Flashpoint Review (Geoff Johns, Andy Kubert)

Flash’s mom was murdered when he was a kid so he decides to travel back in time and stop the killer. Except messing with the timestream has kinda caused everything to get fucked up - oopsies! Who’da thunk it?! Really, superheroes have just gotta get over their tragic backstories and move on… 

So Flashpoint was kinda the beginning of DC’s New 52 line in that Barry Allen’s selfish meddling with time caused every title to be rebooted/relaunched. But it’s also not because nothing that happens here - besides Flash’s actions - has any bearing on the New 52! It’s essentially an Elseworlds book, though not an especially inspired one. 

In this world, there’s no Flash, Green Lantern is still Abin Sur, there’s a different, much more psychotic Batman, Superman’s unknown and missing, and Wonder Woman and Aquaman are at war with each other and are trying to take over the world for no reason! 

I guess it’s because Flashpoint is flashpointless that Geoff Johns doesn’t really put much thought into the motives of either Wonder Woman or Aquaman. We never really find out why Wonder Woman’s claimed Britain as New Themyscira or why Aquaman’s suddenly decided to turn evil and flood land masses. We find out why the two hate each other in a throwaway one-liner towards the end but it’s silly nonsense. 

It’s kinda interesting to see familiar characters in unusual situations, and Brian Azzarello manages to get a decent Batman story out of this version of the character in one of the spinoff books. Andy Kubert’s art is fine and the scene where Barry tries to get his Flash powers back by recreating his original experiment, and gets badly burned and nearly killed for his stupidity, actually made me laugh! 

Johns’ writing though is as clunky as ever, particularly all of Obama’s exposition dialogue which couldn’t have sounded less convincing and absurd. And, try as he might, Johns can’t make anything that happens here seem remotely weighty - this overwrought tale only ever feels throwaway, indeed all the more so in the years since the New 52 experiment ended. 

As with most of Geoff Johns’ books, Flashpoint is a slick production but dumb as rocks, tries too hard to seem dramatic and exciting, and fails at both.