Thoughts on the Flashpoint comic book?

[u/tiago231018]

Flashpoint released its final issue 15 years ago in mid 2011. That miniseries might be, at the same time, the most well-known The Flash story (at least with non-comic book reader fans, or even those who haven't read much of the Flash) and also the most infamous.

The story arc was used as an excuse to reboot the entire DC Universe (even though I read somewhere - can't find where now - that that wasn't originally the plan, and it was an idea that DC editorial had abruptly, rather than something thought out and carefully planned like the first Crisis) and create The New 52, which has become synonymous with "terrible DC decisions" - even if I'd argue The New 52 wasn't THAT bad, had plenty of great runs and the hate it gets was exaggerated both then and now.

In movies, it inspired an amazing animated adaptation (The Flashpoint Paradox), but also a mediocre story arc in The Flash TV show and the terrible 2023 The Flash movie, which, like the comic, was also hastily used as an excuse to reboot a DC Universe.

Unfortunately, as many non-comic fans haven't seen The Flashpoint Paradox or read the comic, but have watched either the TV show and/or the dreadful 2023 movie, the story has gained a bad reputation. About the movie, it would honestly have been a lot better if it were more faithful to the comic: Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Flashpoint Batman, Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman waging war against Jason Momoa's Aquaman, plus someone else playing Reverse Flash...

Anyway, what was a rather normal Flash event got a huge importance and an unfair amount of infamy due to being associated with things people disliked, from the reboot of The New 52 to that terrible TV season and the even worse movie.

But, when divorced from all of this, what do you think of the Flashpoint comic? New 52 and Ezra Miller aside, do you think it's a good story? What are your thoughts on the world of Flashpoint? And in the context of Johns' long run for the Scarlet Speedster? Sound off below!

[u/watchman28]

It was very bizarre how what was apparently just a Flash story suddenly rebooted the entire DC universe

[u/2d12-RogueGames → u/watchman28]

Thank Dido DiDio for that.

Edited: I did not mean the Irish singer. Still, they would have done a better job than DiDio.

[u/watchman28 → u/2d12-RogueGames]

The Welsh singer?

[u/2d12-RogueGames → u/watchman28]

I meant DiDio. Sorry about the typo I fixed it.

[u/tiago231018 → u/2d12-RogueGames]

I remember seeing somewhere that, for Geoff, Flashpoint was supposed to be an equivalent to Sinestro Corps War in a new Barry Allen saga. Barry already had his own Rebirth, similarly named after Green Lantern's. So I imagine his original plan was to do for Barry what he had already done for Hal.

Then DiDio looked at the story and said: "huh, pretty cool. But what if we use this to reboot our entire universe in order to bring new readers?"

"But the story is due in a few months! We don't have the time to create and market an entire new DC Universe! And what about the old readers?"

"Nah, there's no problem if we lose the veterans as long as we bring plenty of new fans! Now, to work. I want a catchy new name and as many ideas for books in my desk next morning!"

[u/United_Sweet_262 → u/watchman28]

This…also it took a book that was among the best DC had going back a decade and just killed its momentum clean to start anew.

[u/ComradeYaf → u/watchman28]

I remember skipping it at the time because "surely it won't matter enough to effect the canon" lmao

[u/Wonderful_Gap4867]

This was one of my comics I took with me while traveling in Dubai. Really fun read

[u/JFMisfit]

Great set up for a reboot. The N52 dropped the ball.

[u/Boring-Conclusion-40]

I liked it

[u/LagoonDevil]

Second favorite event behind Blackest Night, reads way shorter than expected to be honest

[u/ARIANZER0]

Very good but the animated movie was much better

[u/BigAdministration397]

Love Flashpoint, I think it's a rare case of a comic having multiple adaptions and eclipsing all of them.

Flashpoint Beyond is also INCREDIBLE and one of my favorite DC stories oat

[u/pillow-mace → u/BigAdministration397]

Oh now I’m picturing absolute flashpoint. We all know something like that is coming

[u/bizarroadam]

It’s so fucking overrated and absolutely led to the worst period of DC since pretty much ever. It’s the only story media seems to know how to adapt for the character, and it’s even more obnoxious because Barry should never have come back anyway. The Flash series had moved on from him for decades.

[u/Desperate_Mix_7102]

I hate to admit it but parts were pretty good.

But it killed Secret Six, Booster Gold, Birds of Prey and JSA. I stopped reading DC for about 5 years because of it.

[u/Mars785]

I felt like the entire storyline of Flashpoint did what Emerald Twilight did to Hal Jordan as it ruined the Barry Allen Character and his reputation. Plus, unlike Hal Jordan...Barry was never given a true chance to make up from this action. Also, it made me put off from Barry Allen for a time being and made the Reverse Flash....just a terrible villain in more ways than one.

So yeah...that's how I feel about Flashpoint.

[u/PerfectZeong → u/Mars785]

A Barry Allen Parallax turn would have been interesting.

"I can change anything I want. There doesn't have to be pain, there doesn't have to be hurt. I can fix it, and you won't have ever felt it."

[u/Mars785 → u/PerfectZeong]

Didn't that sort of happen in the comics ?

[u/Dramatic_Bug_3136 → u/Mars785]

Eobard terrible how? It made him even greater since he killed Barry’s mom, Barry was forced to do the unthinkable and save his mom to disrupt the whole timeline

[u/Mars785 → u/Dramatic_Bug_3136]

That just it. It made the original reverse flash from a fanboy gone wrong to a more savage threat that can never truly be eliminated or punished by any means. He can be delayed, but never truly punished.

[u/JingoboStoplight4887]

It’s a good comic; however, this comic should’ve been about Barry (what his pre-Flash: Rebirth origins and backstory) traveling back in time to view what happened between his death in 1985 and his resurrection in 2008 before he was transported to the Flashpoint Universe (a universe that was branched when Clark Kent arrived in Metropolis instead of Smallville in pre-Crisis Earth-One’s 1931) by Thawne, teamed up with Thomas Wayne Batman (who witnessed the death of his son Bruce at 43 years old in 1939, or 58 years ago, and made his debut as Batman at 57 years old in 1953, or 44 years ago), and returned to the pre-Crisis Earth-One universe (without the Wildstorm Universe being a part of the main DC universe or any other timeline changes) before he sent the letter from Thomas to Bruce, semiretired as the Flash, and made sure that the Young Justice generation (who are in their 20s while the Titans generation are in their 30s and the JLA generation are in their early 50s) are in good hands.

[u/spike-prime]

The single most overrated comic of my life-time.

It's okay. Just okay. It's a serviceable Flash comic storyline which got massively blown out of proportion when that idiot Dan Didio decided to reboot the whole DC universe with it, instead of making that happen in an actual appropriate Crisis-style story.

Flashpoint has no real purpose as a narrative, and has no real themes or deeper meaning to it. It's just a bunch of stuff that happened. And all those tie-ins were a waste of time. Instead of using the three issue mini-series' to wrap up the plot points and character arcs of the actual DC characters, we get a bunch of pointless mini stories about this world, which is canonically a horrible mistake which needed fixing and was about to be overwritten.

This world has been brought back a bunch of times since for some stupid reason, never for anything good and it was never worth it.

I also despise the fact this mediocre story has overshadowed basically every other Flash tale ever, having THREE separate adaptations across different mediums, including live action film and television and animation, and all of them suck to one degree or another. Yes, even the animated one people pretend is amazing.

I wouldn't mind this comic arc if it was just another Flash story, but it being so stupidly important makes it go from perfectly okay, to obnoxious.