Flashpoint : Age of Zoompocalypse

Munch

I find it really, really hilarious that Johns bent over backwards to remove Hal Jordan's culpability for his attempt to save millions, at the cost of the lives of I dunno, one hundred Green Lanterns,

Spoiler:

and then turned Saint Barry into the guy that destroyed three universes, obliterating people like Connor Hawke or Lian Harper, just to save his Mom.

Dessart

I just don't understand how when the entire future of the DCnU relies on a single series to push it forward, that they are able to publish such shit. I get that Johns was more or less given command over the universe, there is a lot of authority behind this series, but how does it get by numerous editors, publishers, and I'm betting quite a few other writers?

If its true that they told Johns at the last minute that he had to come up with a story to lead into the DCnU, then it only adds a little relief to how dreadful it all was. The dialog was shit, the pacing was shit, the climax was shit, the only redeeming part was the Batman/Flash relationship, but its ridiculous to let that overshadow how awful everything else was.

So great work DC editors and publishers, thanks for not doing your job.

Algertman

And it's still better than Fear Itself.

Sentry

Seriously. Compared to what I've read of Fear Itself, Flashpoint was Shakespeare.

I actually didn't think Flashpoint was all that bad. It had some neat moments. It wasn't perfect, but it was far from shit.

Balefuego

Nah

Zeromus

Lots of... strong opinions in this thread.

Solar

Fear Itself has been better than Flashpoint so far

Like

By a lot

Keith

Fear Itself is 100% boring

Solar

Keith is 100% boring

TexiKen

Flashpoint started off good, issue #2 was better, #3 was filler, #4 felt like a bait and switch, and #5 was just bad. Fear Itself started way too slow, only with #5 did it seem to really pick up and seem to go somewhere.

Robos A Go Go

I don't really like events that center upon brand-new villains (Serpent, Skrull Empress), since there's never enough time to develop them.

Flashpoint didn't have really have a villain in the end, but at least Flash's rivalry with Zoom had been established beforehand so that we perfectly understood why Zoom would be fucking with him.

Balefuego

I agree nominally with that, though for me those things are offset in Feaf Itself by The Worthy all being pre existing characters and in SI I would argue that the fact that Veranke was Spider-Woman for 35 issues or whatever of Avengers helped offset that as well. Though clearly that worked better for some than for others since a lot of people seem to immediately tune out whenever they see anyone that looks like Jessica Drew.

I haven't read Flashpoint so I ain't gonna dog it or try to compare.

ManetherenWolf

Flashpoint had its moments, but it was overall disappointing.

The twist at the beginning of issue 5 was good, and the whole Batman thing was good, but the rest was mediocre at best.

Spoiler:

And its pretty apparent the end was supposed to be him stopping himself from saving his mother, and then giving normal Batman the letter, and they added the stuff about the merging universes and changed the costumes and batcave up for the last pages.

And having just read the full run of the last Flash series leading up to Flashpoint, I agree about the bit with the "In case of Flash" Mirror. especially considering all the scenes shown in the mirror were the scenes from FP #1 with him and his mother. That was what made him messed up and desperate enough to try and change it that night at the end of #12.

Algertman

Thomas Wayne - Character of the Year.

The only thing I think could top that would be Superman going around and punching out bankers and rich people.

The Lovely Bastard

Balefuego wrote:

a lot of people seem to immediately tune out whenever they see anyone that looks like Jessica Drew.

a lot of people is putting it mildly

more like "anyone who isn't balefuego or brian michael bendis"

HadjiQuest

I agree with the sentiments that Flashpoint had an incredible beginning and got weaker each issue until it totally fell apart at the end, while Fear Itself started off really poorly and got better little by little each issue until it finally picked up a lot in 4 and 5.

Tairu

I realized Johns literally went nowhere with the whole Barry and Iris plot thread. He went to see her once, and that was that.

HadjiQuest

Johns didn't go anywhere with any of this Flash run. Most of it felt like editorial was just forcing him to write Flash again now that he's DC's top name creator. Flashpoint was the only part that seemed like it was going to have any life in it. Then we got the weird announcement that the series was done at issue 12, even though 13 was already solicited. That announcement came right around the time that Didio says they decided to go ahead with the full DC relaunch.

But Flashpoint had been announced over a year before then, and when it was first announced Johns said he had already plotted it and was writing early scripts for it. He wanted Kubert to have at least a year of lead-in time.

Flashpoint was probably never going to be amazing, but I do believe that in some ways it ended up getting martyred to the New DCU. Somewhere there's probably a paper trail of some really interesting ideas that got left behind when the main series was no longer planned to run alongside Flashpoint, because I don't think even Geoff Johns would intentionally write a story as barren and nuance-free as the one we just had.

wirehead26

Flashpoint should have been longer than 5 issues. All they had to do was cut out a few of the tie-ins and add 2 or 3 more issues to the main book.