why wouldn't it have hit nearby Metropolis instead.

If Thomas had one more second before Joe Chill fired the gun, why wouldn't he have been able to fight him back and save his way, but cause Chill to shoot and kill his son instead.

Stuff like that.

However, the real of Barry in Flashpoint really does make Bart look like an idiot. For all we know, he could have been giving the original Barry Allen who stopped Zoom and started Flashpoint the extra speed that he needed. So in a way, you can probably turn this whole Flashpoint event and blame it on Bart.

Thanks a lot, Bart.