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Review: Flashpoint #2

By | June 2nd, 2011
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Written by Geoff Johns
Illustrated by Andy Kubert

The world-changing miniseries continues! Where are the World’s Greatest Super Heroes? Barry Allen is on a mission to find out or die trying — and that may be what’s happening as he tries to make lightning strike twice! Meanwhile, around the submerged Paris, the pirate Deathstroke confronts Emperor Aquaman!

It’s that time of the month again! You guessed it – an event comic is on the shelves! And this time we’ve got an event from both DC and Marvel in the same week! Oh my. Battle lines, prepare to be drawn.

For the past few weeks as we tweak some things on the site, I’ve been combining my reviews when they are relevant. However, not this week. This week I’m writing one intro for two separate reviews, removing the “compare and contrast” nature (for now), and simply discussing what is contained within a single book. Are the two big summer events from either company worth following?

Well, let’s find out. Take a look after the cut for some thoughts on Flashpoint #2.

Flashpoint #1 completely shocked me in how good it was. While Johns’ recent output at DC has been rather below par for him, Flashpoint was a fun and innovative comic that sought to really do something different and did. It wasn’t the best thing Johns had ever done, but it was a welcome change of pace from the incredibly disappointing Brightest Day and the “not as exciting as we had hoped” War of the Green Lanterns.

Flashpoint #2? Not so much. What started as a fun alternate universe story has now turned into a comic tied down with excessive exposition when it should be doing nothing but kicking ass and taking names. Flashpoint is an incredibly short event, after all; five issues of storytelling plus hundreds of tie-ins that you “don’t have to read”. There is no need for an issues worth of characters sitting around and effectively just talking about different things are – but that’s precisely what we’re given.

Picking up where Flashpoint #1 left off, Barry is interrogated by the somehow angrier-than-Bruce Dr. Thomas Wayne, who is the Batman of the Flashpoint universe. This in turn leads to a long series of back and forth between Allen and Wayne in which Allen attempts to explain to Wayne, through rather laborious detail, the events that have taken place in Geoff Johns’ Flashpoint – which we, assumedly, have all already read. Wayne of course doesn’t believe him, which leads Allen to the revelation that Zoom has done something – which we, again assumedly, all already know. Given that Flashpoint #1 managed to accomplish so much in it’s opening to the story, it seems rather unfortunate that the comic is now stunted to three scenes. Yes, this is a “Flash event” where all the other elements of Flashpoint will be fleshed out in whatever tie-in you choose to read, but it’s rather unfortunate that we’re just given an issue in which Thomas Wayne and Barry Allen talk, try out some crazy psuedo-science to fix everything, and end up at an even worse place than where they started.

That’s not to say nothing happened. We’re introduced to the world of Aquaman and Wonder Woman, the two other main antagonists of the title, although both are elaborated on very little. I think it’s safe to say that most people know about both Aquaman and Wonder Woman through rather tertiary association, and the first issue of Flashpoint did a god job of establishing the world and the war between them. Now we get scenes of Aquaman and Wonder Woman both being mean to characters most DC readers will recognize, but not in any particular way that seems like it won’t be elaborated on in another book (see: Wonder Woman and the Furies, Lois Lane and the Resistance, Emperor Aquaman, and/or Deathstroke and the Curse of the Ravager). On the one hand, it’s important to the story that Johns establishes both characters in the story so that we know the villains are there and that the Flash is going to have to deal with them; on the other hand, you can’t help but wish their introduction was something a bit more exciting than “Look! Look at these evil versions of your heroes!” We could’ve waited until the final page of Flashpoint #4 for that if that’s really the only goal here.

Continued below

Flashpoint is still the strongest we’ve seen from Johns in quite some time. It’s a very direct and to the point comic, even if it does belabor itself just a bit. While all the issues I have with the comic are in the execution, it’s clear to see what Johns is trying to do. Flashpoint is probably the single most new reader friendly event perhaps ever. You don’t have to know essentially anything about DC to enjoy it, and it does provide all the information you might possibly need to understand what’s going on. While to an older reader like myself or others this just seems like a waste of time, I can imagine that for someone who hasn’t followed the Flash for quite some time could get into the character’s rather dense and convoluted history enough to follow. Keep in mind, Thomas Wayne in the story has no idea who Barry Allen is or what he’s talking about; to him, the information provided is 100% relevant. The question is if the reader relates to that or not – I don’t, and it detracts from the comic for me because I’d rather see it move forward, but for others this might be just what the doctor ordered.

The other unfortunate element of this issue is that Andy Kubert doesn’t get to show off as much. The first issue of Flashpoint saw Kubert drawing some rather beautiful splash pages and bringing to life the brand new city that we were entirely unfamiliar with (and yet, somehow still familiar with!). With this, the settings are smaller and the pacing is at such a slow pace that there isn’t much for Kubert to do but illustrate faces. He gets a bit of a flashy (pun intended) beginning with a destroyed visage of Europe, but other than that it’s not that showy. You’d think that an event comic would be mostly about big moments that really allow a writer to let the artist go to town and show his strengths, and Johns has certainly done that in the past. Now, while Kubert is still definitely an incredibly talented artist and one whose skills are to be reckoned with, you wouldn’t be able to tell it from what is – for all intents and purposes – a talky with a few poses.

You would imagine that given the length of Flashpoint, every issue would just feature the hits coming and coming. That’s apparently not the case. There is only a few pages relevant to Barry Allen’s current plight in the story, and they’re all contained in the last four pages. For all intents and purposes, you can look at the first page and skip to the end to be kept abreast of what’s going on in the plot. However, for the less initiated, this might be just what you need.*

Final Verdict: 6.0 – Browse

*And hey, considering an epic DC reboot is right around the corner, I suppose now’s as good a time as any to hop on board, no?


Matthew Meylikhov

Once upon a time, Matthew Meylikhov became the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Multiversity Comics, where he was known for his beard and fondness for cats. Then he became only one of those things. Now, if you listen really carefully at night, you may still hear from whispers on the wind a faint voice saying, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not as bad as everyone says it issss."

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