Flashpoint Beyond #0 Discussion/Spoilers

[Rakzo]

Well, here we go again.

I suppose that most of us don't have the fondest memories of the crossover event Flashpoint, probably because that's the series that forcefully rebooted the entire DCU and lead to the New 52 (which was a rather erratic era by itself). Still, as a story I thought that Flashpoint was... okay, not amazing and probably one of the weakest events that Geoff Johns has worked on but still a serviceable Elseworlds tale.

However, it seems like Johns doesn't want to let this particular universe go and there might be a reason for that. As we all know by now, Flashpoint was plagued with editorial changes to the point that it was turned in an actual "Crisis"-level book that completely reset the comics line of the company so it feels like the writer was left with a few unsolved ideas that he wanted to tell and so far it seems like some of them are quite intriguing.

The Flashpoint universe was a place where everything went wrong. Well, the Flashpoint Beyond universe is a place where everything went even worse. Thomas never saved his son, the war between Aquaman and Wonder Woman ruined the whole planet and even the death of the Joker (Martha Wayne) brought consequences. If there's something that I can appreciate about Johns is that he can bring back an insignificant idea from the past and make it an important plot-point, for example the kids who Martha kidnapped during her last attack are actually shown to be traumatized which also involves their parents as well obviously.

This leads to Thomas trying to find out who or what brought him back to this world and starts exploring it once again. The little details are pretty interesting like what happened to the main conflict of the planet, where did the Super-Man go and even forgotten characters like Element Woman make a re-appearance. It was great to see old concepts like the classic Johns chalkboard where he starts teasing future events and references and speaking of references, it was also cool to see characters from his first Flash run like Chyre and Morillo making some sort of cameo.

Oh, and returning to the point where everything went worse, you just can figure out what happened to Barry once that Thomas tried to replicate the experiment that gave his powers back.

Eduardo Risso handles the art and is pretty fitting considering his involvement in the original Batman: Knight of Vengeance tie-in for Flashpoint and he's also perfect fit here thanks to his expressive style and dark tones.

Solid start. Let's see how this mystery developes.

[blunt_eastwood]

So does it explain how this connects to what happened to Thomas Wayne in Justice Incarnate?

[K. Jones]

So does it explain how this connects to what happened to Thomas Wayne in Justice Incarnate?

Mentioned in passing in a brief inner monologue recap. That event does, based on that narration, immediately precede this.

There are other things in this issue that do kind of peg this as a pseudo-sequel to Morrison's "Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne" time jaunt, just for Flashpoint Batman now.

[Vordan]

Barry getting cooked to death was hilarious, there’s the old edgy Johns of the 00s again.

[Johnny]

Barry getting cooked to death was hilarious, there’s the old edgy Johns of the 00s again.

To be fair I would've been shocked(ba dum tss) if that scene wasn't there. It's arguably the most infamous moment of Flashpoint and that says a lot.

[blunt_eastwood]

I just finished it and liked it more than I thought. I'm disappointed that none of the seeds being planted on the chalkboard won't go anywhere though. It was so much fun when Johns was using that to tease what was coming up in the DCU.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Yeah, hard pass from me on this edgelord nonsense...

[Robotman]

Overall I liked it. Things have been rather boring in the DCU in the past few years and I’ve kinda missed Johns’ way of incorporating and celebrating classic DC tropes in his event books. Though this whole thing is basically a promotion of the Flash movie and a chance for him to make Doomsday Clock relevant.

I did roll my eyes at The Flash being taken off the board in the 0 issue of a FLASHpoint story. Gotta make room for Batman.

[D.Z]

Felt like a timewarp to years ago.

[jsafanforever]

It has the Time Masters in it. I'm sold.

[Coco Loco]

So does it explain how this connects to what happened to Thomas Wayne in Justice Incarnate?

Thomas being confused as to how he went from there to here is a plot point.

[BatmanJones]

I had zero interest in this series but I was pleasantly surprised and loved the first issue. I'm all in now.

This series feels more important to the future of the DCU than Dark Crisis at this point, Johns' writing was surprisingly good compared to recent output (Doomsday Clock, Stargirl Special) and reminded me of the comic writer I loved in the past, and Risso's art is always delicious.

[BatmanJones]

And I didn't take the Flash stuff to be a retread because the outcome was a radical opposite of what happened in the original series. I literally gasped when I saw that page and I never get to be shocked by a comic like that anymore.

[Thor-Ul]

It was far better than expected. But I like the work of Risso too.
But even I feel like it was John saying "I am gonna undo everything Flashpoint did, using Flashpoint itself!!"

[krazijoe]

I hope that Pandora is in it!