I think my biggest disappointment with the tie-ins was actually Batman #3. The first two issues were so good, and we actually got a lot of "world-building" for this alternate reality. The stuff with Penguin being the casino manager and all that was some really awesome side stuff. And all of that disappeared in 3. Three was way too introspective and narrow. All the extra side details and things which really brought the series to life all disappeared as Thomas and Martha took the entire stage with no other actors were present at all. The whole issue felt really disjointed from the first two.
I think my biggest disappointment with the tie-ins was actually Batman #3. The first two issues were so good, and we actually got a lot of "world-building" for this alternate reality. The stuff with Penguin being the casino manager and all that was some really awesome side stuff. And all of that disappeared in 3. Three was way too introspective and narrow. All the extra side details and things which really brought the series to life all disappeared as Thomas and Martha took the entire stage with no other actors were present at all. The whole issue felt really disjointed from the first two.
I kind of agree, but for different reasons. I thought three just didn't have much story to tell, and it was really disjointed in that it didn't fit into the main book's timeline at all, even though the events from the first couple issues of the main book were the reason for most of what happened in Batman 3. And then I just found the ending to be a little anti-climatic.
I'm not sure what my favorite tie-in would be. Kid Flash and Frankenstein were both really good, Batman had that incredible second issue.
On the over-all Flashpoint world building level, Lois Lane succeeded at being a pretty good series the whole way through, while Wonder Woman told the majority of the background on the Atlantean/Amazon war. Aquaman added a little onto that story, but wasn't terribly significant and had a lot of weird moments (Arthur grew up evil because he wasn't in Catholic school long enough).
i can't see any good way for barry to come out of this looking like a hero. i doubt DC will do it, but i think the best way to end this would be for Barry to sacrifice himself and the new flash series to be about Wally. otherwise, barry comes out of flashpoint looking like a huge chump and the biggest villain in DC history.
Yeah, Kid Flash was fantastic. Very nice payoff considering.
Ahh, I thought the first issue was lame and didn't buy the rest. I should pick 'em up?
The first two were so bad, I'd kind of recommend just grabbing the third one. And it's taking literally all of my energy not to click the spoiler.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
So I'm going to get the Flashpoint hardcover in October and skip the two Flash volumes that "built up" to it. I already have Flash: Rebirth and I was told that would be enough backstory. Might also get the hardcover that contians the Brian Azzarello story.
So in the end, Flashpoint didn't really have an overarching villain. There were characters like
WW, Aquaman, and Zoom on the periphery, but the story's really about Barry Allen fucking up history. Not only that, but the intervention of yet another enigmatic cosmic entity prevents him from recreating the universe as it once was, so he doesn't even manage to fix his mistake.
Really, the story is just a thin pretense for the creation of the new universe, a fragile bridge connecting it to the old one to make it seem less like a total reboot.
The letter Thomas wrote for Bruce was basically the opening stuff from the first issue. Which basically means that the last letter Bruce's dad writes for him is almost entirely about how cool Barry Allen is. Also it mentions how Barry found true love, which isn't really true in the relaunch, is it?
Yeah I agree that FP feels really shallow and worthless as a world-changing event.
However I really enjoyed Thomas and Barry's relationship and some of the reimagined characters were kind of neat, but then they just ended up getting killed.
Probably not popular opinion but I really didn't care much for Flashpoint #5. Granted I'm not really reading the tie-ins outside of the Batman one but I felt a little lost. I did enjoy the Barry and his Mother conversation at the end but other than that it just seemed all so "unnecessary" I guess.
Flashpoint #5 and Flashpoint on the whole was insultingly bad. Kind of pissed that I bought it and a couple of the tie-ins. It ended up being a very poorly written time travel story that lead to a nonsensical continuity wankfest.
With that said, I'm glad that the end of Flashpoint basically causes Flashpoint to not exist and we can move on to what looks like an interesting relaunch. The cosmic time woman at the end though worries me that plot elements of Flashpoint will continue into the future and it won't just die here.
would anyone care to sum up the end of Flashpoint for me
Zoom isn't the villain, Barry is. Barry went back in time and tried to stop Zoom from murdering his mom, but fucked up the timestream and also disconnected Zoom from any timeline. This meant Barry was no longer required to be alive for Zoom to keep his powers so Zoom is super happy about this. Then Thomas Wayne stabs him through the chest with a sword.
Then Superman comes in and starts slapping everyone's shit but Aquaman activates the Atlantean doomsday weapon which is basically going to raze the Earth to nothing. Barry is told to keep running and try and save everything by Thomas. Barry goes and talks to his mom who basically tells him he is dumb and her life isn't worth millions of others and Barry starts running forward through time, but without the cosmic treadmill he can't do accurately. While in the timestream some mysterious cosmic hooded woman informs him that time has been weakened and he must repair it by combining three distinct timelines(Vertigo, DC and Wildstorm) and thus birthing the new DC Universe.
It closes with Barry telling Bruce about Flashpoint and giving him a letter that Thomas Wayne asked him to deliver to his son.
The whole thing feels super dumb as an event and is a very cheap and lazy way to usher in the new Universe. I don't particuarly care since it doesn't matter now that the Universe is actually here but still.
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
One thing I kept thinking about with #5 is that the last half of the book felt like it was redone in recent months. That is, when Flashpoint started a year ago, it wasn't going to usher into a new universe "with no backdoors."
But right around the scene with
Barry and his mom, it feels like they just added the scenes with the hooded lady (she literally shows up out of nowhere). Have Andy Kubert redraw a few costumes in the epilogue with Barry and Bruce, which seems out of place in terms of just having two people talk like nothing changed but we know it did, as opposed to old DCU Bruce and Barry, and that there were two inkers on this issue, which is usually a sign of needing to get the work done in time, especially if Kubert supposedly finished #5 months ago, and it just seems like it was tacked on. I mean, they don't even try and acknowledge the Superman stuff this issue, or WW, when Johns is usually all over that stuff like in Blackest Night/
At the very least though, Flashpoint was the first event in recent comics to be released on time monthly (Blackest Night was on time but had a built in month skip issue).
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
One thing I kept thinking about with #5 is that the last half of the book felt like it was redone in recent months. That is, when Flashpoint started a year ago, it wasn't going to usher into a new universe "with no backdoors."
But right around the scene with
Barry and his mom, it feels like they just added the scenes with the hooded lady (she literally shows up out of nowhere). Have Andy Kubert redraw a few costumes in the epilogue with Barry and Bruce, which seems out of place in terms of just having two people talk like nothing changed but we know it did, as opposed to old DCU Bruce and Barry, and that there were two inkers on this issue, which is usually a sign of needing to get the work done in time, especially if Kubert supposedly finished #5 months ago, and it just seems like it was tacked on. I mean, they don't even try and acknowledge the Superman stuff this issue, or WW, when Johns is usually all over that stuff like in Blackest Night/
At the very least though, Flashpoint was the first event in recent comics to be released on time monthly (Blackest Night was on time but had a built in month skip issue).
Yeah i think you are completely right on all of those points.
Zoom was a stand in for the reader and Flash was a stand in for Johns. Johns wanted to blame to fans for the massive continuity changes while the readers brought up the fact that Johns was in control of everything and messed things up along the way by trying to please himself and the fans. He showed a lot of takes on characters that fans wanted, just to the extreme. A Batman that kills people so they could no longer hurt people, a weaker Superman that was easier to feel and relate to, super bad ass versions of Wonder Woman and that lame ass Aquaman. He showed them all and they destroyed to world. So Barry/Johns set out to fix the problem. Barry meeting his mom for the last time showed 2 things. There are things which Johns would want to change but can't. They are written in stone and are forever there. The second thing comes at the end when Barry is talking to Bruce. Everything has change but your favorite moments of old DC will always be there. Maybe not in continuity but in heart and mind. Tucked away in long boxes or sitting on a shelf they will always be there for you to cherish. The other thing is the combining of the 3 worlds. The Vertigo titles and Wildstorm in to one complete universe with DC proper. That in order for the DC to survive these things must exist together to draw in the biggest potential readership.
Mainly because Didio said they didn't even think of the relaunch until March or April, and because as Tex said, Johns and Kubert have been sitting on completed scripts and art for this book for awhile, so all the reboot stuff was certainly shoehorned in there.
I totally agree that scene at the end where Barry says everything is back to normal felt really awkward and alienating with them in their new outfits.
Finally, I want to point out one thing. I think it's a connection no one has made yet, and it's something that has been bugging me for over a year now since the Flash first relaunched as an ongoing.
Mirror Master's Secret "Break in Case of Flash" mirror.
We finally know what it did. It made Barry desperate and self-doubting enough to cause the Flashpoint. And that's no theory; I'm 100% certain that's what Johns intended, but it likely just got lost in all the DC shuffling going on around the event.
I can't imagine Geoff Johns working on that level.
Not that he's a bad writer, but he's not that kind of writer. The closest he gets to working that meta is Superboy Prime and that was pretty heavy handed.
Mainly because Didio said they didn't even think of the relaunch until March or April, and because as Tex said, Johns and Kubert have been sitting on completed scripts and art for this book for awhile, so all the reboot stuff was certainly shoehorned in there.
I totally agree that scene at the end where Barry says everything is back to normal felt really awkward and alienating with them in their new outfits.
Finally, I want to point out one thing. I think it's a connection no one has made yet, and it's something that has been bugging me for over a year now since the Flash first relaunched as an ongoing.
Mirror Master's Secret "Break in Case of Flash" mirror.
We finally know what it did. It made Barry desperate and self-doubting enough to cause the Flashpoint. And that's no theory; I'm 100% certain that's what Johns intended, but it likely just got lost in all the DC shuffling going on around the event.
This actually helps FP a bit.
Not enough to make it very good, but it helps explain why Barry would fuck up that bad.
Posts
Ahh, I thought the first issue was lame and didn't buy the rest. I should pick 'em up?
I kind of agree, but for different reasons. I thought three just didn't have much story to tell, and it was really disjointed in that it didn't fit into the main book's timeline at all, even though the events from the first couple issues of the main book were the reason for most of what happened in Batman 3. And then I just found the ending to be a little anti-climatic.
I'm not sure what my favorite tie-in would be. Kid Flash and Frankenstein were both really good, Batman had that incredible second issue.
On the over-all Flashpoint world building level, Lois Lane succeeded at being a pretty good series the whole way through, while Wonder Woman told the majority of the background on the Atlantean/Amazon war. Aquaman added a little onto that story, but wasn't terribly significant and had a lot of weird moments (Arthur grew up evil because he wasn't in Catholic school long enough).
turns out the altered event that changed everything is pretty dang lame!
I am disappoint, Johns.
It seems possible, but it also seems unlikely.
Oh well. We'll see.
that last preview page has Barry exclaiming that yes, he remembers doing that
so probably not
The first two were so bad, I'd kind of recommend just grabbing the third one. And it's taking literally all of my energy not to click the spoiler.
Not that he did it
That that is the reason, or the sole reason at least
ah. i guess that's possible, but i doubt it's going to be the case
Totally great. I think #5 was very satisfying.
Really, the story is just a thin pretense for the creation of the new universe, a fragile bridge connecting it to the old one to make it seem less like a total reboot.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
However I really enjoyed Thomas and Barry's relationship and some of the reimagined characters were kind of neat, but then they just ended up getting killed.
Justice League #1 though was really good
With that said, I'm glad that the end of Flashpoint basically causes Flashpoint to not exist and we can move on to what looks like an interesting relaunch. The cosmic time woman at the end though worries me that plot elements of Flashpoint will continue into the future and it won't just die here.
Then Superman comes in and starts slapping everyone's shit but Aquaman activates the Atlantean doomsday weapon which is basically going to raze the Earth to nothing. Barry is told to keep running and try and save everything by Thomas. Barry goes and talks to his mom who basically tells him he is dumb and her life isn't worth millions of others and Barry starts running forward through time, but without the cosmic treadmill he can't do accurately. While in the timestream some mysterious cosmic hooded woman informs him that time has been weakened and he must repair it by combining three distinct timelines(Vertigo, DC and Wildstorm) and thus birthing the new DC Universe.
It closes with Barry telling Bruce about Flashpoint and giving him a letter that Thomas Wayne asked him to deliver to his son.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
dumb
I mean a lot of things will sound dumb in a one paragraph summation like that but
yeah
And I read an issue of Jim Balent's Tarot this year.
everyone dyin' errywhere
But right around the scene with
At the very least though, Flashpoint was the first event in recent comics to be released on time monthly (Blackest Night was on time but had a built in month skip issue).
Yeah i think you are completely right on all of those points.
Just a theory.
Mainly because Didio said they didn't even think of the relaunch until March or April, and because as Tex said, Johns and Kubert have been sitting on completed scripts and art for this book for awhile, so all the reboot stuff was certainly shoehorned in there.
I totally agree that scene at the end where Barry says everything is back to normal felt really awkward and alienating with them in their new outfits.
Finally, I want to point out one thing. I think it's a connection no one has made yet, and it's something that has been bugging me for over a year now since the Flash first relaunched as an ongoing.
Mirror Master's Secret "Break in Case of Flash" mirror.
Not that he's a bad writer, but he's not that kind of writer. The closest he gets to working that meta is Superboy Prime and that was pretty heavy handed.
Not enough to make it very good, but it helps explain why Barry would fuck up that bad.