Well, DC Comics rolled out the first issue of Flashpoint this month.
For those who might not be aware, it’s the company’s latest company-wide crossover that promises to shake up the DC Universe. Some may live, some may die, and nothing will ever be the same. As the tag line says: “Everything you know will change in a FLASH!”
This no-doubt epic event will span a grand total of 47 issues. (Count ‘em! 47!) DC’s been building toward it for months now in the Flash titles, with Reverse Flash messing with both the timeline and the multiverse and knocking reality all out of whack.
Sound familiar? It should. It’s been done to death at this point. (Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, just to name a few…)
This has been promised as DC’s mega-event of 2011, and I’ve only got one word to sum up my feelings about it: –yawn–
Let’s start before the beginning, shall we? This whole thing stems from the return of Barry Allen as the Flash, which has been pretty rocky.
For those unfamiliar with the Flash, Barry Allen wore the red tights for about 30 years until he died saving the universe in Crisis on Infinite Earths, printed in 1986. His successor was Wally West, previously known as Kid Flash. It was a pretty gutsy move on DC’s part, offing a beloved character with 30 years of history and replacing him with an upstart. It was a slow beginning for Wally, but it eventually paid off. Under the pen of Mark Waid and Geoff Johns, Wally became THE Flash for a new generation of readers.
Well, in Final Crisis, printed just a few years ago, DC decided to bring Barry back. Unfortunately, the move just hasn’t paid off. Barry Allen, once DC’s perennial Flash for decades, stumbled from his first steps back into the DC mainstream.
Welcome back, Barry
For starters, Final Crisis just plain sucked. It has its defenders, to be sure. They insist it’s artistic, with subtle meanings about the importance of art and creativity. But the truth is, it was just a jumbled, disjointed mess that made no sense whatsoever. I read through the thing twice, and all I gathered from it was that Barry Allen returned (somehow), Martian Manhunter died (somehow), and Batman was banished to the prehistoric past (somewhow). Incidentally, two out of three of these have already been undone.
From there, Barry was officially reintroduced into the DC proper with a miniseries patterned after one that successfully brought back Hal Jordan as the Green Lantern. The Flash: Rebirth…oddly named since he’d kind of already been “reborn”…saw the old Flash trying to find his place in the 21st century. It was written by DC’s superstar writer Geoff Johns and drawn by Ethan Van Scriver, the duo who delivered a blockbuster with the Green Lantern’s return.
Didnt we just do this?
Unfortunately, the Flash’s “rebirth” was every bit the disjointed mess that Final Crisis was. The story was plodding, confusing, and just plain unentertaining.
After that, DC launched an ongoing series for old Barry. Wally was delegated to the Titans title, and Barry became the new mainstream Flash.
The first few issues were actually decent enough. We saw Captain Boomerang rediscovering his roots as one of the Flash’s top villains, and we learned a bit about his history, which was intriguing. We saw the return of the Reverse Flash (I didn’t know he was gone…but I wasn’t an avid Flash reader, either) and the appearance of a second Barry Allen from an alternate universe.
And it all went downhill from there…
The Road to Flashpoint was, to put it simply, boring. Flashpoint is supposed to be a mega-event in the same vein as Blackest Night, but it just felt like a mini-Flash event. Then, DC announced it would span 47 tie-in issues, and effectively end the Flash’s ongoing series as we know it.
It really is a big deal! We promise!
So what about Flashpoint itself? Well, sorry, but it’s like I said: –yawn–
In this wild new reality spawned by Reverse Flash and his time/reality-tinkering, Wonder Woman and Aquaman are the biggest baddies in the DCU and Bruce Wayne’s father is Batman, without the aversion to killing people. While the alternate Batman is an intriguing idea, everything else is just pretty underwhelming. Forgive me, but Wonder Woman and Aquaman just don’t scream ultra badass villains to me.
And Barry stumbling through an unfamiliar reality is, well, old hat. We’ve seen other heroes do it a hundred times before, and better. (Emperor Joker, anyone?)
If anyone out there wonders why I promoted Indie Comics Magazine with my first article, this is it. The mainstream publishers are fast running out of ideas. Everything is so hinged on the almighty dollar that the art of storytelling suffers.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I sympathize. These people have to churn out new stories on a monthly to weekly basis. No easy task. And, for all my posturing, if DC or Marvel or Image offered me a paid position, I’d sell out in a minute.
But as a reader, as a consumer, I just don’t enjoy this as much. Flashpoint, right now, appears to be the very epitome of why I don’t like company-wide crossovers anymore. It feels so haphazard, so forced.
“No, guys, really, this is epic! Look! See!? It’s got Thomas Wayne as Batman! Isn’t that cool!??”
Meh, it’s okay.
When’s Radical’s next comic coming out?